Products and Goals
| Survey Mangement Team | Blue Ribbon
Panel
Products and Goals
During 2004-2005, CoSA will:
Survey state archives
and records programs to assess current conditions, measure
progress against the results of earlier studies, identify solutions
that can be implemented across state lines, highlight areas of common
concern that can and should be addressed collectively. Based on the
survey results, the project will then define benchmarks and program
measures to enable state archivists to evaluate and improve their
programs.
Survey each State Historical
Records Advisory Board (SHRAB) to understand its administrative
structures, programs, services, and constituents. The results will
help identify what services and tools could help improve the State
Coordinators’ skills as board administrators, ensure that every
SHRAB member understands the purpose of the NHPRC Records Program
and his or her role in implementing it, and establish benchmarks and
guidelines that define an effective SHRAB.
With the guidance of a Blue Ribbon Panel,
develop an Action Agenda to ensure preservation of and access to our
nation’s historical records. CoSA expects this agenda
to emphasize a cooperative approach involving all of those who create,
care for, and use archival records. As a foundation and starting point,
it will harness the collective strength of the federal-state partnership
formed by the NHPRC, the state archives, and the SHRABs to move the
agenda forward.
Survey Management Team
The project calls for a rigorous assessment and evaluation
process that will examine the status and assess the effectiveness of
state archives and records programs
and State Historical Records Advisory Boards
in the United States and its territories. Assessing the current conditions
will be accomplished through a comprehensive survey of state archives
and records programs and SHRABs.
The Survey Management Team
will determine the scope and content of the data collection instruments,
oversee the execution of the surveys, and be responsible for compilation
and initial analysis of the results. The Survey Management Team will
comprise two state coordinators, two members of the CoSA
Board of Directors, a consultant specializing in survey design and
program evaluation, an NHPRC staff member, and CoSA staff. The chair
of the CoSA Communications Committee will also participate as an ex-officio
member of the Team.
Blue Ribbon Panel
A Blue Ribbon Panel of representatives from principal
user and constituent groups, allied professions, NHPRC,
CoSA, and the SHRABs
will provide oversight and direction. The Blue Ribbon Panel will, first,
help define the goals and objectives of the survey and review the draft
survey instrument for effectiveness, and, second, review the results
of the surveys and the analytical report prepared by the Survey Management
Team, and use them to evaluate organizational effectiveness in the state
archives and SHRAB. They will use the data and their assessments to
develop an Action Agenda for the next decade.
Concurrent Projects
Project leaders will take care to coordinate the
survey with concurrent projects. These include the A*CENSUS,
a comprehensive census of individual archivists being led the Society
of American Archivists (SAA) with funding from the Institute
for Museum and Library Services (IMLS), and the Heritage
Health Index (HHI), being developed by Heritage
Preservation in cooperation with IMLS. Together, these three survey
projects should provide an in-depth picture of the individuals who care
for historical records, the conditions of the records themselves, and
the state-based organizations that encourage and implement these programs.
