The results of the voting are in and the 2020 TARO Steering Committee will include these members:
Vice Chair:
Robert Weaver, Texas Tech University
At-Large Members:
Ada Negraru, Southern Methodist University
Penny Castillo, Dallas Historical Society
Rachael Zipperer, University of North Texas
Congratulations to the winners! Thank you for running and thank you to everyone who voted!
Dear TARO representatives,
We would like your participation in selecting the next Vice Chair and 2 At-Large members of the TARO Steering Committee! Once you’ve reviewed the slate of candidates please cast your ballot here. Please note that because a current At-Large Member of the Steering Committee is the sole candidate for Vice Chair/Chair-Elect, there may be a third At-Large Vacancy. In the event that the third vacancy opens up, successful At-Large candidates will be informed before the election results are announced. Voting closes in one week, at 5pm CST on Tuesday, November 19. The current list of Steering Committee members may be found here.
Thanks so much for nominating candidates for Chair-Elect and the At-Large members!
TARO Nominating Committee: Samantha Dodd, Paul Fisher, Robert Weaver
We are pleased to share the following action plan, which represents the culmination of “Toward a National Archival Finding Aid Network” (NAFAN) — a one-year (October 2018-September 2019) planning initiative convened by the California Digital Library (CDL), with the participation of representatives from multiple regional finding aid aggregations including Texas Archival Resources Online (TARO), and input from expert advisors:
https://bit.ly/action-plan-nafan
Many regional finding aid aggregators across the country struggle to find sufficient resources to update their platforms and engage with some of the most promising advances in the field. With crucial funding support from the US Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) and administered in California by the State Librarian, the NAFAN initiative proposed to explore the creation of a national archival finding aid network that could fundamentally transform the archival description landscape while continuing to serve the needs of aggregators and archival repositories. The initiative provided participants opportunities to discuss and test the original premise: by pooling resources and establishing co-development partnerships, we believe we can address our individual challenges collectively, thereby extending the capabilities, breadth, and depth of existing aggregations.
The action plan is a key deliverable of the planning initiative, building on the release of the Finding Aid Aggregation at a Crossroads report and incorporating outcomes from a planning symposium held in June of this year.
At the heart of the action plan are recommendations for and principles to guide next steps to implement a sustainable national-level finding aid network, based on a phased, incremental approach that: moves this effort from a research and demonstration project to a program; is informed by a research agenda; and, from the outset, includes work to establish business and governance models that fit the infrastructure and service model and are grounded in the community’s organizational and financial capacity.
Over the coming months, the CDL will convene follow-up discussions with the planning initiative participants to formalize and initiate work identified in the action plan.
For more information about the NAFAN planning initiative and outcomes, please see the project wiki.
