Prepared by Rachel Searcy, June 2024

Overview

This year TAC leadership focused strongly on the experience of Council members, working to ensure that members felt supported and valued for their efforts and contributions. On a practical level, this included restructuring meeting agendas, enhancing Council documentation, and explicitly recognizing individual and collective contributions.

Common themes across the leadership and sub-teams included maintenance and continuity, in taking care of the things we create, and setting ourselves or our successors up for success. Another common theme across multiple groups was visibility and community engagement; that ethos is shown through specific efforts, such as the Metadata Standard community survey, or the work of Development Prioritization to solicit feedback on specific Jira tickets through listservs.

Goals

• Make monthly meetings more engaging and value-added:

  • This year TAC experimented with new meeting formats, using the first half of the meeting for updates (Program, TAC, sub-teams) and the second half for guest speakers, structured activities, group discussions on specific topics, and working time for sub-teams.

  • Areas of focus in these sessions included: professional service, community outreach, the perspectives of ArchivesSpace developers, and best practices for JIRA tickets.

  • This year we did not ask sub-teams to give additional presentations in monthly TAC meetings, as has been a tradition in years past. The thinking behind this change was a desire to not overburden Council members – who are already doing volunteer professional service – with additional work. At the June TAC meeting, during which members participated in a retrospective activity, returning members did not express a strong desire to reinstate these presentations.

  • Many members indicated satisfaction with TAC meetings this year, in particular hearing more from the ArchivesSpace developers.

• Strengthen community of current and former Advisory Council members:

  • This idea was not realized, but shared with the ArchivesSpace program team as a potential effort for strengthening the ArchivesSpace community.

• Identify pathways to leveling up:

  • This year focused less on offering trainings for Council members, and instead highlighting or recognizing the skills members gained through the normal course of their Council work, ranging from improved comfort and familiarity with specific tools and systems to stronger communication skills, management of interpersonal relationships, and the ability to delegate tasks to others.

  • The January TAC meeting focused on strategies for identifying and communicating the ways in which Council service can support career growth. This activity has been converted into a new resource in the Council Handbook: Tips for Talking About Your Council Service

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• Sub-teams and their charges may need to be revised as the system matures and new needs emerge. This year we saw one sub-team sunset – and do so with care and intention – as well as another team restructure themselves. We should always be open to changing things that are either not working or no longer serve a significant need. New sub-teams and or task forces may be required in order for the Council to continue supporting the technical growth of the application, and the community’s understanding of it.

• Larger conversations and developments in the archival profession may warrant dedicated conversations and/or projects on the part of TAC, such as the release of EAD4 or the incorporation of community contributions to the core code.

• The testing process and the role of individuals on the Testing sub-team will likely evolve as the ArchivesSpace Program team explores behavior scenarios and assesses the feasibility of an end-to-end testing suite.

• Continued communication and collaboration between TAC and the ArchivesSpace Program team is encouraged.

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