Good morning all,

And just like that, we’ve reached the end of another year! It has been my absolute pleasure to serve as this year’s TARO steering committee chair and help wrap up all of the NEH (and ARPA) grant funded projects. I would like to thank my fellow steering committee members for their hard work this year as we encountered new obstacles and challenges. I would also like to thank all of you, our repositories, our volunteers, and stakeholders. TARO is a collaborative effort and has continued to be a success thanks to the dedication of our members. Without further ado, here are some updates, news, and announcements:

TARO 2.0 ARPA

Work continues on the TARO 2.0 project. Stay turned to the list for ongoing updates from the dev team. Many thanks to all of our developers and members of the Valkyrie squad down in Austin for their work this year on TARO!

New Steering Committee Members

Congratulations to our incoming steering committee members: The 2023 TARO Steering Committee will include:

Chair: Maristella Feustle

Vice Chair/Chair-Elect: Matt Richardson

Secretary: Rachael Zipperer

At-Large Members: Kristi Nedderman, Kathryn Slover, Molly Tepera

Congratulations to the winners! Thank you for running, and thank you to everyone who voted!

Wanted Volunteers for the Outreach and Education Committee (ASAP)

Looking for (2) 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!

Wanted: Volunteers for the Website & Technology Subcommittee (ASAP)

Looking for (2) volunteers to join the Website & Technology Subcommittee (WebTech). Do you process collections and write finding aids? Do you work with patrons and search for collections? Or perhaps you get to do a variety of tasks and have TARO bookmarked as one of your frequently used resources. Oxygen, ArchivesSpace or none of the above? Do not feel intimidated. Testing different kinds of searches, or submitting finding aids, or surveying our users, there is something to do for everyone. Whatever your expertise level, WebTech wants you! Please contact Maristella Feustle: Maristella.Feustle@unt.edu to join our friendly subcommittee!

Monthly Analytics and Statistics

November, and December usage statistics are now available and can be viewed/downloaded from our Wiki page.

Wishing everyone the happiest of holidays. Best wishes for a restful and joyous break, and a fantastic new year.

Cheers~

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!