Preservation Committee Meeting: September 12, 2025

Conference Call / Zoom

Members attending: 

• Alex Altan, Prairie State College
• Liz Bloodworth, Illinois Wesleyan University
• Patti Gibbons, University of Chicago, co-chair
• Stephanie Gowler, Northwestern University
• Bonnie Parr, Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum
• Sata Prescott, Northern Illinois University
• Amy Sherwood, University of Illinois Chicago
• Jason Smith, Lewis University
• Bradley Wiles, Northern Illinois University, co-chair

CARLI Staff attending: 

• Elizabeth Clarage
• Nicole Swanson

Tasks Assigned

• Minutes taken by Patti Gibbons.
• Stephanie Growler will take meeting minutes for the next meeting.
• After January 1, 2026, reschedule the June 2026 meeting date. 
• The group will continue identifying newsletter article topics and assign authors for the January through June issues. 
• Review the draft of the 2025 Preservation Survey Report for the next meeting and be prepared with any suggested edits.
• Members will check links for specific sections of the Preservation Resources Webliography as recorded in the Committee’s Box note.

Decisions

• The August 2025 minutes were approved.
• The 2025 Preservation Survey Report will include the survey instrument as an attachment.
• The committee put a hold on May 1, 2026 at 1 p.m. for an Ask a Preservation Expert virtual event.

Announcements

• Member Announcements:
  • Bonnie Parr (Abraham Lincoln presidential Library and Museum): The ALPLM’s Library Director position posting is open for another week.
  • Group did a round of introductions and welcomed Alex Altan to the group.
• CARLI Announcements:
  • CARLI Annual Meeting will take place on October 21, 2025. The meeting will also serve as a celebration of the consortium’s 20th anniversary. You can register at this link. 
  • CARLI Archives Committee is hosting an “Ask an Archivist” session on October 27, 2025. 

Discussion

• Group confirmed meeting schedule for 2025-2026 term and will meet the second Friday of the month at 1 pm on Zoom and meetings are currently scheduled through June. The group may need to reschedule the June 2026 meeting but will do this in after January 1, 2026 when people have a better sense of their summer schedule. 
• Group reviewed, edited, and adopted the CARLI Community Agreement.
• Group reviewed comments left on the Draft 2025 Preservation Survey Report and will have the document edited for review at the October meeting so that it can be distributed to CARLI members through the November/December CARLI newsletter. 
• Group reviewed the link checking task and assigned the remaining sections to committee members. Members can leave notes about dead links and proposed new links with the commmittee's Box note.
• Group discussed potential topics for the monthly CARLI newsletter and discussed focusing articles on preservation advice for non-traditional materials such as AV materials, photographic materials, etc. Members will self-select areas of interest for the “Beyond Paper” series and the group identified topics and schedule themselves in Box note on this topic in the Committee's folder.
  • Authors for articles through the end of 2025.
    • In September, Patti Gibbons will write an introduction to this year’s themes.
    • In October, Amy Sherwood will write an article about scrapbook preservation.
    • For the November/December issue, Bonnie Parr will write about preserving and working with nitrate and acetate library materials. At the next meeting, the group will revisit this planning and plan the schedule of articles for the January through June issues.
  • The deadline for submission is the 15th of each month. 
• The group discussed Projects and Programs for the 2025-2026 term:
  • Ask a Preservation Expert sessions will be on November 12, 2026 and May 1, 2026.The announcement will go out the week of September 15, 2026 and people can register for the November session using this link: https://www.carli.illinois.edu/ask-preservation-expert-1.  
  • The CARLI Annual Meeting with table talk on AI will be on October 21, 2025 at UIUC.
  • The committee has been working on organizing a webinar featuring Will Schlaack (UIUC) on the Illinois Digital Newspaper Collection. The event will take place on December 11, 2025 from 1-2pm. Registration will happened in October 2025. 
  • The committee discussed preparing a messaging document to send to all members regularly or to specific members in the event of severe weather in the area.
• The committee discussed possible programming or Preservation Tips for the year. Ideas included: 
  • The committee discussed preparing a messaging document to send to all members regularly or to specific members in the event of severe weather in the area.
  • Polygon disaster preparedness assessment program 
  • Preservation tasks on a shoestring budget (such as, NEDCC program on digital preservation with small tools)

Next Meeting Dates and Deadlines

The next Preservation Committee meeting will be October 10, 2025 at 1:00 p.m.

Future Committee Meeting Dates:
October 10, 2025, minutes taker: Stephanie Gowler
November 14, 2025, minutes taker: Bonnie Parr
December 12, 2025, minutes taker: Sata Prescott
January 9, 2026, minutes taker: Amy Sherwood
February 13, 2026, minutes taker: Jason Smith
March 13, 2026, minutes taker: Bradley Wiles
April 10, 2026, minutes taker: Alex Altan
May 8, 2026, minutes taker: TBD
June XX, 2026, minutes taker: TBD

Deadlines: 
Finish editing the draft 2025 Preservation Survey Report.