Archives Committee Meeting: April 16, 2026

Archives Committee Meeting: April 16, 2026

Conference Call / Zoom

Members attending: Brandi Fialek (Harper College) – joined 1:35pm, Rebecca Fitzsimmons (Illinois State University), Melody Hauf-Belden (Principia College), Ashley Howdeshell (Northeastern Illinois University), Elaine Fetyko Page (Elmhurst University), Meghan Ryan (National Louis University), Steven Szegedi (Dominican University)

Members absent: Matt Gorzalski (Southern Illinois University Carbondale), Erin Zimmerman (Heartland Community College)

CARLI Staff attending: Elizabeth Clarage, Martin Kong

Decisions

  • The March 9th minutes were approved.  Minor friendly amendments were made & accepted, namely: the May 6th program was noted twice, the 2nd instance removed; grammatical errors corrected as well.
  • Monday, April 20, 2026 at 1:30 p.m. for the Spring Ask-an-Archivist:
    • Topics for Discussion were moved over from last time by Rebecca; she also added a question about WGAC issues.
    • As of today’s committee meeting, three participants have registered.
      • Thus far, committee members Rebecca and Elaine are registered to attend, and other members are planning to register as well.
  • April Anderson-Zorn with conduct the Emotional Labor in the Archives webinar on June 9 from 1-2 p.m.
    • The session will be opened up to non-CARLI members and will be recorded.
    • Elaine will monitor the chat during the webinar; Steven will give the introduction for April Anderson-Zorn.
  • Rescheduling of the Archives Open House at Illinois State University is in the planning stages. Due to summer projects at Milner Library, the open house would need to be next committee term. A future full day event may incorporate another Bloomington-Normal archives. Rebecca is open to hosting an event in the future and the next committee can decide whether or not to pursue scheduling the open house.

Tasks Assigned

  • Minutes taken by Steven Szegedi.
  • Minutes for the May meeting will be taken by Meghan Ryan.
  • Minutes for the June meeting will be taken by Ashley Howdeshell.
  • Martin and Elizabeth will send the presenter release to Rebecca for April Anderson-Zorn.
  • Elaine will provide Archival Collection Highlight for the CARLI newsletter for April, which is due by April 22nd.
  • Meghan will provide Archival Collection Highlight for the CARLI newsletter for May.
  • Melody tentatively agreed to provide Archival Collection Highlights for the CARLI newsletter for June (deadline, June 16th).
  • Matt and Rebeccas will draft the committee’s annual report and share with committee members for review.

Announcements

  • Member Announcements: None
  • CARLI Announcements:
    • Call for committee volunteers is now open until May. As a new committee, the Archives Committee membership terms were assigned to establish a rotation to add new members with a 3-year term.
    • Registration is now available for PDA Event: Protecting Collections: Proactive and Responsive Strategies for Environmental Damage: May 6, 1-2 p.m.

Discussion

  • Archives and Special Collections Resource Page
    • No update from either Elaine or Steven.
    • Accessibility in PDF documents update:
      • Retroactively improving accessibility for PDFs is challenging for various reasons, technical and procedural. Ideally the original for any document should be in Word format and CARLI will then need to contact the original creators. Many PDFs are formatted for print rather than for accessibility.
  • Integration of ArchivesSpace with Alma
    • Brandi reported that the contact with the University of Denver has since moved on to the University of Pennsylvania. The contact sent along some workshop slides via GitHub that they had made with another colleague. Not many institutions have adopted it.
    • Committee discussed the question if this is intended for CARLI staff to pick up the work or for the Committee to provide members with the info? CARLI staff shared that CARLI staff do not have access to ArchivesSpace, so it would be helpful if the Committee would develop a process/guidelines for other members who are asking for help with this integration.
    • Committee discussed if this is a product that CARLI might broker.
      • Perhaps this is something the committee can revisit this conversation next AY, perhaps creating a subcommittee to investigate the issue would be prudent – getting consortium-based discounted pricing would help, along with procedural and support materials would be in the best interest of our membership.
      • CARLI has procurement requirements as regards hardware/software & library tools that may prevent adopting ArchivesSpace for testing its integration with Alma.
      • Brandi offered to volunteer to do market research regarding whether ArchivesSpace is a “sole source” or not.
    • Committee discussed that even if we cannot as a consortium provide access to some of the tools, perhaps the committee/CARLI could be a place where members could find each other, perhaps we can provide the platform for networking and conversation.
  • The Committee’s annual report will be due on May 29th; Matt and Rebecca will work on drafting the report. The draft will then be shared with committee members for input and revision via Box. Date pending for upload to Box.

Next Meeting Dates and Deadlines

The Archives Committee will meet next on May 11, 2026 at 10 a.m.

Committee Meetings:
May 11, 2026: Minutes taker – Meghan Ryan
June 8, 2026: Minutes taker – Ashley Howdeshell

Deadlines:
May 29, 2026 – Committee Annual Report due to the CARLI Governance Board.