2025-07-30 TAC/UAC New Member Orientation

5 mins

Introductions

  @Aikaterini Dimitriadou-Shuster

Ice Breaker: Name, Institution, Favorite ArchivesSpace Module/Feature

  Council Handbook : much of the information discussed today is available in the Council Handbook. This is a go-to resource for you throughout your time on Council.

5 mins

ArchivesSpace program and governance

@Christine Di Bella

ArchivesSpace ecosystem:

• Governance Board

• TAC/UAC Coordinating Committee

• Technical Advisory Council (TAC)

• User Advisory Council (UAC)

• Program team/Lyrasis organizational home

Open

15 mins

Communication & collaboration tools

@Christine Di Bella

Tools and Workspaces

• Email lists

  • TAC: archivesspace_tac@lyrasislists.org

  • UAC archivesspace_uac@lyrasislists.org

• Slack (reach out to Christine DiBella or Jessica Crouch to get an invite)

• Atlassian accounts

  • Same account for Confluence (wiki, meeting notes, Help Center) and JIRA (development issue tracking)

  • All groups use Confluence to some degree; some groups, especially Testing and Development Prioritization, also use JIRA

  • If your institution also uses Atlassian, your account may not be the same as the one you use for ArchivesSpace work (depends on whether your institution “manages” accounts for its domain)

• Brief overview of Confluence and Jira (same account settings)

  • Entry links for ArchivesSpace wiki
    http://wiki.archivesspace.org (wiki.archivesspace.org) and JIRA
    http://development.archivesspace.org (development.archivesspace.org)

  • There are some videos highlighting some of the major features and navigation available in Tools and Workspaces

  • Detailed directions and templates for

    • How to Report a Bug

    • How to Request a New Feature

• Won’t be covered in the orientation session, but if you want an even deeper dive into resources related to development, see: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About ArchivesSpace Development (but were maybe afraid to ask)

• Google Drive

  • ArchivesSpace Councils - Google DrivePreview

5 minutes

The Year Ahead

@Regine Heberlein

Yearly Timeline of Council Activities : this page in the Council Handbook gives a month-by-month breakdown of Council activities, as well as who is responsible for those activities.

• Terms begin in July and end in June. In June and July there is typically little Council work outside of the Chair’s responsibilities.

• Council-wide meetings occur monthly beginning in August. Often the December or January meeting is cancelled.

• Joint TAC/UAC meetings are held twice a year, once early in the term (usually September) and again towards the end of the term.

• Workplans are due and presented at the first joint meeting in September.

• Online member forum in the spring – Council participation is strongly encouraged.

• Most Council work wraps up in June. Sub-teams complete a retrospective and work to make term-to-term transition as easy as possible.

• Sub-teams usually meet monthly, although this can vary based on the work and needs of the sub-team (e.g., Testing).

5 mins

Responsibilities and Expectations

@Aikaterini Dimitriadou-Shuster

Most of the information for this section is found in:

• Responsibilities and Expectations

• Yearly Timeline of Council Activities

Attendance and Engagement:

• Attendance and/or contributions to Council meetings. Participation in discussions.

• Attendance and/or contributions to sub-team meetings. Communication with your sub-team lead(s) if you cannot attend or complete tasks.

Council as Community:

• Support your fellow Council members

• Abide by Code of Conduct

• Abide by Community Agreements

Leading by example when possible:

• Answering questions on AS lists

• Commenting/voting on JIRA tickets

• Code contributions

• Participating in ArchivesSpace community programs and events

Responsibilities and Expectations

5 mins

TAC Sub-teams and working groups

@Regine Heberlein

• Metadata Standards sub-team
  Metadata Standards

  • Documents the metadata standards used by ArchivesSpace  and monitoring the standards landscape

  • Current Mappings Maintained by TAC-MD

• Technical Documentation sub-team
  Technical Documentation

  • Facilitates maintenance and enhancement of ArchivesSpace technical documentation.

  • Tech Docs Github repo: GitHub - archivesspace/tech-docs: Technical documentation for ArchivesSpace

  • Awesome ArchivesSpace: GitHub - archivesspace/awesome-archivesspace

5 mins

UAC sub-teams

@Aikaterini Dimitriadou-Shuster

• User Documentation sub-team

  • User Documentation

  • Maintains user documentation in Help Center and Confluence

  • Creates new user documentation when needed

• Usability sub-team

  • Usability

  • Develop functional and practical recommendations to improve usability/accessibility of ArchivesSpace

  • Works closely with Development Prioritization

• Member Engagement sub-team

  • Member Engagement

  • Focuses on providing outreach and community support for the ArchivesSpace membership

  • Runs the Member Match Program

5 mins

Cross-council teams

@Regine Heberlein

• Development Prioritization sub-team

  • Development Prioritization Sub-Team

  • Prioritizes feature requests and bug reports for developers working on future releases of ArchivesSpace

• Testing sub-team

  • Testing Sub-Team

  • Tests features, bug fixes and new release candidates

  • Unlike other sub-teams, typically coordinates work via email and only holds meetings when necessary

5 mins

Next Steps

 @Aikaterini Dimitriadou-Shuster

1. Get ready for your first meetings if they have not already occurred

• Subteam Rosters

• Keep an eye out for the first communication from your sub-team leads and Doodle polls.

