ICA Section on Business and Labor Archives (SBL)
SBL has benefited from the “full-time” work and travel of our Chair Hans Näss.
Due to his role as “ambassador” from Norway and his attendance at many
conferences around the globe, Hans has raised the visibility of SBL and the
importance of Business Archives. The SBL Chair is a member of the Executive
Board and has taken part in all board meetings. And the SBL Chair headed the
ICA Task Force on the revision of the revenue structure, 2005-2007.
ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF SBL FROM 2004 TO 2008
1)
Created an outreach brochure which is available in English, Italian and
French versions. Printed copies were produced and distributed during many
archival meetings. Electronic copies are posted on the SBL website. Versions in
Spanish and Russian are in process.
2)
Created a uniform format (outline) for the country overviews, so they are
similar in style and content. The content of the 2004 Report [title] was revised
and the following 8 country overviews are now available on the SBL web site:
 Cameroon
 Denmark
 Finland
 France
 Greece
 Italy
 Japan
 Norway
 Portugal
 UK
 USA
3)
Held one or two Bureau meetings each year, many in conjunction with
business archives programs and conferences:
 Spring 2005 – Dortmund, Germany
 August 2005 – New Orleans, USA (in conjunction with the Society of
American Archivists annual meeting)
 April 2006 – Blois, France (including an informal meeting with several
French business archivists)
 November 2006 – Edinburgh, Scotland (in conjunction with 1-day
business archives conference sponsored by UK Business Archives
Council and Society of Archivists)
 February 2007 – Sydney, Australia (in conjunction with an Economic
History Conference and a meeting with Commonwealth Banks archives
group) As a result, a task force was established to set up an Australian
Business Archives Forum.


September 2007 – Genoa, Italy
June 2008 – Stavanger, Norway (in conjunction with a special program
and alternative membership quadrennial meeting)
4)
Improved management of SBL content on the ICA web site. Updates are
now made more quickly.
5)
Revised SBL by-laws to align with the new ICA constitution.
6)
Supported the development of a “Business Archives Handbook” in the UK.
7)
Increased contact with Asia Pacific business archivists as a result of
Bureau members participating in conferences in that region:
a) Access to Archives conference, Japan (May 7-11, 2007)
b) Seminar on business archives, China (December 4-6, 2007)
8)
Joint project between SBL and SAA’s Business Archives Section to
produce a benchmarking survey of business archives. The web-based survey
will be pushed out in early summer 2008 and results made available by fall.
Respectfully submitted,
Becky Haglund Tousey, CA
Secretary, SBL
28 April 2008