2020-01-29 UCAC Minutes

Marlayna Christensen provided attendees with a brief tour of the Geisel Library. Heather Smedberg, reference and instruction coordinator, led a tour of Special Collections and University Archives.

UCAC thanks both of them, and Marlayna, in particular, for coordinating our visit and making us feel welcome to UCSD.

Berkeley: 1) The next exhibition for the University Archives' Rowell Cases will focus on portrayals of UC Berkeley in fiction. 2) The yearlong 150W Celebration, commemorating the 150th anniversary of the admission of women as students at UC, kicked off on January 12 with the Cal-Stanford women's basketball game. The 150W committee has launched a website that will added to throughout the year. 3) Mentioned later during the updates: Christina Fidler, The Bancroft Library's full-time, career-level digital archivist, began work on December 1.

Davis: 1) After a successful recruitment, Kevin Miller now is officially the head of Archives and Special Collections. Congratulations, Kevin! He will be hiring a new university archivist. 2) The Department of Asian American Studies received state funding to establish the Bulosan Center for Filipino Studies, which opened in fall 2019. Archives and Special Collections and the Bulosan Center will hire an archivist in the librarian series to work in both units, with hopes of its becoming a permanent position.

Irvine: 1) Faculty papers continue to be donated, including the collection of a recently deceased dance professor. 2) Special Collections and University Archives launched its Cross-Cultural Center Archivist-in-Residence program in 2019. Elvia provides office hours at the center. The program has led to helpful contacts within student organizations and to records transfers. The center gave kudos to the program in its anniversary literature. 3) Elvia is on the search committee for the head of the Digital Scholarship Services unit.

Riverside: 1) Proactive outreach efforts to collect faculty papers have succeeded. Andrea spoke at the Emeriti Association Board Meeting regarding how faculty can donate their materials to the University Archives. They've accessioned two new collections since then. 2) Andrea hopes to make the records-transfer process more systematic and is assisting with the development of an approval plan for collecting faculty monographs. 3) She is currently collaborating with a history professor to teach a 5 week capstone undergraduate course on using primary sources. 4) Andrea has been advocating for the digitization of the Highlander (the UCR student newspaper). Plans are moving forward to digitize this resource soon. 5) She recently prioritized the processing of records from student organizations. Andrea completed processing the records for African Student Programs, Native American Student Programs, ASUCR and the Alumni and Former Students Collection. In total, ten collections in Univ. Archives have been processed since she started in June.

San Diego: 1) Special Collections and University Archives has received significant donations and transfers, including the records of the Thurgood Marshall College and the Cross Cultural Center, and additions from the Collector's Office of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Marlayna has been reaching out to campus community leaders regarding collecting. 2) The main floor of the Geisel Library will undergo renovation in 2020.

San Francisco: 1) Polina noted that a systemwide call had gone out for identification of 50 notable women from each campus to be added to the 150W website; the deadline is March 1. 2) The Multicultural Resource Center has transferred its records. 3) Archives and Special Collections has received a grant to process the campus LGBT Resource Center records. 3) Polina delivered a presentation to first- and second-year health services research students. 4) An artist's collection is slated to be donated. 5) The Parnassus Heights Campus renovation project continues. 6) Archives and Special Collections has received funding for a new vault. Backstage Library Works will send a five-person team to create full cataloging records for the unit's vault-based rare book collection.

Santa Barbara: 1) Matt spent most of 2019 preparing an exhibition for UCSB's 75th anniversary, which opened in October. He worked with the campus public affairs office and other units to locate photographs past 1980 to include in the time line. 2) Changes have occurred in the Department of Special Research Collections: The processing unit in Special Research Collections has been restructured, and Sal Güereña, director of the California Ethnic and Multicultural Archives, has retired. Recruitments for the CEMA director and a library assistant IV to provide archival processing support are underway. A born-digital team structure has been created in lieu of hiring a digital archivist, and existing staff will be cross-trained.

