By Emily Vinson (RAVA Member, RAAC Steering Committee Member, & Audiovisual Archivist at the University of Houston Libraries Special Collections)
Forty archives professionals gathered at the Coca-Cola Headquarters on August 2, 2016, for the inaugural Regional Archival Association Consortium (RAAC) symposium, held in conjunction with the Society of Georgia Archivists during the Society of American Archivists (SAA) annual conference in the heart of Atlanta, GA. Â
RAAC serves as a formal entity for fostering collaboration among the 46 Regional member organizations, and between the Regionals and SAA. It offers formal channels to coordinate efforts intra-state, interstate, and with SAA. The aim of RAAC is to streamline actions, reduce costs, and increase services to archivists around the nation. Such efforts are carried out by representatives from each regional who serve on one of the six RAAC sub-committees including Advocacy, Public Awareness, Education, Disaster Planning/Recovery, Grant Development, and Membership.
This year’s inaugural symposium was planned collaboratively by RAAC sub-committees members, with panels and presentations reflective of the committee foci. The day-long event began with a keynote address by J. Gordon Daines, III, Archivist and Assistant Department Chair of Manuscripts in the L. Tom Perry Special Collections at Brigham Young University. In his address, “Lift Where You Stand: The Power of Cooperation,” Daines discussed the successful establishment of two examples of cross-regional collaborations: the Journal of Western Archives and the Western Roundup – a joint conference of the Conference of Inter-Mountain Archivists (CIMA), Northwest Archivists (NWA), Society of California Archivists (SCA), and Society of Rocky Mountain Archivists (SRMA).
Panelists Ryan Semmes (Mississippi State University), and Kathleen Williams (NHPRC), described the benefits and opportunities of pursuing grants collaboratively. Texas State University’s Lauren Goodley presented training opportunities available to regional archival associations.
In the afternoon, two sessions tackled how Regionals worked together during times of crisis. Laura Hortz Stanton (Pennsylvania Cultural Resilience Network), Jessica Unger (Foundation of the American Institute for Conservation), and Christine Wiseman (Atlanta University Center), examined how cultural institutions can work together across regions to prepare and respond to environmental disasters. Kaye Minchew (Troup County Archives) addressed how the Georgia Archives responded to a disaster of another sort; in 2012, when severe budget cuts in the Secretary of State’s Office threatened to close the Georgia Archives, the Society of Georgia Archivists and other concerned organizations partnered to advocate on behalf of the Archives and combat the closure.
Presenters also detailed how Regionals can connect with the communities they serve, Caitlin Birch (Dartmouth College), Janet Bunde (New York University), Wendy Hagenmaier (Georgia Institute of Technology), Ashley Gosselar (University of Chicago), and Cathy Miller (CNN Video Archives), spoke about how their regional organizations developed plans and programs to reach out to their communities and bring collections to local students, researchers, and community members.