The Best Practices Exchange (BPE) Program Committee is now accepting session proposals for our next unconference, which will be held May 18-20, 2026, at Indiana University Indianapolis in Indianapolis, IN.
Submit your proposal via this short form (https://forms.gle/KphBNMQcnsSYrL8E7) by Friday, November 21, 2025. Acceptance notifications will be sent in January 2026.
About BPE
BPE is a community of practitioners in the area of the management and preservation of digital information who gather annually to share experiences and have honest conversations about our work. It is an unconference in the sense that we prioritize providing a safe space for active participation and peer-to-peer learning both in the sessions and outside of them. Speakers and attendees come from a variety of backgrounds, including government and university archivists, library and information science educators, technologists, special collection librarians, records managers, and product developers.
This year’s theme: Sustaining Best Practices – Humans Required
Since 2006, the Best Practices Exchange (BPE) has brought together practitioners to share ideas and strategies for managing, preserving, and providing access to digital information. As we celebrate our 20th anniversary, we invite you to join us in reflecting on what sustains the work we do and the people who do it.
For BPE 2026, we are seeking proposals that explore how we maintain and evolve “best practices” in a rapidly changing world. Possible topics include—but are not limited to:
- The impacts of reduction in budgets and grant funding
- How do we sustain digital work in a largely grant-funded world?
- How do we advocate for funding to stakeholders? How do we justify the long-term funding commitment required to simply maintain and steward what we already have?
- Strategies for sustaining professional ethics in a shifting societal landscape
- Navigating new laws and requirements (e.g. DEI changes, ADA Title II compliance)
- Environmental impact of digital infrastructure
- Keeping our professional ethics (i.e., ALA and SAA code of ethics) and judgement to align with changing technologies
- Balancing our authentic selves and professional ethics while responding to emerging directives
- The positive and negative impacts of AI on digital preservation and access
- Practical applications
- Mitigating bias in AI algorithms
- AI as an enhancement of human intelligence – supporting professional expertise rather than replacing it
- Navigating the tension between user access and protecting infrastructure against AI bots
- How do we sustain the people who do this work?
- Strategies for addressing burnout, retention, and workload balance
Tips for creating a strong proposal
A strong proposal for BPE is one that is:
- Based on real-world examples and experiences
- Open and honest
- Examines successes and key factors to that success
OR
- Examines failures and discusses steps taken to rework ideas or lessons learned
- Includes practical take-ways
- Encourages active participation from attendees
*Please note that sessions will not be recorded.
Session formats
Sessions can be designed for a variety of formats including a full 45-minute presentation or panel discussion, a 20-minute presentation that may be combined with a complementary presentation to create a full session, a 10-minute lightning talk, a workshop offering hands-on experience, or use your imagination!
We welcome new ideas and will do our best to accommodate them.
BPE also offers birds of a feather sessions that provide space for ad hoc, peer-to-peer learning based on a specific topic. These sessions lean toward being less structured, but topics and general goals for discussions will receive a light review. Please submit your birds of a feather session ideas via the short form for proposals. Some examples of past topics can be found here.
Looking for more information?
Find more information about the 2026 unconference here: https://bpexchange.wordpress.com/2026-conference/. View programs from past conferences here for examples of topics and session formats.
Interested in collaborating with others on a particular topic? Connect with others about potential proposals: BPE Proposals Brainstorming Spreadsheet
Publishing in the Archives Profession 