NWDA Membership
What NWDA Members Receive
NWDA members receive a number of benefits from membership. The
most important benefit of consortium membership is that the consortium can do
things that most of our members would not be able to do on their own. Membership
is a cost-effective way to expand services and improve efficiency. The increased
access that EAD finding aids offer bolsters institution's ability to serve their
researchers.
Members gain the ability to create EAD finding aids and add
those finding aids to the NWDA database, which provides a cross-search
capability for member institutions, currently 31 across five states, and places
members' collections into context with related collections from other
institutions. In a recent test, the NWDA database provided more comprehensive
coverage of archival and special collections materials in the Northwest than
WorldCat, the National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections, or Summit.
In support of this tool, the consortium allocates the staffing
to:
- Provide database administration;
- Develop and program the search and retrieval system (one of the more
advanced SR systems available for a database of EAD finding aids);
- Develop and support tools for encoding and verifying the compliance of
finding aids;
- Produce reports in support of assessment activities;
- Support and respond to usability testing;
- Support stylesheet programming and maintenance;
- Provide technical consultation on the program's best practices;
- Provide long-term maintenance in the form of global changes/updates.
The consortium also centralizes a number of other technical
functions:
- Purchase of software and hardware for the search and retrieval system;
- Stylesheet development and support;
- Website support;
- Email communications;
- Usability testing;
- Developing and maintaining the consortium's best practices;
- Dealing with compliance issues.
In support of the database for
researcher use, and in support of the professional development of individuals at
member institutions, the consortium develops and delivers considerable training
to its members. This training is delivered either in dedicated sessions or in
continuing education sessions at in-person meetings. The training session for
new members focuses on EAD best practices both the larger universe of EAD and
the NWDA Best Practices. This training incorporates the basic requirements of
DACS and now also includes an outline of MPLP so that members can continue to
test and implement the Greene-Meissner approach to processing collections. The
Program Manager delivers this training. The consortium brings necessary Society
of American Archivists workshops to the region as needed, reducing travel costs
for its members. Consortium membership also provides each member a ready set of
colleagues with whom to consult.
In support of the technical and training functions, the
consortium provides administrative, financial, and marketing services. These
include:
- Governance;
- Communications in and out of the consortium;
- Coordination of the overall program;
- Money management;
- Grant administration;
- Dissemination to research communities;
- General administrative support;
- Identifying and applying for grants;
- Negotiation and management for contracted services;
- Recruiting new members;
- Developing new programs.
What NWDA Members Give
In exchange for all of the above, members give money (membership fees) and time (service on administrative or working groups). The extent to
which members contribute finding aids to the database is entirely at the
discretion of the member; the consortium does not set specific yearly quotas or
goals for its members to meet.
NWDA members need not be full members of the Orbis Cascade Alliance.
NWDA members retain copyright of the finding aids they place in
the NWDA database and receive all due credit for their participation in all
dissemination efforts.
Adding and Withdrawing Members
NWDA welcomes new members and has ongoing programs to recruit
and train new members. Prospective member institutions must be located in
Washington, Oregon, Alaska, Idaho, or Montana; have archival collections; and
have the capacity to both contribute fees and to give time to governance and
committee work.
In their first year of membership, new participants pay a
one-time $1,000 start-up fee plus associated trainer travel costs and that
portion of the annual fee that is assessed equally to every member, prorated
according to start date. Each participating institution designates one
individual to represent it on the NWDA Committee. Those representatives will
attend a yearly in-person held in conjunction with the annual meetings of Northwest Archivists.
Membership fees for new members in FY09 are:
• Large public 4-year academic (more than 15,000 FTE students): $6600
• Medium public 4-year academic (10,000-15,000 FTE students): $3400
• Small public 4-year academic (less than 10,000 FTE students): $1800
• Public 2-year academic: $1800
• Private 4-year academic: $3400
• Non-academic (Historical society, museum, state library, state archives, municipal archives): $3400
The above fees give an institution unlimited capability to contribute finding aids to the database. Institutions that wish to participate in a smaller way, in the short or long term, by having less then 20 finding aids in the database, receive a 25% discount on their membership category fee.
Because the above fees represent a change for current NWDA members between FY08 and FY09, current members will pay fees in FY09 and FY10 in accordance with the cost distribution recommended to and adopted by the Alliance Council on 21 March 2008.
NWDA members sign a general Memorandum of Understanding with the Orbis Cascade Alliance.
As with any program, institutions may decided to discontinue participation at some point. Members who wish to withdraw have two options. Dollar figures are for FY08 and FY09 as of 8 April 2008:
- Withdraw from NWDA but continue to have finding aids accessible via the NWDA web site. Former members retain the right to modify and update their finding aids, but relinquish their voice in consortium administration and the presentation of finding aids. For this options, former members pay a one-time fee of $300 to be withdrawn from the administrative structure and an annual maintenance fee of $150 per finding aid.
- Withdraw completely from NWDA, and remove finding aids from the NWDA database. For this option, the withdrawing member is responsible for all costs associated with the removal of finding aids from the technical infrastructure and for removing the institution from the administrative infrastructure, for which the one-time fee is $600.
If your institution is interested in participating, please contact NWDA staff!
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