Minutes of the Midwest Archives Conference Council Meeting
April 21, 2010
8:00 AM -11:42
Doubletree Hotel Chicago Magnificent Mile
Chicago, IL
Present:
President Tanya Zanish-Belcher; Vice President Douglas Bicknese; Treasurer Craig Wright;
Secretary Joshua Ranger; Council members Kimberley Butler, Sally Childs-Helton, Deirdre
Scaggs, Martha Briggs; incoming Vice President Mark Shelstad; incoming Council members
Michael Doylen and Dina Kellams; ex officio Council members Anke Voss, Chadwick Owen,
Kathy Koch, Shari Christy, David McCartney, Erik Moore; incoming ex officio Council member
Adriana Cuervo and Miriam Kahn and guests Janet Carleton, Bart Rykbosch Janet Olson,
Morgen MacIntosh Hodgetts; Karen Spilman, Ann Kenne, Lynn Smith and Alison Stankrauff,
Amy Cooper-Carey and Colleen McFarland.
Full minutes and reports from individual committees and ex officio Council are available upon request from Secretary Ranger.
The agenda for the meeting was unanimously approved.
Minutes of the fall 2009 Council Meeting were approved previously by electronic vote.
2010 Annual Meeting, Chicago, Illinois.
Janet Olson and Morgen MacIntosh Hodgetts, Chicago 2010 LAC co-chairs, delivered their report and last minute updates regarding the meeting. They reported that due to a great turnout in registration, there may be some overcrowding in meetings rooms as is the amount of food for the registration. There were 413 attendees at last count and more coming in at the door. Both offered great praise for the LAC members and also for Treasurer Wright. Reported that the hotel had on several occasions in the early spring told people that the room block was full when it was not. However, since those problems were solved, the LAC has had great experiences with the hotel staff.
Program committee co-chairs Bart Rykbosch and Janet Carleton arrived to present their report on the program. The committee did a lot of merging of proposed sessions allowing most proposals to advance into sessions. Carleton believed being an ex-officio to the St Louis PC was helpful.
President Zanish-Belcher asked about how the new implementation of speakers’ agreements went. Both reported they worked but Carleton stated that it was a lot of work to collect and process them. Ranger asked if this could not be done by the session shepherds. Carleton answered that they collating them in one place is still required. Rykbosch and Carleton discussed the student interest group attached to the LAC, believing the relationship went well and that there are 80 students attending. Carleton observed that the Road Trip contest was difficult to execute, so they abandoned it.

Introduction of New Members
President Zanish-Belcher introduced all new members of Council.
President: President Zanish-Belcher updated Council on recent appointments, some already approved via email. She noted that someone is considering the vendor coordinator position vacated by Shari Christy and that Martha Briggs has agreed to chair the Nominating Committee.
She noted that an apprentice position for the Webmaster is needed in order to learn from Moore in advance of Moore’s term ending in two years as Moore has agreed to continue his position.
Committee appointments are being held off as she waits for volunteers first.
President Zanish-Belcher stated that the Members’ Meeting will be streamlined without committee/ex-officio reports. Various task forces/working groups (Marketing, Development,
Education) will be delivering their reports at the fall Council meeting in Dayton. She then reviewed her main goal for 2010-2011: the fuller implementation of Memberclicks tools with officers and Council members gaining better proficiency in these. The President stated that
Council will engage in some minor strategic planning activities in Dayton informed by the task force reports.
Vice president: Vice President Bicknese proudly reported that the on-line registration for the meeting went well and recommended that in-coming Vice President Shelstad investigate the use of surveys in Memberclicks to get feedback from attendees.
Fall Symposium, 2009, Madison, Wisconsin. Bicknese reported the meeting made a profit of
$1,213.85 and considered the meeting a great success. Amy Cooper Carey appeared later in the morning to address any questions. Cooper-Carey recommended the co-chairs create good documentation of all details of their arrangement in case one needs to leave the planning process.
Cooper-Carey is working with presenters to write articles based on the Symposium for a special issue of Archival Issues.
