On August 25, Lisa Schmidt, electronic records archivist at MATRIX, attended an e-forum presented by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), Great Lakes Region and the State of Michigan at the Michigan Library and Historical Center in Lansing. Keynote speaker Kenneth Thibodeau, Ph.D.. director of the Electronic Records Archives (ERA) at NARA discussed challenges, lessons learned, opportunities and next steps for the ERA program. ERA is NARA’s strategic initiative to preserve and provide long-term access to the uniquely valuable electronic records of the US. Government, and to transition government-wide management of the lifecycle of all records into the realm of e-government. NARA representatives also presented on the agency’s e-records scheduling initiative and its e-records toolkit. In addition, Debra Gearhart, director of Michigan’s State Records Center, provided an overview of the state’s centralized document management system initiative.

Lisa Schmidt, electronic records archivist at MATRIX, participated in the Society of American Archivists (SAA) annual meeting in Austin, Texas, August 12-15. As part of the standing room only session “Building Sustainable Preservation Environments for Born-Digital Records: Three Case Studies,” Ms. Schmidt delivered a presentation entitled “A Sustainable Preservation Plan: The H-Net E-Mail Lists.” The presentation described the results of Schmidt’s research on the preservation of the H-Net e-mail lists, a project funded by NHPRC.

Held jointly with the Council of State Archivists and themed “Sustainable Archives,” the conference offered attendees opportunities in educational sessions, workshops, repository tours, section and roundtable meetings, special SAA business, social events, and networking. SAA is North America’s oldest and largest national archival professional association.

On July 17, Lisa Schmidt, electronic records archivist at MATRIX, attended “Managing the Digital University Desktop,” a Society of American Archivists (SAA) workshop held at the Kellogg Hotel & Conference Center on the Michigan State University campus in East Lansing. Duke University archivist Timothy D. Pyatt led the workshop, which focused on research results and subsequently developed electronic records training tools from the joint University of North Carolina-Duke University Managing the Digital University Desktop (MDUD) project. Practical strategies on training university employees how to manage e-mail and other electronic records were discussed, as well as general issues related to the management of active electronic records. Staff from the MSU Archives and other departments across campus attended, along with archivists and librarians from Wayne State University, Hope College, and the University of Illinois. This workshop was part of a series presented by the Michigan State University Archives and Historical Collections in honor of its 40th anniversary.

Matthew Geimer, CTO at MATRIX, attended Google I/O 2009 at the Moscone Center in San Fransisco, CA.  The conference focused on many aspects of new technologies involving web development, as well as mobile application developlment and the Google APIs and toolkits available.  MATRIX is excited with the new features available in HTML 5 showcased at I/O 2009 as well as the many other products showcased.  The keynote speeches are available at the I/O 2009 website and many of the sessions are available on YouTube.