Minutes
Ohio Historical Records Advisory Board Meeting
5 June 1998
National African American Museum
Wilberforce, Ohio

Board members present: Gary Ness, George Parkinson, Keith Corman, Alice Cornell, Jonathan Dembo, Barbara Floyd, Michael Lucas, Jim Oda

Board members not present: Roland Baumann, Lynn Jacobs, Carol Tomer

Staff present: Charles Arp, Matthew Benz, J.D. Britton, Laurie Gemmill, Shelia Roth

Guests present: Judy Cheson, Rachael Crone, Dave Larson, Mary Morgan

 

State Coordinator Gary Ness called the meeting to order at 10:15 a.m., welcomed the board and the day’s guests, and provided opening remarks. National African American Museum staff person Rosa Caskey of the Education Department welcomed OHRAB to the site, and introduced Kim Griffin, also of the Education Department.

George Parkinson introduced Dave Larson, Laurie Gemmill and Shelia Roth to the board. Dave Larson is the DAS Records Administrator for the state of Ohio, and will be serving as an ex-officio member of the board. Ms. Gemmill is currently serving as Electronic Records Archivist in the State Archives. Shelia Roth recently joined the Society where she works as Assistant to the Director.

The board then reviewed and adopted as corrected the minutes of the 20 March 1998 meeting.

Barbara Floyd briefed the board on recent developments with the Dayton Art Institute’s plan to resubmit a grant proposal to the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC). In April, Floyd and Julie McMaster of the Toledo Art Museum met with Kristine Sullivan, Archivist of the Dayton Art Institute, to discuss the proposal. Several changes and recommendations were made. Ms. Sullivan will be at the August meeting to discuss the proposal further. A copy of the draft narrative was provided for the board to examine.

Laurie Gemmill and Charles Arp reported on the Government Information Locator Service (GILS). Gemmill described the ongoing efforts to make records available to the public via the World Wide Web (WWW), and the plan to create various records certification sequences that will be service-able through the WWW.

Gemmill also reported on efforts by staff –acting in an advisory capacity only- to offer guidelines and standards to help agencies with the scanning and subsequent destruction of records.

Charles Arp briefed the board on the progress of the Electronic Records Committee. The committee is scheduled to meet three times in an effort to reach consensus on the overall policy.

The draft policy will then be reviewed by focus groups before the final plan is approved.

Arp also reported on a recent GILS conference held in Washington, DC, where he discussed the GILS program and received an enthusiastic response from attendees.

The board turned its attention to the "Ohio Memories" project. Parkinson provided some background on this project, which began a year ago as a possible OHRAB regrant. In the time since, a working group was formed, made up of OHRAB members, OHS staff, and representatives from the library and archival communities. Under the guidance of Consultant Greg Byerly, the group developed a proposal that was submitted in April to the Institute for Museum Library Sciences (IMLS) for a National Leadership Grant. The board received copies of the grant proposal abstract for review and discussion. Byerly will present a short version of the proposal before the Ohio Bicentennial Commission at their 10 June meeting. Parkinson also reported that Elizabeth Nelson will now be working as staff on the project. Finally, it was reported that a meeting was held between Byerly, Parkinson, Arp and the OHIOLink staff to discuss OHIOLink’s possible involvement with the project.

The board discussed the possibility of a re-grant proposal through the NHPRC for the purpose of funding various processing grants that will be associated with the "Ohio Memories" project. The projected emphasis for such a re-grant would be getting records of historical significance processed and mounted on the website, complete with MARC record formatting. If the board moves forward with a re-grant, it will aim for a fall 1999 deadline.

J.D. Britton and Matthew Benz briefed the board on the status of the HRRS survey.

With the final national version due to be released in the coming month, discussion centered round plans to distribute the Ohio results in the state. Using questions from the survey, Britton and Benz hope to create a series of reports that will detail the survey results for Ohio. These reports can then be distributed or written up as articles in various archival publications. Results could also be mounted on a website. The board agreed to the overall plan, and Britton and Benz hope to have more details and results for the August meeting.

Parkinson informed the board that with the recent retirement of Bill Myers from the Society, the Early Ohio Leaders Update project is on hold until further notice.

The next board meeting will be 21 August at Campus Martius near Marietta.

After a brief break, in which the board and staff toured the museum, invited members of the local archival and history communities joined the board for lunch. The attendees included Lynn Russell of the Centerville Historical Society, Rachael Crone of the Flesh Public Library, Judy Chesen, Assistant Curator of the Carillon Historical Park, and Mary Morgan of the Yellow Springs Historical Society.

Following lunch, the board reassembled, and Parkinson welcomed the guests. As way of introduction to the board and its charge, Parkinson provided a review of the mission and program of the board, and distributed copies of the Manual of Suggested Practices for State Historical Records Coordinators and State Historical Records Advisory Boards. This NHPRC publication is designed to provide an overview of the purpose of the state advisory boards, and the roles of the individual board members. The board also discussed the possibility of establishing OHRAB in Ohio’s General Code.

To inform the day’s guests, various projects in which OHRAB has an interest were discussed. These included overviews of the "African American Experience in Ohio," the Local Government Records Initiative, and the "Ohio Memory" project.

Arp reported on the "African American Experience in Ohio" and the Local Government Records Initiative. On the former, Arp discussed the overall project, concentrating on plans to digitize 33,000 pages of materials, including manuscripts, newspapers, and pamphlets. These materials will then be accessible and searchable on the World Wide Web.

Arp’s presentation on the Local Government Records Initiative concentrated on an overview for the benefit of the board’s guests. New details that he provided include a possible proposal for OHRAB to serve as a clearinghouse for approving any rules involved with the initiative. Arp’s suggestion is that the State Archives Local Government Records staff will submit their rules proposals to OHRAB. Upon OHRAB’s endorsement, the rules will be submitted to the state for approval. Jonathan Dembo suggested that such a plan might call for local government to be more actively represented on the board. Other board members wondered whether or not the proposal fell under the guidelines of OHRAB. The board agreed to take the matter under further advisement.

The meeting was adjourned at 2:55 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,
George Parkinson
Deputy Coordinator