BUREAU MINUTES
COEX CONFERENCE CENTRE, Seoul
7 SEPTEMBER 2016 1315-1430
Present: Dr Deborah Jenkins (Chair), Jantje Steenhuis, Tim Harris, and observers from Seoul Municipal Archives including Sangmin Lee and Sejin Lee
1. Welcome and Opening of Meeting
Deborah Jenkins opened the meeting and welcomed observers from Seoul Municipal Archives.
Apologies had been received from Mies Langelaar and Sylvie Clair.
Tim Harris agreed to take the minutes in his last meeting as Secretary.
2. Adoption of Agenda
Agreed. The language of the meeting would be English.
3. Approval of Minutes of Bureau minutes Reykjavik 2015.
The Chair noted that the minutes of the previous meeting had been circulated. Agreed.
4. Matters arising from the minutes
None.
5. Update from the ICA Executive Committee 2016
The Chair gave an update and noted that forthcoming Conferences would be held in Mexico City (2017), an African country (2018), and Abu Dhabi (2020). The next Executive Board meeting would be in Tanzania in May 2017.
6. Update from PCOM meeting 2016
The Chair reported on the new Chair of PCOM, Normand Charbonneaud and what was perceived to be a change in direction towards training.
ACTION Outgoing Chair to send paper given by new Chair of PCOM to incoming Chair.
The Chair reported on PCOM feedback about the role of archivists in Human Rights. This was not an ICA policy but a working document endorsed by PCOM
ACTION Outgoing Chair to circulate copy of PCOM feedback.
The Chair reported on the latest developments with the Africa Strategy and noted the possibility of exchange visits with Namibia local government authorities.
ACTION Incoming Chair to contact James Lowry
New Professional programme had 8 new professionals at Congress. There was a new Expert Group on Archival Legal matters which was being Chaired by Didier Grange. Braches were being urged to work more closely with Sections.
7. SLMT Steering Committee/bureau Organisational matters
The Chair explained that after 8 years as Chair she was standing down from SLMT and that after a call to SLMT members for nominations, Tim Harris had been elected and confirmed as the new Chair of ICA/SLMT. She congratulated him and wished him well.
The Incoming Chair thanked Deborah Jenkins for all her work and said he was very pleased to be the new Chair. He commented that there was a need for new members of the bureau including a new Secretary. It would be good to maintain the geographical spread but all members of the Bureau needed to be active for the Section to prosper. An invitation was extended to Seoul Municipal Archives to be represented on the Bureau.
The bureau for 2015/16 was duly elected:
Chair Tim Harris
Vice-Chair Jantje Steenhuis
Secretary Vacant
Webmistress Mies Langelaar
Members Mariela Alvarez Rodriguez, Sylvie Clair, Michal Henkin, Zhu Jihua, Dominique Taffin, Celine Fernandes
COMMA liaison Norma Fenoglio
ACTION The Outgoing Chair to forward names of candidates who had expressed interest in working for the Section so that the Incoming Chair could formally invite them to join.
ACTION The Incoming Chair to write to Dr Zhoe, The Director of Public Information Policy for permission for Seoul to be represented on the Bureau.
8. (and 9.) Report on 2016/17 Business Plan and 2017/18 Business Plan
The Chair reported that there had been difficulties in getting PCOM support for a number of the projects on the 2016/17 Business Plan, including the Sri Lanka LMT training project and the Cape Verde music digitisation project.
The Virtual Research Environment (Digital Reading Rooms) had not produced results that could be usefully distributed.
Despite a number of setbacks the Cape Verde Project was continuing and there would be a launch of the results either in Rotterdam or Cape Verde.
The most likely project to galvanise activity was the World Cities project for a new COMMA edition in 2019. The COMMA edition on LMT archives had been published during 2014/15, with contributions from a wide range of countries and continents, and had met with an excellent response. There was a good opportunity to continue to publicise the amazing collections and remarkable archive services run by LMT archives. There was good editorial support for the project and a publication on 10-12 World Cities was envisaged.
The SLMT was invited to come back to Seoul for a Conference on City archive buildings in Spring 2018 where a number of Bureau members could be invited to speak, and the event could coincide with a Bureau meeting. This meeting would coincide with the opening of the new Seoul Municipal archive building which the Section would hear more about at the dinner on 7 September 2016, hosted by the Seoul Municipality. Sangmin Lee noted that 2 more new archives would be built by then: in Bosun and in the Jeju province.
10. SLMT Webpages
The new ICA website was in place and SLMT webpages would be maintained by Mies Langelaar.
11. Future SLMT Meeting 2017
There was a possibility of a Plenary session of the Section in London (or Rotterdam) in the early Spring of 2017 which would enable the new Bureau to meet to take forward the business plan and any projects to be proposed to PCOM.
The ICA Conference in Mexico City 21-27 October 2017 would be a great opportunity to showcase LMT archives in Latin America through ALA members and the Section wanted to make contact with the City Archivist of Mexico. The themes fitted SLMT well, e.g. Archives and Interculturalism, Ancestral Cultures and Archives and the Environment.
12. Any other business
The Chair encouraged engagement with other ICA bodies, Expert Groups and New Professionals.
13. Closure of Meeting
The Chair thanked everyone for attending and closed the meeting.