Dear Members
Hello and welcome from your Oklahoma Archivists Association (OAA) president! My name is Lisa Henry and I am the curator archivist at the Julian P. Kanter Political Commercial Archive located at the University of Oklahoma. It is my honor to serve in the role of president.
I understand the importance of continuing the OAA’s mission as a resource for all Oklahoma archivists to network and learn. Trying to keep up educational offerings, utilize the best practices, and new ideas while trying to maintain important working relationships are issues we all struggle with every day, and these tasks never seem to get enough attention. Your students or staff needs you, the boss needs reports, and nurturing the professional in you always ends up in the backseat. I’m not going to tell you that the OAA can satisfy all these demands, but I will tell you we are glad you’re here, and as your president I will do everything I can to bring you the educational and informational offerings you need. I think I can speak for the Board and our committees when I say we are here for you! I don’t have the same expertise as past president Sarah, or the same wealth of tech knowledge as our information officer Bailey, but that is where our strength lies, in our diversity. I will always do my best to connect you with the person or the information you require.
It is my goal to serve you as best I can but to do that I need to hear from you! What do you want and need to jump that next hurdle? What type of programming do you want to see? I am invested in your success and am dedicated to bringing you the resources you need. As we begin the new year, I want to make arrangements to come to you. I want to see you and your facility to better understand your needs as well as the state’s needs, and how we can make your facility the best it can be. If you have an event coming up let me know. Let us all know! We have the ability to share what’s important on our website, social media, and our blog to ensure an entire network is informed and involved. You have the power to post events, ask questions, and make suggestions here. After all, this is your organization.
We have kept membership fees intentionally low as we grow from a walk to a run and we provide some student scholarship opportunities. The OAA will continue to encourage student involvement through scholarships for meeting attendance and membership, and we will continue to host informational and educational seminars and workshops, which I hope to make available as online video. We hope to collaborate to bring you Angel Projects to assist the archives and collections throughout the state. If you know of a facility or are a facility that could benefit from one of these projects email me. You can check out the previous Angel Project on our website.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank our good friends and sister organizations. These folks have helped us go from crawling to walking in our first year: Oklahoma Department of Libraries and Jan Davis for providing meeting space as well as monetary and educational support; the Oklahoma History Center for their fabulous personnel and their knowledge base in addition to programming and providing space; the organization I think of as my first home and our big sister, the Oklahoma Museum Association, Brenda Granger and Stacy O’Daniel have been wonderfully supportive in so, so many ways; the Society of American Archivists, and the list goes on! Thank you all! It is because of the support from our friends and members that we can bring you the topics that interest you!
Coming up, the new vice president and member at large will be selected. You can view VP bios and vote here – submit your vote before December 1st! Be sure to frequently check the website for job postings, grant opportunities, and available reference materials. I look forward to serving as your president and getting to know all of you and your facilities. Collectively, we are unstoppable!
Many positive regards,
Lisa Henry
405.325.1573