2020-02-19 UCAC Minutes

Berkeley: The campus police body camera policy is available online in the UCPD departmental policy manual. Kathi Neal will share the link with UCAC.

Irvine: Elvia Arroyo-Ramirez will meet with the UCI records manager on February 19. During the meeting, she hopes to learn what records are being created by the Chancellor's Office from its new chief of staff, what policies might have changed, and about any guidelines to help with documenting vacating faculty. She will report back.

Merced: An instruction librarian and two other library staff members have been hired. There are currently no updates on launching the university archivist recruitment.

Riverside: 1) Andrea Hoff recently taught a graduate session featuring UCR's science fiction collections as part of a course that focuses on the literary canon. 2) An accrual of Chancellor's Office records is expected to be accessioned during the week of February 17. 3) The Department of Botany and Plant Sciences will transfer records. 4) Andrea will extend outreach to the Middle Eastern Student Center. 5) Andrea is creating an ArchivesSpace local manual. She welcomes examples that include standards. Teresa Mora mentioned Kate Dundon at UCSC and Lara Michels at Berkeley as likely sources. Matt Stahl suggested Zach Liebhaber at UCSB. 6) An event featuring Professor Susan Straight, author of the memoir In the Country of Women, in conversation with the chancellor, is being planned for late April or early May. 7) Progress is being made on processing archival collections.

San Diego: The archives has received a new accession of records documenting the early years of the Birch Aquarium.

San Francisco: 1) Recruitment is underway for a new accessioning archivist. 2) Polina is planning a major lecture series on humanities in the sciences. 3) Backstage Library Works has begun its work cataloging the rare book collection in the vault.

Santa Barbara: Due to a need to reduce storage space, UCSB Special Research Collections is seeking a new off-site storage space. The current space must be vacated by October 31, 2020. Staff is exploring vendors.

Santa Cruz: 1) The posting for the new processing archivist position is slated to go live on February 19. 2) Several collections of faculty members have been donated. 3) In April, the Regional Oral History Project will publish a two-volume compendium intended to be a definitive history of the campus. A major public event will launch the publication. 4) A number of graduate students have been on strike since December. Students have approached Teresa about documenting the current movement, including its electronic records.

Elvia led the discussion of the revision of these guidelines, noting that they have been foundational for archival processing since 2012. A task force began revising the document in 2019, based on information gathered from a 2018 survey of guidelines use. Task force members submitted a draft of the revisions to a small group of reviewers, which included Teresa and Heather Briston. Elvia noted that changes in terms of university archives are minimal. The born-digital materials section has been removed and woven into the revised document. Members are now ready to release the document in a Google Doc on February 21 for broader feedback, with a deadline for comments of March 13.

Action item: Comment directly in the Google Doc by March 13. Teresa will schedule a conference call to discuss edits, if anyone finds that necessary. Elvia or Teresa can accept comments and report back to the task force.

Discussion of the draft statement continued, with a decision made to identify action items and next steps during the conference call. Highlights of the discussion include that:

• So far, the UC Records Management Committee (RMC) has provided only verbal comments.
• The RMC does not well accept the concept of email as a distinct series, though on a general practical level, some people do consider it as such.
• Perhaps the draft content should be divided into two documents. Instructions have been moved into an appendix.
• The primary audience needs to be identified. Is it the systemwide administration or the campus administration?

Action item: Matt Stahl will make initial revisions to the document and possibly present them to UCAC in April, either during the conference call scheduled on April 15 or in person at the Western Archivists Meeting (April 22-25).