From the Metro Detroit Archivists League (MEDAL):
The Metro Detroit Archivists League will host its third Preconference Symposium on Monday, August 3, 2015 in the University of Michigan Hatcher Graduate Library Gallery from 1:00-4:00 PM. Speakers will present preliminary versions of talks, discussions, and posters that have been accepted for the program of the 2015 Annual Meeting of the Society of American Archivists.
All are welcome to attend, admission is free, and refreshments will be provided.
The schedule of speakers is as follows:
Martha O’Hara Conway (University of Michigan)
“Collecting, Analyzing, and Acting with Assessment Data”
Assessment activities have emerged as increasingly important areas of action, framed particularly by the new joint SAA/RBMS Task Forces. This talk examines engagement with assessment activities that lead to
action.
Olga Virakhovskaya (University of Michigan)
“Privacy v. Access: Legal and Ethical Challenges in High-Profile Collections”
While abiding by the mission of providing access, should institutions make privacy exceptions in high-profile cases? Should creators of records be notified when access is either required or restricted by law? How do shifting interpretations and external pressures affect curators’ decisions?
Caitlin Brennecke (Troy Historic Village)
“You Do What? Nontraditional Outreach that Works”
With the goal of expanding beyond traditional archival advocacy methods, the speaker will discuss how archivists and museum curators can forge connections with a wide variety of communities and grow the profession via new and creative approaches to outreach programs.
Poster presentations:
Stefanie Caloia (Wayne State University)
“Revisiting MPLP and Backlog Processing”
Sarah Breen (University of Michigan School of Information)
“Methods for Assessing Risk in Physical Digital Media Collections: The Robert Altman Archive as a Case Study”
Panel:
Kat Hagedorn (University of Michigan)
Lance Stuchell, chair and moderator (University of Michigan)
Brian Wilson (The Henry Ford)
“Just Take Those Old Records Off the Shelf: Reconciling Legacy Digital Content with Current Preservation Practice”
As technologies improve, digital preservation practice and standards have kept pace. Although this constant adaptation is generally positive, challenges have emerged – particularly in cases of older digital content. The panelists lay out these challenges and discuss options by sharing projects from the University of Michigan to migrate first-generation digitized texts to HathiTrust, and from The Henry Ford’s work around content previously preserved on older media.