2. Read the Retrospectives for your new subteams:

TAC sub-teams:

https://archivesspace.atlassian.net/wiki/x/CwApFwE

https://archivesspace.atlassian.net/wiki/x/AYD1GwE

Cross-Council sub-teams:

https://archivesspace.atlassian.net/wiki/x/AYCkFgE

https://archivesspace.atlassian.net/wiki/x/AwBLGwE

UAC sub-teams:

https://archivesspace.atlassian.net/wiki/x/L4DRFgE

https://archivesspace.atlassian.net/wiki/x/DwDKFgE

https://archivesspace.atlassian.net/wiki/x/AQD6FwE

5 minutes

Get Organized!

@Regine Heberlein

Get comfortable with navigating Confluence. This is where most Council work happens and is documented. Update your username if you want!

Bookmark the following (if you’re into that):

Everyone

The page you’re on right now!

The Homepage of the Advisory Councils Wiki Space – This link will bring you to the top-most level in the Wiki space after which you can navigate the tree on the left side of the screen to find your destination. If you are more comfortable with direct navigation, navigate here first, find your destination, and then bookmark it for future use.

System Dashboard View of the ASpace JIRA – There are a few ways to splash down into JIRA, but this is nice overview.

UAC

2025-2026 TAC/UAC Meeting Agendas and Notes – Navigate here to find the agendas of UAC-specific meetings, which are the monthly meetings attended by all of UAC. You are prompted to attend these by first filling our Doodle polls sent by your Chair, Rebecca.

Navigate to The Homepage of the Advisory Councils Wiki Space to find your sub-team’s section and bookmark it! This will help you practice your wiki navigation in this space.

2025-2026 TAC/UAC Meeting Agendas and NotesPreview – Navigate here to find the agendas of UAC/TAC Joint meetings, which are special meetings attended by all members of both councils a few times a year. You are prompted to attend these by first filling our Doodle polls co-signed by both Chairs, Rebecca and Austin. These meetings require advanced planning to accommodate so many attendees.

UAC Google Drive – Navigate here to find your subteam’s Google Drive folder, should you need to access it. Some sub-teams use Google Drive a lot, some rarely. Guidance on when to use Confluence vs. Google drive is available here, though please note that the link may change. To wayfind this information if the link is broken, navigate to Council Handbook > Communication and Collaboration Resources > Tools and Workspaces.

TAC

https://archivesspace.atlassian.net/wiki/x/BYD1HgE – Navigate here to find the agendas of TAC-specific meetings, which are the monthly meetings attended by all of TAC. You are prompted to attend these by first filling our Doodle polls sent by your Chair, Austin.

2025-2026 TAC/UAC Meeting Agendas and NotesPreview – Navigate here to find the agendas of UAC/TAC Joint meetings, which are special meetings attended by all members of both councils a few times a year. You are prompted to attend these by first filling our Doodle polls co-signed by both Chairs, both Suzanne and Rachel. These meetings require advanced planning to accommodate so many attendees.

Navigate to The Homepage of the Advisory Councils Wiki Space to find your sub-team’s section and bookmark it! This will help you practice your wiki navigation in this space.

TAC Google Drive – Navigate here to find your sub-team’s Google Drive folder, should you need to access it. Some sub-teams use Google Drive a lot, some rarely. Guidance on when to use Confluence vs. Google drive is available here, though please note that the link may change. To wayfind this information if the link is broken, navigate to Council Handbook > Communication and Collaboration Resources > Tools and Workspaces.

Cross-Council

In addition to the resources for your parent council mentioned above, consider bookmarking

Cross-Council Google Drive – Navigate here to find your sub-team’s Google Drive folder, should you need to access it. Some sub-teams use Google Drive a lot, some rarely. Guidance on when to use Confluence vs. Google drive is available here, though please note that the link may change. To wayfind this information if the link is broken, navigate to Council Handbook > Communication and Collaboration Resources > Tools and Workspaces.

10 mins

Questions