Mark your calendars, if you haven’t already, for our fall membership meeting. Here are the pertinent details:

When: October 13, 10:30am-1:30pm
Where: NARA’s Pacific Alaska Region, Seattle (View Map)
What: Society of American Archivists Web Seminar on Web 2.0 (11-12:30) followed by discussion including a panel of local web 2.0 experts (12:30-1:30)

Other details: Since this meeting will fall during lunchtime feel free to bring your lunch with you. We will also provide some snacks.

Note: The web seminar is FREE to members of Seattle Area Archivists. If you are not already a member this is your chance to join! Bring your Membership Form with you along with dues ($15 for regular membership and $10 for students).

October is upon us and with it comes a flurry of activity: it’s the start of the school year and the beginning of a new membership year for the Seattle Area Archivists.  October is also Archives Month: what a great time to kick off the new year!

If  you were able to make it to Austin last month for the Society of American Archivists annual meeting, or if you’ve glanced at the current archival literature, you know that “Web 2.0”  is a hot topic.  If you haven’t come into contact with Web 2.0 in your professional life, maybe you have used it personally by interacting online by way of social networking websites like Facebook and MySpace; or maybe you’ve shared pictures with the help of Flickr…if you are even reading this blog entry, you are using Web 2.0!   A few sessions at the SAA meeting were dedicated to the use of Web 2.0 in archives while others couldn’t help but touch on it.

SAA is offering a web seminar called “Introduction to Web 2.0 in Archives…Or What You Need to Know in a Nutshell”. We’d like to offer this web seminar as part of our fall membership meeting live during its transmittal on October 13th from 11:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.  This is earlier in the day than our usual meetings, but participating in the live broadcast allows us to ask and get answers from the instructor, Kate Theimer, a trained archivist and blogger on ArchivesNext. Following the seminar, we could have a brief round table discussion to talk about how your colleagues are using or are planning to use this tool.

Seattle Area Archivists will pay for the registration fee for the class–all you need to do is show up!  What I need to know from you is how many of you would like to participate?  Would you be willing to come to either the seminar, the round table discussion, or both? Leave your comments here or email me (emily.dominick@providence.org) or any of the steering committee members with any questions.  Once we have adequate feedback, we’ll make arrangements and send out a follow-up message.

I look forward to your feedback and hope to see you in October!