Greetings all!
It is now midway through September and we are in the home stretch of our ARPA grant; there is still much to do, and so I will dive right in with the updates and call for volunteers:
Wanted–Participants for Subject Terms (ASAP)
Thanks to the work done on the NEH & ARPA grants, the new TARO website features much improved search features including the “browse by”. We are looking for repositories who are interested in subject terms remediation, i.e. moving from x subject term to y recommended term. Our current subject remediation specialist will work to identify all the aids with x subject term and transition them to y based on the advanced keyword terms list developed during the NEH grant. This work on subject terms will become more useful shortly as developers are working to improve access to the subject terms in the search and in the faceting on the site. Upon review of your finding aids, the subject specialist will make recommendations and apply changes in bulk upon repository approval.
If you are interested in having your finding aids reviewed, and receiving recommendations on improving your subject/access terms, please contact Aaron Choate (achoate@austin.utexas.edu) as soon as you are able as the grant work will be completed by the end of the month.
Wanted Volunteers for the Outreach and Education Committee (ASAP)
Looking for volunteers to join the outreach and education subcommittee, no experience or expertise needed. Members of this subcommittee will be focusing on: Updating the TARO Today website and documentation, create training resources (documentation, videos, etc.) based on TARO members’ needs, and disseminating information through the various TARO channels and outreach events. If you have a passion for TARO (don’t we all?), and an interest in education and outreach, please contact Robert Weaver (robert.g.weaver@ttu.edu) to join this outstanding subcommittee!
TARO2.0 Development Update
The UTL team spent much of the past month addressing issues with one of the services that our site relies on. They feel the site is now stable but will be monitoring it to ensure we can spend the time to address further issues if they arise. As we are moving into the final weeks of the work funded by the TSLAC – ARPA grant, we will be concentrating on additional backend enhancements to improve site operations, modifications to finding aid display intended to improve our indexing and search engine placement as well as the final high priority items from the development queue.
Monthly Analytics and Statistics
August usage statistics are now available and can be viewed/downloaded from our Wiki page. Please note, due to the technical difficulties last month there are spikes in the URLs /system_down (55,239 views) and /not_found (2982 views).
Steering Committee Nominations Open
The call for nominations is now open. TARO is seeking nominations to fill three positions: Vice Chair/Chair-Elect, one At-Large Member, and Secretary. Nominations are accepted (by this online form) until Tuesday, October 18, 2022 at 5pm CST. Detailed descriptions of each open position can be found in the TARO Governance Plan and the online nomination form linked in this email. We also welcome any questions about the open positions or the nomination and election process. Please reach out directly to the current Chair, Vice Chair, or any of the Nominating Committee members if you are interested in nominating a candidate or running yourself and would like more information.
Penny Castillo, Independent Contractor, drpencil9@gmail.com
Kristi Nedderman, Dallas Municipal Archives, kristi.nedderman@dallas.gov
Kathryn Slover, University of Texas at Arlington, Kathryn.slover@uta.edu
Whew, that is a lot! Thank you to everyone for their continued support of TARO and all the work you, and your colleagues are doing. There is plenty of room for more involvement and engagement; if you have any questions about steering or the subcommittee work, reach out anytime. Looking forward to an overwhelming response of interest *wink*.
Have a wonderful week! And happy fall!
Best!