A “follow up” email to Symposium attendees will come soon.
Fall Symposium, 2010 Dayton, Ohio . Bicknese reminded Council that the $100 registration fee budget was approved on April 15 th via email. He reported that MAC achieved a positive arrangement with Wright State University which will serve as a host, subsidizing some of the cost of the facility rental. Shari Christy, member of the planning committee, appeared later in the morning to report on developments and the raffle that will transpire at the members’ meeting.
Colleen McFarland arrived later to discuss the program. President Zanish-Belcher asked
McFarland to ensure that small group work be included on both days of the Symposium.
McFarland reported that all speakers will be meeting via telephone soon. She stated that the seating arrangements will facilitate small group work and that she has expanded the organizing committee so that facilitators are easier to find. She recommended this approach to future groups.

Annual Meeting, 2011, St. Paul, Minnesota:
– Bicknese reported that the program committee was taking shape in Chicago with PC chairs Lynn Smith and Alison Stankrauff both present.
Later in the morning both the LAC and PC chairs arrived to give their reports.
LAC chairs, Karen Spilman and Ann Kenne gave details about the possibility of a poker night in the Wabasha caves, the site of the reception. This is a service offered by a vendor who provides cards, dealers, chips, etc. Based on President Zanish-Belcher’s concerns, Shelstad will look into any legal concerns about gambling associated with the organization. The LAC reported it is considering a mentoring program to engage first-time attendees.
Lynn Smith and Alison Stankrauff arrived and added to the program committee’s report stating that they are considering a track approach that would require attendees to choose a topic that would be paired with assigned readings. Based on these pre-meeting readings, attendees on
Friday would break into groups to meet and discuss the issues. Thursday and Saturday would consist of traditional programs. President Zanish-Belcher was concerned about the proposed
Members Meeting time switch to the morning that was included in the PC report. She asked that the Members’ Meeting be restored to its traditional 3:30-5:00PM time slot. Smith and Stankrauff asked about the logic of the Program Committee meeting with certain ex-officios as it seemed to be inefficient. Discussion ensued with Council reaffirming these requirements. Also, Council discussed how appropriate it was to change the meeting format in the absence of two regular meetings per year. Ranger expressed concerns the early plans were too much like Symposium formats and believed that members should be able to count on a full conference worth of sessions to send proposals for. Smith and Stankrauff thanked Council for their opinions and would take them under consideration.
Fall Symposium, 2011- Bicknese shared a proposal for the 2011 Fall Symposium on the management of magnetic tape collections to be held in Sioux City, Iowa. He noted that potential speakers and topics have been identified. Bicknese mentioned that the location of Sioux City in the western MAC area was a plus and that Cedar Rapids and Ames were also considered.
Bicknese noted that there were no flights out of Sioux City currently scheduled on Saturday evenings and he presented two options in dealing with this: shift the meeting a day to Thursday-
Friday or encourage an overnight stay with a social event Saturday evening. Ranger recommended shifting the days and a general discussion ensued about the location and possibility of confusion with Sioux Falls, SD. President Zanish-Belcher expressed concerns about Lisa Carter and Paul Eisloeffel being both chairs AND presenters, requesting that they chose one role or the other.
Bicknese asked for a motion to approve this proposal for the 2011 Fall Symposium. Council member Briggs made the motion. Wright seconded. The motion passed unanimously.
Annual Meeting 2012, Grand Rapids, Michigan – Bicknese reported that the hotel was locked in and that the LAC was now looking for reception site. Bicknese recommended that Beth
Meyers and Rachel Vagts serve PC co-chairs. President Zanish-Belcher asked that the co-chairs

make sure that the PC be inclusive of different types of archives and not too academically focused.
Bicknese asked for a motion to approve the Program Committee co-chairs, Beth Meyers and
Rachel Vagts. Scaggs moved, Butler seconded. Motion passed unanimously.
