After many months of planning and development, the Society of American Archivists launched a redesigned website last week. Coordinated by SAA staff members, the new website reflects the work of many SAA constituent groups, including the Committee on Public Awareness (COPA) and the Committee on Advocacy and Public Policy (CAPP).

The four main goals of SAA’s 2014-2018 Strategic Plan.

As a reflection of SAA’s current Strategic Plan, which prioritizes Advocating for Archivists and Archives as Goal #1, “Advocacy” is now prominently featured on the website’s main navigation bar. In this context, SAA defines “Advocacy” as not only the shaping of public policy that impacts archives and archivists, but also includes the act of raising public awareness of archives collections, institutions, and professionals.

Advocacy links available directly from the main SAA page navigation bar.

Over the past year, COPA has worked to compile the many resources that lived throughout the former SAA website–on various sub-pages, constituent groups’ micro-sites, and external pages like this WordPress blog–and make them available in one centralized place on the redesigned website. These can now be found under “Resources & Toolkits” under Public Awareness.

The current list is just a starting point, with new additions to be added as they are identified. We welcome suggestions for additional Public Awareness resources and tools. They can be shared in the comments below, or e-mailed to archivesAWARE@archivists.org. As the ArchivesAWARE! blog was developed as a forum for sharing and discussing awareness-raising tools, tips, and experiences, we also welcome guest authors who want to highlight their resources on this blog, as a more dynamic compliment to the static Resources & Toolkits list!

Just as the Advocacy and Awareness pages will continue to evolve, so will the entire website continue to expand–and the SAA office is eager for feedback. Take the survey and share your thoughts over the next few weeks!