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 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 (member 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.

New Members Welcome

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 institutuion 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.

See the "New Participants" worksheet from the Planning Budget for FY08 for the FY08 costs to participating institutions.

If your institution is interested in participating, please contact NWDA staff!

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Last update: 18 June 2007 by Jodi Allison-Bunnell.