Secretary – Ranger reported logistical problems during the 2010 renewal period. Specifically,
17 members, who had renewed in time for the election, were not updated in the membership database and, thus, were not mailed ballots. Ballots were sent to all of these individuals in time for voting. DMN, MAC’s membership services company, was apologetic and reviewed its workflow, building in redundancies to make certain the problems were not repeated. Some of the issues stemmed from the new on-line membership renewal process. In a telephone meeting with Ranger, Treasurer Wright and Membership Committee Chair David McCartney, representatives from DMN identified areas that could be adjusted in MAC’s forms and Website copy to help eliminate some of the problems. On the whole, however, Ranger reported that the renewal period was very successful; MAC posted its first gain in members with 849 members compared with 814 last April. This is a reversal of ten years of decreasing membership.
Ranger also reported that at full set of Midwest Archivist/Archival Issues was sent from the MAC
Archives at UW Milwaukee to the University of Wisconsin Digital Collections (UWDC) Center at UW Madison to begin the digitization process for inclusion in the UWDC. Ranger stated that he expects this will be on-line in time for the Fall Symposium. Ranger thanked MAC archivist
Michael Doylen and his staff for their help.
Treasurer
– Wright began his report by commenting that MAC’s investment accounts have recovered fairly well from the downturn in the financial markets. Wright recommended updating the individuals permitted to make fiduciary decisions regarding MAC investments, and had prepared a form for Ranger to submit to Lincoln Financial Advisors.
Wright asked for a motion to authorize President Tanya Zanish-Belcher and incoming Treasurer
Anke Voss to sell or transfer stocks and securities for MAC. Blessing moved, Bicknese seconded. The motion passed unanimously. Ranger will submit the form after it can be notarized.
Wright reported on the Memberclicks site and database stating he is mostly positive about the transition to the new site. Wright supported the idea of an apprentice Webmaster and recommended the creation of a training manual for Memberclicks tools. Wright also recommended the creation of a proof reading process for Web content, possibly reconstituting the Web committee to do so and also to investigate other uses of the site, including using
Memberclicks to facilitate distant education opportunities for meetings. Wright also warned about keeping lapsed member data in the membership database, stating that once MAC hits
1,000 entries in the database, our costs from Memberclicks will increase. Wright also explained that there is a New Art & Print policy that requires MAC to pay for postage before a mailing ships. This may cause a delay in the publications.

Task Force and Working Group Reports :
President Zanish-Belcher stated generally that all reports distributed to Council were preliminary and that final reports would be delivered for the fall Council meeting in Dayton.
Education Task Force – Ellen Swain was not present to present the task force update. The group included some literature in the meeting attendee packets outlining their upcoming surveying activities.
Development and Investment – Blessing asked that Council create a structure that will provide continuity and implementation the recommendations of the taskforce as these sorts of these recommendations have been made before without action.
Marketing
– Ranger and Koch stated that they still needed a student member and a membership committee member. Zanish-Belcher stated she would find those individuals.
Proofreader
– Koch gave a preview of her report, as a final version will be submitted soon. A favorite proofreader’s rate is much higher than the standard market rate. Other proofreaders who are cheaper have been recommended from a trusted individual. Koch stated the report will likely recommend a yearly contract and likely the known—and more expensive--entity for this year.
Membership Task Force – Membership Chair David McCartney arrived later to deliver his
Membership Committee report but took time to discuss the Come Back to MAC campaign. The task force was able to make contact of 100 out of the 300 lapsed members. One half of those individuals stated they would consider renewing. Many others stated they were in new professions or had moved out of the MAC region. McCartney recommended in the future that
MAC distributed reminding emails in March for those who allowed their membership to lapse.
Ex-Officio and Standing Committee Reports
Webmaster report – Webmaster Moore questioned MAC’s practice of maintaining different types of records on its website indefinitely and he presented a list of records schedules to be considered. Ranger asked that attention be paid to that decision not to keep conference presentations beyond a year. Council recommends that the retention schedule be sent to the
Archives Committee for their consideration and advice. Doylen recommended a records management page be added to the MAC Website.
