Council of State Archivists
organization headquartered in Albany, New York, United States
The Council of State Archivists (CoSA) is a non-profit membership association of the United States state and territorial government archives.
Originally established as the Council of State Historical Records Coordinators (COSHRC) in 1989, CoSA incorporated as a non-profit in 2002. Current program priorities include the State Electronic Records Initiative (SERI), publishing guidance on email archiving, and providing a network of support.
In 2018, the Society of American Archivists recognized CoSA with the Distinguished Service Award for the organization's significant contributions to the archives profession.
History
State Historical Records Advisory Boards (SHRAB) were first proposed in 1975 in a report from Herbert Angel to the recently formed National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC), chaired by the Archivist of the United States. Each SHRAB is led by an appointed State Coordinator. After several years of work and recognizing their need to carry out their mandate across the various archival association missions, the State Coordinators formed the Council of State Historical Records Coordinators (COSHRC) in 1989, maintaining close ties to the NHPRC.
In the early years of COSHRC, membership expanded to include State Historical Records Coordinators and the Deputy State Coordinators. These archival leaders issued many reports to document and guide work related to historical records and archives in coordination with their peers in other organizations, such at the Society of American Archivists (SAA), the National Association of Government Archives and Records Administrators (NAGARA), and the American Association for State and Local History (AASLH).
Under the leadership of Peter Gottlieb (COSHRC Steering Committee Chair, 2000), the Council started planning for its future and its continued relationship with the NHPRC, and in 2002, the work Gottlieb started took shape when COSHRC incorporated as an independent 501(c)(3) organization. The shifting mission and priorities of the group also motivated a name change in 2005 to the Council of State Archivists (CoSA).
“Council of State Archivists” enters the record as organization headquartered in Albany, New York, United States. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Council, State and Archivists can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Council of State Archivists” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Council, State and Archivists provides the most credible route into that argument.
Contemporary correspondence, administrative files and participant testimony can test how later narratives organized the event or institution. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 16, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q30289646. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1989, 2002, 2018 and 1975.
Institutional narratives can privilege the records that survived while minimizing voices that were never formally collected. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.
- Event chronology
- Institutional context
- Locating named record creators
Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Council of State Archivists”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Council of State Archivists primary sources, Council of State Archivists archive and Council research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Council of State Archivists”?
- Who created the surviving record, and for what administrative purpose?
- What chronology connects this entry to wider political or social change?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Council of State Archivists” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.