2019-08-21 UCAC Minutes

In order of presentation:

Berkeley: The Bancroft Library has completed interviews for two positions, Acquisitions and Curatorial Support Coordinator and Archives Accessioning Assistant. A digital archivist position has just been posted.

Irvine: 1) The archivists would like to develop a retention policy for retaining the papers of deceased faculty members on campus, to prevent premature disposal of valuable materials (See related agenda item.) 2) In collaboration with the UCI Records Manager and others, they are preparing for a campus-wide recycling event on September 18.

Davis: Kevin continues to serve as Interim Head of Special Collections and university archivist. Effective July 1, the department of Archives and Special Collections was established, reuniting the Archives and Institutional Assets Program with Special Collections. There is currently an open search for permanent department head.

Merced: With the imminent retirement of the Chancellor, the University Archivist and Records Manager are working with her office to collect her administrative records and email.

Riverside: Andrea's email account has been active since July 18. She has been working with donors, processing collections, publishing new finding aids, and discussing with the library's communications office how to make newly processed collections more visible.

Santa Barbara: 1) The past six months' work has been devoted to developing an exhibition commemorating UCSB's 75th anniversary as part of UC. The exhibit will open on October 24, and the Chancellor and Executive Vice Chancellor are scheduled to attend the event. 2) The campus yearbook digitization project is completed, via the Southern Regional Library Facility (SRLF). Matt is pleased with the outcome and finds SRLF's rates reasonable. The digitized editions eventually will be available on the redesigned public access site. Theses, dissertations, and the general catalogs will be digitized next. Polina noted that UCSF digitized its yearbooks five years ago, and they are now available on HathiTrust.

San Francisco: 1) As part of the grant project funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, UCSF Archives and Special Collections will hold a symposium [Memory Lives On: Documenting the HIV/AIDS Epidemic] on October 4-5. They are taking special measures to make sure that it is accessible to students and community members. 2) Polina has been promoted to Associate University Librarian for Archives and Special Collections. Congratulations!

Santa Cruz: 1) A new Chancellor is in place, effective July 1, and is scheduled to visit Special Collections and Archives today (August 21). 2) The former Chancellor's email has not yet been received; he is prepared for the transfer, but the project has been stalled for unknown reasons. 3) Project to develop script in order to export Chancellor's records from Record Management System (Hyland's Perceptive) to begin in September.

San Diego: 1) The archives staff is preparing to commemorate the Geisel Library's 50th anniversary. 2) The first batch of Chancellor's email has been received, and the archivists are reviewing their policies regarding how to handle this material. Marlayna will share more as their assessment develops.

Los Angeles: Absent

Per UCOP, we cannot un-publish the old UCAC website page. The California Digital Library (CDL)'s User Experience (UX) team is now managing the site and is interested in working with CKGs to determine how we might be better represented on the UC Libraries site. That team is interested in us participating in user interviews to inform their work.

CDL officially controls the site. The UX team will reach out to Teresa when it is ready to begin work. If interested in helping with this, please let her know.

Future action: Brainstorm how to best convey the fact that the page is no longer active.

Please share with your local colleagues for any additional feedback before it get it gets submitted for approval.

Send comments to Marlayna or Matt by September 11.

Retention/removal policy for deceased faculty members

UC Irvine's archives staff would like to create retention guidelines or policies that would prevent future losses of historically significant faculty collections. They are scheduled to meet with the Dean of the School of Social Sciences during the week of August 26.

No resources have been found yet in the professional literature, and Elvia asked the group to please forward any advice from our campuses that might offer guidance.

Related experiences with collecting faculty papers that were shared include: awareness of the archives can vary from department to department; born-digital content can be especially vulnerable.

Teresa noted that if Irvine can develop such a policy, it would be valuable to the entire CKG. We also could provide feedback.

Action item: Elvia will report back.