What is Archival Solidarity

The International Council of Archives (ICA) Section for Professional Records Management and Archives Associations (SPA) Steering Committee created the Archival Solidarity Working Group in 2000 to begin work on the establishment of a program for foreign assistance projects.  

The working group carried out the following activities between 2000 and 2004:

• It prepared a mandate/mission statement that was approved by the SPA Steering Committee.   It was presented at a SPA meeting in Marseille in 2002.  
• It carried out an extensive information gathering exercise on current and recent outreach projects.   The project began in July 2002 and ended in April 2004, and it included questionnaires and personal contacts, postings to listserves and gathering of information from other sources.  
• It developed and refined a database with detailed information for more than 120 projects that took place in nearly 70 countries.  
• It developed basic guiding principles for Archival Solidarity.
• It worked with the SPA Steering Committee to organize a workshop session at the ICA Vienna Congress in August 2004.
• It presented a series of recommendations that were accepted by the SPA Steering Committee (Vienna meeting August 2004) concerning the ongoing functioning of Archival Solidarity.  

The recommendations made to the SPA Steering Committee in Vienna specified the following composition of the Archival Solidarity Committee (ASC):

• There will be not more than seven members, including members appointed by the SPA Steering Committee.
• The SPA Steering Committee will appoint one of its members to the ASC and that person will be the liaison between the ASC and the Steering Committee.   It is highly desirable that the appointee has knowledge of the workings of the ICA.
• The SPA Steering Committee will appoint a Chairperson.
• The group will designate one member as the Secretary.

In Vienna and the weeks following, the SPA Steering Committee:

• Appointed Trudy Peterson as the liaison between ASC and the Steering Committee
• Invited all the members of the earlier working group to join the new ASC

The Committee was not formally established until the spring 2005 meeting of the SPA Steering Committee.   Nancy Marrelli submitted to the Steering Committee an activity report for the Archival Solidarity project, recommendations on committee composition, and a detailed draft work plan.   At the April meeting Nancy was confirmed as chair of the committee and the recommendations and draft work plan were accepted with some amendments.  

Although the formal establishment of the committee did not take place until the spring meeting of the SPA Steering committee there was still a limited amount of activity beginning in the fall and winter 2004-05.   Committee work began in early 2006.