Moore discussed the monthly Memberclicks training teleconferences. Moore and Wright discussed who would make most sense for “Super Administrator” access. Anke or Ranger most likely. Ranger asked for a fake member to see the Website as a non-administrator. Moore thought the idea of a Web committee as the Web is more important than ever before. Discussion for committee to include Webmaster, apprentice, PIO, Secretary, Treasurer, proof-reader, etc.

Membership Committee – Membership Chair David McCartney reported an increase in membership for the first time in 10 years.
Education Committee – Committee chair Owen stated that the SAA workshop filled up very quickly for Chicago and that he has received suggestions for upcoming SAA workshops. Owen mentioned that due to his misunderstanding of the timeline required in planning the workshops, the slate was organized later than usual, particularly the reference workshop. He expressed his gratitude to Rick Pifer for agreeing to teach it.
The directory of archival education has been posted on-line and Owen has received no comments yet. Revisions are easy if anyone has any comments.
Not in his report was a recent issue regarding continuing education credits for MAC workshops.
Archivists in Indiana were interested in getting CE credits from the state government. Owen reported that to do so MAC would need to provide proof of attendance, CVs of workshop presenters and submit a form to the Indiana State Library Commission. Zanish-Belcher reminded
Council that MAC currently does something similar with the Academy of Certified Archivists which provides continuing credit for MAC symposia. Council supported Owen pursuing this with the Indiana State Library Commission.
Archival Issues – Editorial Board Chair Maher was unavailable to deliver his report. Council discussed the non-current dates on current issues. Council expressed its support for a change in the date of new issues to reflect the current date and abandoning the idea of catching up.
President Zanish-Belcher told Council that the majority of the Editorial Board did not support the idea of publishing symposium proceedings. Briggs reiterated her support for the idea which she thought was a good service to members. Discussion ensued. Blessing did not believe the content was appropriate for a peer reviewed journal. Discussion continued on the subject of publishing frequency. Due to the journal’s inability to get submissions, the suggestion was made that AI change its promise of frequency from two issues per year, to one. Incoming Council member Doylen observed that there is now increased competition from other publications and supported the idea.
Treasurer Wright made a motion “to investigate a change in the promise of Archival Issues publication frequency to a minimum of one per year; to change the date upcoming issue to reflect the current date; and to update the Website with table of contents and information regarding recent publications.” Scaggs seconded. The motion passed unanimously.
Blessing asked about author awards of AI and if the rules would need to be changed for less frequent publications. Council will review and revise guidelines.
MAC Newsletter Editor
–
Editor Koch recommended bringing on an apprentice editor an issue in advance of her end of term for training. Zanish-Belcher proposed sending out a job proposal and asking members to apply. Koch will provide the job description. Zanish-Belcher stated that
Council would meet by conference call to discuss the new newsletter editor. Koch reported that she agreed to a one year public moratorium for newsletters, after which the issue will be available on the public portion of the site. Koch recommended that the application for awards

and scholarships be made available on-line only, instead of printed in the newsletter. Council affirmed. Doylen asked if on-line newsletter content was indexed by search engines or the
Website search box. Ranger observed there was no Website search. Koch will investigate.
PIO report – PIO Voss welcomed incoming PIO Cuervo. Acknowledged that Council asked that the PIO to author regular press releases for award winners. Voss reported that she received numerous questions regarding the meeting and recommended improving MAC’s contacts section of the Website to include the Secretary, meeting contacts, etc. She also recommended finding wherever on the Website the mail link to DMN is and remove them, as DMN will not write back to members if the questions are not in their purview. Ranger will investigate and make the appropriate changes.
Vendor Coordinator -- Shari Christy presented her report earlier in the morning since she was present to report on the 2010 Fall Symposium. She began by asking if MAC should provide free conference registrations to paying vendors. Discussion ensued. Christy pointed out that many other organization provide some amount of complimentary registrations. Butler recommended not extending this to non-profits as it could be used as an alternative to a cheaper registration.