Santa Cruz: 1) A library assistant IV in processing has retired from Special Collections and Archives. The department will hire a full-time, permanent processing archivist in the librarian series. Entry-level archivists are encouraged to apply. Teresa welcomes any recommendations.

Polina thanked everyone for their efforts in revising or reviewing the UCAC Policies for Administration of University of California Archives. They have not yet been posted. She reminded the group that the Directions and Oversight Committee (DOC) has not yet approved the appendix regarding records management. Two representatives from the UC Records Management Committee and one from UCAC should review the document. Marlayna will represent UCAC.

Action item: Via email, Teresa had questioned where to find the citations that address UC President Clark Kerr's establishment of the systemwide records management program (1963) and his instruction that each campus appoint a university archivist (1964), which appear in Section II of the policies. Kathi volunteered to locate them and shared the link via email after the meeting:  BFB-RMP-1 (https://policy.ucop.edu/doc/7020453/BFB-RMP-1, Section VI. Related Information, second bullet, e-f).

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1iCIq014VckLR3gf4u5KeTDf2IdB7CA6S5i2peEktAD4/edit#heading=h.drdmdy5q6j3f

Kevin and Matt launched the discussion on the policy. One question to address is who is the policy's main audience? It currently seems aimed toward both records managers and possibly to donors from campus. Acknowledging that the policy is still a work-in-progress, Matt said that he envisioned it as geared toward campus policymakers and thought that it might carry more weight if it were a unified statement from UCAC and the RMC. Teresa and Kevin noted that parts could be extracted for different uses, and Marlayna said that ideally it could move up through the institution's organizational structure.

Andrea attended the UCSD Information Practices Conference on January 28 and remarked that email administration frequently came up as a concern. Matt said that NARA has dealt with email as its own record group. Elvia pointed out the "capstone" approach (based on NARA's strategy) being used by University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, which she had described within a comment in the policy document.

Polina said that the policy focuses on administrative records but will also apply to faculty papers. Kevin noted that the document needs to take into account donors' actual practice and suggest how to be proactive about organizing email.

Teresa thanked Matt, Marlayna, Elvia, and Andrea for developing the document and the group for its contributions to it.

Action items: 1) Focus the document more on administrative records. 2) Discuss it during the next UCAC conference call, February 19.

E-mail Policy Discussion

• TO BE FILLED IN
• UCAC will continue to refine the document at its next meeting. Teresa encouraged additional feedback from RMC.

Retention of Patents

• The UC records retention schedule for patents stipulates a six-year retention period for original patents, on advise from UCOP counsel. Laurie Sletten suggests that they have permanent historical value.
• If determined to have permanent retention value, where should they reside on campuses: the university archives or the Office of Research? A suggestion was made that each campus decide since patents tend to be linked to memoranda of understanding and royalties documentation.

UCAC Policies Appendix III, California Public Records Act Guidelines for Compliance: Identify RMC members who will work on reviewing, set up timeline for this project and appoint a UCAC liaison.

Action item: Stasi Chase (UCSD) and Kelley Walker (UC Davis) volunteered review the appendix with Marlayna.  

Elvia presented this topic as a philosophical discussion of the need for an established protocol for faculty members vacating their offices and the disposition of their papers. Elvia and Audra Eagle Yun have met with key campus personnel to begin outlining a timeline.

UCI Special Collections and Archives is collaborating with the UCI School of Social Sciences, UCI Cross-Cultural Center, and UCI Student Affairs to collect materials relating to the late Dr. Joseph L. White through December 2020.

Questions to consider: At what level would these guidelines be most useful: Emeriti faculty? Any departing faculty member? How could we get the protocols through the appropriate channels to make them enforceable?

Possible uses suggested include: 1) Make the emeritus faculty associations aware of them. 2) Apply a "collect early, collect often" approach 3) Link it to the separation/retirement procedures.

Marlayna noted that the topic would make an interesting conference session talk.

Action item: Elvia will report on UCI's progress in spring 2020.