Author Archives: Emily Gainer

Spring 2025 Election of Council and Officers

SOA’s 2025 elections are now open!

Voting is open from May 1 through noon on May 16, 2025. Please click here to access the ballot for the spring election. Candidate statements are included in the spring issue of the Ohio Archivist (starting on page 12) and online.

In order to verify that you are an eligible voter, we are asking that you provide the email address associated with your SOA membership. If you would like to change your email preference, please send an email to [email protected]. Please include the original email address and the one you’d like to change to.

Questions? Contact the Nominating Committee chair, Melissa Dalton.

Ohio Archivist Spring 2025 Issue Available

The spring 2025 issue of Ohio Archivist, SOA’s biannual publication, is now available to download as a PDF!

In this issue you will find a information about the Spring meeting to be held at the University of Toledo and online, 2025 candidate biographies, a feature on the archivist as collector, an article on archival trauma, and much more!

Contents:Screen capture of the front page of the SOA Newsletter.
– Annual Spring Meeting Preview
– President’s Message
– Fall Meeting Recap
– Feature:  Archivist as Collector by Emily Ahlin
– DEIA: Archival Trauma by Michelle Ganz
– Meet the 2025 Officer & Council Election Candidates
– News & Notes

See all past Ohio Archivist issues on the publication’s page.

Questions? Contact Ohio Archivist Editor-in-Chief Jessica Heys.

Council Meeting Minutes from March 28, 2025

The Society of Ohio Archivists most recent leadership meeting minutes from March 28, 2025, can now be found on the Council Meeting Minutes page.

Interested in SOA over time? Also on that page are minutes dating back to 1997. In addition to documenting actions from the leadership meeting, minutes include reports from the treasurer as well as from committees and task forces.

Questions about minutes? Contact SOA Secretary Shelby Beatty.

Ohio Archives Month Poster 2025 – Voting Open

Help select the images used for the 2025 Ohio Archives Month Poster!

This year, the annual Society of Ohio Archivists’ October Archives Month poster theme will highlight Ohio-born companies.

The submitted images from around the state include internationally, nationally, and locally known companies that were born in Ohio. Thank you to all our submitters for sharing these pieces of history!  We had great submissions this year from many wonderful Ohio institutions.

Now YOU can help us narrow down the field for the final poster! Please look through the images and their descriptions and vote for up to 10 images. The top 10 images to receive the most votes will be sent on to the designer for consideration in the final poster design.

Use the Google form to vote between April 22 and May 6, 2025. Please only vote once.

On behalf of the SOA Advocacy and Outreach Committee, we thank you for participating!

Questions? Contact the Advocacy & Outreach Committee cochairs Sarah Aisenbrey and Jim McKinnon.

Council Meeting Minutes from Feb. 28, 2025

The Society of Ohio Archivists most recent leadership meeting minutes from February 28, 2025, can now be found on the Council Meeting Minutes page.

Interested in SOA over time? Also on that page are minutes dating back to 1997. In addition to documenting actions from the leadership meeting, minutes include reports from the treasurer as well as from committees and task forces.

Questions about minutes? Contact SOA Secretary Shelby Beatty.

Annual Meeting 2025 Registration Now Open

Registration is now open for the 2025 Annual Meeting: Show Me the Money: Sustaining Archives and Archival Programs, May 15-16! Register online or mail-in in this form (PDF).

This May, the Society of Ohio Archivists Annual Meeting will be traveling to Toledo, Ohio! Join us on Thursday, May 15 (virtual), and on Friday, May 16 (hybrid) at the University of Toledo. Day one (Thursday) is comprised of all virtual sessions, available to all registrants. Day two (Friday) is a full day of in-person sessions with one session in each time block live streamed for virtual attendees.

Photograph of a woman against a red background. She is wearing glasses and a black jacket.Keynotes: We are excited to announce Patricia Hswe as our morning keynote speaker. Patricia Hswe is the program director for Public Knowledge at The Mellon Foundation. As the Foundation’s program area that supports libraries and archives, Public Knowledge makes grants that strive to increase equitable access to—and activation of—recorded knowledge that helps to build an informed, heterogeneous, and civically engaged society. Patricia is currently a member of the board of trustees for the Metropolitan New York Library Council and sits in the advisory team for LibraryPAC. Continue reading →

Archives Month Poster: Call for Images 2025

For this year’s annual Society of Ohio Archivists’ October Archives Month, the theme will be “Ohio-Born Companies.” Ohio has a rich history of entrepreneurship, industry, and ingenuity, which we want to highlight through this poster.

We are looking for archival images related to Ohio-born companies that have impacted locally, statewide, or nationally; they can relate to corporations, small businesses, or other Ohio-based businesses. Some examples include construction workers building the company’s headquarters, workers working in an office or other environment, showcases of products made by the company, etc. If your institution has archival images with an intriguing backstory, please submit them for a chance to be featured in the poster this year.

We are hoping to receive submissions from across the state of Ohio. If you are interested in participating, please submit your related images to Nina Herzog at [email protected] by Monday, April 7, 2025.

Institutions or individuals can submit a maximum of three (3) images. Please ensure that the image quality is a minimum of 300 dpi; higher quality is encouraged. With your submission, please include a description of the image that explains its importance AND a brief one-sentence caption that can be used on the poster if the image is selected.

SOA members can vote on their favorite entries between Monday, April 21, and Friday, May 4, 2025. Entrants do NOT need to be members to submit images. If you know of organizations with archival materials that fit this year’s theme, please share this information with them!

We look forward to your participation!  View previous Ohio Archives Month posters.

Questions? Contact the Advocacy & Outreach Committee cochairs Sarah Aisenbrey and Jim McKinnon.

Join us for Coffee Chat on April 8, 2025

Grab a hot beverage and join us for the next Society of Ohio Archivists (SOA) Coffee Chat on Tuesday, April 8th 2025, from 10-11am on Zoom! These casual gatherings are an opportunity for SOA members to network, share challenges and successes in their work, and bounce ideas off colleagues outside of the Annual Conference.Graphic of coffee cup with the words SOA virtual coffee chat April 8 10-11am around the cup.

This quarter we will be sharing how we’re handling the challenges of recent federal legislation and the tumultuous political climate, from how this has directly affected your work to how you’re supporting your staff. Please register here to join the conversation! We will send a Zoom link to all registrants the day before the meeting. We hope to see you there!

Questions?  Contact Kristen Newby and Jim DaMico, SOA Council Members.

Council Meeting Minutes from Jan. 24, 2025

The Society of Ohio Archivists most recent leadership meeting minutes from January 24, 2025, can now be found on the Council Meeting Minutes page.

Interested in SOA over time? Also on that page are minutes dating back to 1997. In addition to documenting actions from the leadership meeting, minutes include reports from the treasurer as well as from committees and task forces.

Questions about minutes? Contact SOA Secretary Shelby Beatty.

Have Your Voice Heard! Attend Ohio Statehood Day on March 5

-contributed by Sarah Aisenbrey, SOA Advocacy & Outreach Committee co-chair.

On March 5, Ohio history, archaeology, and historic preservation professionals will gather alongside legislators and stakeholders at the Ohio Statehouse in Columbus to advocate for Ohio’s history and celebrate its birthday. This year, Statehood Day’s theme is “From Canals to Computers: Connecting Ohio to the World,” reflecting the 200th anniversary of the Ohio & Erie Canal. Continue reading →