New website changes

A new design and layout for the SCSAA website is now up! The navigation bar has moved from the side to the top and some of the background colors have changed. The biggest changes, however, are that some of the pages have been consolidated and some information has been moved around. News as well as information about upcoming trips is now available directly on our home page. Contact information and a list of current officers is now on the about page. There is also a new archives page which contains links to past meeting minutes as well as trip recaps. Finally the academic and professional resources pages have been consolidated into one section.

The changes are designed to combine pages with similar functions as well as to make information easier to find. For example, if you want to find out when the date for an upcoming trip is, you do not need to navigate away from the home page. These changes will also pave the way for the addition of further information at some point in the future. In general, I envision the site as a repository of information pertaining to SCSAA and the new layout reflects that. Be on the look out for additional changes throughout the summer. Comments are encouraged! I very much appreciate feedback on the new design.

The Environmental Impact of Electronc Records

There was an interesting article in the New York Times examining the potential environmental impact of using electronic medical records. Basically they could be either positive or negative depending on how they are implemented. The article does not address archives, but it raises the question of what the impact of digital records will be on them. Will they reduce trips to the archives and therefore reduce gas consumption? It is difficult to tell for certain since making records available digitally allows for access by users who might not have set foot in the archives in the first place. Clearly more research is needed.

Have a Great Summer

We here at SCSAA would like to wish you a great summer. For those of you who are taking summer classes or have internships, good luck. Likewise we wish the best of luck to anybody graduating this semester. We hope to see everyone else in the fall.