Hello TARO members!

We made it to May! If you are feeling like me, then you are ready for summer too and some R&R. I am ecstatic to see folks again in person at SSA in Houston. It has been far too long. Here are a few updates and announcements:

April Statistics are now available and can be viewed/downloaded from our Wiki page.

The time has come for our final NEH update. Please report the number of new and edited EAD finding aids you’ve uploaded to TARO each month in our tracking document (link below). If you aren’t able to provide monthly numbers but know the total number uploaded since the last time you reported, just enter that total number as your May 2022 entry. These numbers necessary for our next NEH grant report to cover November 2021-April May 2022, so please catch up with your entries when you can.

• Here’s how:

1. • Open this Google Sheet, https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1PGrqXwtoi4ybn3WTQ9qZ1_rUFH7mBmH2p-1DFydBOWc/edit?usp=sharing.
   • Find the row for your repository.
   • Enter your numbers for new and edited EAD finding aids per month. If you had no new or no edited finding aids for a particular month, please enter zero (“0”) in those cells so we’ll know that you’ve reported the number.
   • After April 2022, be sure to keep scrolling over to add numbers to May 2022 (Bonus Round). Thanks to an extension we are able to contribute numbers for an additional month.

• • Fixing typos and broken links doesn’t fall under our definition of an “edited finding aid,” but these edits do count:
    • adding links to digitized materials or other enhanced discoverability edits
    • any inventory additions (not just “major” ones, however that might be defined)
    • revising for DACS and index terms

Work continues on TXarchives.org thanks to additional funding from the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (ARPA). Work has been done on improving search results and several updates are expected to go live this month; stay tuned!

Help wanted! We are hoping to provide assistance to repositories in implementing the common subject terms from TARO 2.0 as part of this work.  Please reach out to smdodd@smu.edu if you have metadata and bulk edit or scripting experience and would be interested in short term, hourly work focused on any of the following:

• Work to refine subject heading / access term recommendations
• Assist in implementation of unified controlled access terms with member repositories
• Provide training on techniques for subject remediation
• Provide hands-on assistance for repositories where necessary

Join us for the annual TARO Brown Bag lunch at the Society of Southwest Archivists annual meeting in Houston, Thursday, May 19^th; 11:30am-1:00pm. As a reminder this is a bring-your-own lunch event, so be sure to grab some grub before; there are some food options listed on the conference website.

We need subcommittee members!! If you, or someone in your institution, would be interested in serving on a subcommittee we are in need of volunteers for Outreach/Education, Authorized Terms and Web/Tech. Outreach is perfect for those who like designing training materials, guides, webinars, and participating in outreach. If you are interested in UX studies and working with the developers on testing new site features, then Web/tech is the place for you! Have cataloging experience or just a passion for standardized terminology? We could use your expertise on the Authorized Terms Subcommittee.

Thanks, and stay safe and healthy! See you in Houston!