This report is required by County Board Resolution 16-3645 establishing an Archives Advisory Committee (AAC).

The mission of the Archives Advisory Committee (AAC) is to capture the history of Cook County Government and the role it played in the growth and development of the region, state and the nation. Additionally, the AAC is to coordinate documentation of the historical significance of each County agency and office, providing a context for County residents and employees for understanding the importance of their agency’s role in County government, past and present.

The AAC will determine and develop methodology and standards for historical evaluation of Cook County documents and records, and will identify options to preserve and store materials determined to have historical value and make those materials accessible to members of the public interested in researching county history.

The resolution indicated that AAC shall work closely with the President, the Board of Commissioners and all County elected and appointed officials to achieve goals of the Advisory Committee, taking into consideration all existing efforts at historic preservation by elected and appointed officials.

The initial membership of the Archives Advisory Committee consists of the following County officials or their designees: Secretary to the Board of Commissioners (Chair); Chief Administrative Officer; Chief of the Bureau of Asset Management; Chief Information Officer and the Executive Law Librarian. Consideration will be given to adding members to the committee with specific knowledge and expertise in establishing and operating governmental archives.

The members of the committee provide two different functions towards fulfilling the goals of the Committee. First, the members set goals and policies to be followed by committee staff (in the Secretary to the Board’s office) and the Historic Archive Liaisons.

Second, committee members are presented with various options for proceeding with certain aspects of this project and asked to approve the necessary steps. On a topic by topic basis, special committees will be formed to explore some of the arising issues in greater detail, relating to certain areas of expertise; for example, the creation of a physical archive vs. a virtual archive, the establishment of strong academic and professional partnerships, the search for outside sources of funding for our efforts.

Some of the AAC mission may already dovetail with an existing County project which an agency or department initiated relative to their own historical documents. Our intention is to not reinvent the wheel,

but to take advantage of the expertise which is already available within the County and linked to outside partners.

Three meetings of the Committee occurred since the resolution’s passing, 8/8/2016, 9/19/2016 and 4/17/2017. At the August meeting, the Committee approved the AAC Goals and Timeline, which appear below and on which this report is based. At the April meeting, the Committee approved this report, and established committees to examine further the issues related to the project. Those committees are:

In August 2016, a memo was sent to offices throughout Cook County, asking each to identify a Historical Archives Liaison to provide the AAC with local expertise for historical evaluation of documents related to the mission of your agency.

The Historical Archives Liaison for each department is, ideally:

• An individual with decision making responsibility for the department or agency;

• An individual with significant institutional knowledge of the department or agency;

• An individual familiar with the Records Management and Disposal process operated by the Bureau of Administration

The Historical Archives Liaison is the key person for AAC in initially evaluating each agency’s documents for historical significance.

The Historical Archives Liaison assists AAC in developing a history for each agency which will be made part of the overall history of County Government.

A meeting of the Historical Archives Liaisons was held on 9/19/2016. At that meeting, the role of the liaisons was described and guest speaker Dr. David Joens, Director, Illinois State Archives, Office of the Illinois Secretary of State addressed the group.

For further information and suggestions regarding the County Archives Project, please contact

Matthew DeLeon, Archives Advisory Committee Chair

(312) 603-6398

matthew.deleon@cookcountyil.gov

or

Lynne Turner, Deputy Secretary to the Board of Commissioners at

(312) 603-6398

lynne.turner@cookcountyil.gov

County Archives Project on Twitter: @CookCoArchives

County Archives Project on Instagram: @cookcountyarchives