Task Force on Archival Facilities Guidelines

Established: October 31, 2006
Final Report Expected: February 27, 2009
 

Description:

Archival facilities are a fundamental element in preserving and accessing our nation's documentary heritage. Given the critical importance of archival facilities to our profession, it is surprising that no national standards or guidelines exist to assist archivists and individuals in the building industry in the planning and designing new and remodeled archival facilities. In November 2006, SAA established a task force made up of individuals with a wide range of facilities expertise to develop guidelines that would assist the archival and building professions in planning new and remodeled structures.

The task force's third draft (PDF) is now complete and the group is seeking comments and suggestions from members of the profession. The document will be open for comments until October 6, 2008.

All comments and suggestions should be sent to: facilities-tf@forums.archivists.org. Please indicate the section, subsection and page number when making suggested changes or comments. Please note that it is our intention to add metric equivalents wherever possible in the next version of the guidelines to assist individuals and organizations where metric measurements prevail.

Creating this set of guidelines has been exacting and time-consuming. We would like to thank members of the task force for their enormous effort in compiling this document.

We look forward to your comments and suggestions. It is our hope to have a final draft completed by late 2008 with a published and online version available by August 2009.

Sincerely,

Michele F. Pacifico, Co-Chair
Archival Facilities Consultant

Thomas Wilsted, Co-Chair
Archival Facilities Consultant