Council member Childs-Helton made a motion that “one free registration will be included in the for-profit vendor fee and that no free registration will be included in the non-profit fee.” Wright seconded. The motion was approved unanimously.
Christy stated that the hotel in Chicago was charging vendors for electricity and asked if MAC should pay for this instead. Council agreed to include pay for this directly, assuming that it comes out of the vendor fee MAC charges. Blessing asked for further investigation into electricity issue and Shelstad agreed he would do that.
Christy then asked Council about the charge for the MAC member mailing list. Christy stated that when she served as secretary, MAC charged $25 to non-profits and $100 to for-profit entities. She learned now that DMN charges every organization $125. Council agreed to make the fee $25 for non-profits and $125 for for-profits. Christy recommended the incoming vendor coordinator look into what rules DMN provides with mailing list as the price should be for only a one-time use.
Christy reported that several vendors asked for lists of emails of conference attendees. President
Zanish-Belcher noted that this year’s conference attendee list included in the packet was a mistake as it included email addresses. She stated that this list needs to include just names and institutions. A discussion ensued about the appropriateness of giving email information to vendors. Instead of providing this list to vendors, PIO Voss recommended that MAC requests from all vendors any announcements they would like to make and that these be combined into a single message from the PIO sent prior to the meeting. Council agreed that incoming PIO
Cuervo will initiate this process with information on the Website explaining the arrangement for vendors.
Christy then reported on the problem with vendors using Memberclicks forms and credit card payments. Two vendors did this without contacting the Vendor Coordinator and she was

unaware of their interest. In one case there was no more room for the vendor and a refund had to be made. Cuervo recommended that the registration form be behind a wall that would require the vendor coordinator to give access. There was general agreement for this option to be explored.
Development Coordinator – Miriam Kahn will be working on a development plan and not working to solicit funds.
Nominating Committee – Committee Chair Meissner was not present to deliver his report. 178 valid ballots were cast, representing a gradual downturn in turnout that has been observed over the past several elections.
Archives Committee –No report from the Archives Committee was received. Doylen asked if this committee was still necessary. Council suggested that perhaps the committee could be prodded to do more scheduling work.
Presidents’ Award and Outstanding Service Award Committee
– Committee chair, Steve
McShane was not present to deliver the report submitted to Council. The committee received one application for the Presidents’ Award that was not considered appropriate based on the specifications of the award. The committee was happy to announce Janet Olson as the winner of the Outstanding Service Award.
Scholarship Committees
Archie Motley Memorial Scholarship for Minority Students Committee: Chair Hillary
Bober was unavailable to present her report in person. Kimberly Elizabeth Meyers will be taking over this committee. The committee announced two recipients: Yung Hua Nancy Ng Tam of
New York University and Susan Gehr at San Jose State University.
Louisa Bowen Memorial Scholarship for Graduate Students in Archival Administration
Committee: Chair Kimberly Neuenschwander was unavailable to present her report in person. The committee announced the winner for this year’s scholarship was Virginia Corvid of UW
Madison.
Council thanked recognized that Hillary Bober and Kimberly Neuenschwander discharged their duties faithfully as scholarship chairs.
Emeritus Scholarship for First-time MAC Meeting Attendees Committee
– Chair
Ann
Bowers was unavailable to present her report in person. Angela Manella of Cuyahoga
Community College was awarded the Emeritus Scholarship.
Blessing provided background on the scholarship and asked Council what the committee should do regarding asking for additional funds. Blessing stated that scholarship originator Timothy
Ericson had no opinion on how MAC should continue to develop this endowment. Blessing stated that Nick Burkel did a great job asking for support from other emeritus members. Blessing suggested that these request would be best coming from an emeritus member. Childs-Helton

asked if Council could use MAC monies to match contributions. Committee Chair Ann Bowers will be consulted on the following issues: including the fund in general membership renewal materials; MAC matching donations and who would be the one to contact emeritus members directly with requests for support.
The meeting adjourned at 11:42