Category: Research

Call for Participation: FIAT/IFTA Survey on Archives & Ethics

The FIAT/IFTA Value, Use and Copyright Commission has launched a new project focusing on ethical issues related to archival content – both in connection with republication online and in relation to metadata containing terms that are now considered harmful or inappropriate.

The discussion on this topic began at the World Conference in Rome in October 2025, with an expert roundtable featuring an open exchange on ethical considerations.

The next steps in the project are this survey, which explores how you address ethical questions in your work, followed by an Online Experts Roundtable on May 19, 2026 at 14:00 CEST, with archive experts who engage with ethical issues in their professional practice.

Your participation is essential to help us understand current practices and guide future discussions. The survey should take around 15 minutes to complete.

We ask for your email address to be able to contact you if we have any additional questions in relation with your answers. We will not share your email address with anyone or use it on mailing lists without your permission.

Thank you for your valuable input. You can contact FIAT/IFTA at: office@fiatifta.org

Link to survey

Invitation to participate: Teaching with Primary Sources and New Information Professionals

My colleagues and I would like to invite you to participate in a short survey that focuses on the education and experiences of new professionals who teach with primary sources. 

The purpose of this study is to learn more about the training, if any, those who teach with primary sources receive formally in grad programs or informally through mentoring, workshops, etc. Anyone over the age of 18 who is a new library or archives professional (<5 years in the field) is eligible to participate. If you decide to participate, you will be asked to answer approximately 25 multiple choice and free-response questions, which should take about 15 minutes to complete. Please do not put any information in your response that could be used to identify you. The informed consent and survey are available at towson.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_9FYnjm8mvfa5rQW.

Data gathered by this survey will be shared with the Society of American Archivists and we are seeking to publish the aggregate results. Anticipated benefits of this study include greater insight into the background and needs of new professionals in regards to pedagogical training for archivists and librarians. 

The survey will be live until mid-April 2026. If you have any questions, please contact the Principal Investigator, Ashley Todd-Diaz (atodddiaz@towson.edu). 

Sincerely,

Ashley Todd-Diaz (atodddiaz@towson.edu)

Abigail Nye (anye@uwm.edu)

Josue Hurtado (josue.hurtado@temple.edu)

Lindsay Anderberg (landerberg@nyu.edu)

Morgen MacIntosh Hodgetts (MMACINTO@depaul.edu)

Call for Participation: Contingent Employment Study III (CES III) Survey

New England Archivists’ Contingent Employment Study III (CES III) Survey is open through August 31, 2026, and seeks participants who have been contingently employed in New England in the past ten years.

We want to hear directly from you about your current or recent experiences in temporary or term positions. Follow the link to learn more, take the survey, and share with your friends and coworkers: forms.gle/XMPitYqtXeq1mowx8.

CES III aims to help NEA better understand and support New England’s archival workers in temporary or term positions. This third iteration of the study measures the ways the archival profession has progressed or failed to progress in creating equitable employment opportunities in the years since CES II in 2021 and CES I in 2016. The current sociopolitical and economic climate is a key part of this landscape, and CES III has updated the survey with new questions related to the job market, anti-DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) developments, funding cuts, changes to student loans, and artificial intelligence use in the profession.

Questions for the research team are welcome and can be directed to Elizabeth Nosari, CES III chair, at CEStudy@newenglandarchivists.org.

Thank you,

Sally Blanchard-O’Brien

Erica Buswell

Alexandra Dunn

Irene Gates

Nicole Gómez

Mollie Metevier

Elizabeth Nosari

Clarrie Scholtz

Call for Proposals: Media Studies Grant 2026

The Media Studies Grant call for proposals is open until March 15th, 2026.

Download the full call for proposals. (there is extensive detail)

The 2026 Call for Proposals for the Media Studies Grant is now open for applications. The FIAT/IFTA Media Studies Commission is looking to commission two small-scale research projects that deal with one or more of the following core themes: audiovisual archives and public service value, memory and identity through the lens of audiovisual archives, precarity in audiovisual archives, and audiovisual archives in the Latin American context.

The Media Studies Grant aims to promote archive-based research and ensure the valorization of scientific knowledge for archival practice. Junior and senior researchers from across different disciplines (e.g. media studies, history, sociology, political sciences, cultural studies, environmental studies, anthropology, conflict studies, etc.) are encouraged to apply. We particularly encourage researchers from outside Europe to apply.

Requirements

  • Candidates are required to send in their application in PDF format by 15 March 2026;
  • Applications should be emailed to: msc@fiatifta.org.
  • Awarded candidates need to sign a funding agreement with FIAT/IFTA;
  • Awarded candidates should report back on their work in progress to the Media Studies Commission at regular intervals, as specified in the funding agreement;
  • Awarded candidates are expected to deliver by the end of their grant period:
    • A written research report at the quality standards of a scholarly article but written for a readership made up of broadcast archivists.
    • A discussion of their research findings at the FIAT/IFTA World Conference in São Paulo, Brazil, 6-9 October 2026, pitched to an audience of FIAT/IFTA members.
    • A short video to be distributed further on social media and which highlights some of the interesting discoveries, curiosities or inspirations of their research.
    • Other forms of creative output aiming to disseminate the research findings to a wider audience are encouraged (e.g. audiovisual essay, an interactive digital story, creative demo, etc.). Please make sure there are no copyright restrictions for the archival material you may want to re-use in this type of output.
  • All output needs to mention the support of FIAT/IFTA and should be made available to FIAT/IFTA.
  • Candidates may be asked for promotional interviews and/or to share their research progress during an online session.
  • FIAT/IFTA reserves the right to make accessible the output of funded studies on its own website.
  • Proposed studies can be part of a bigger project (e.g. a PhD dissertation, book project, etc.) or can be stand-alone research initiatives that the candidate wishes to pursue.

Call for Proposals for the 2026 SAA Research Forum, due May 1, 2026

May 1 DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSION OF ABSTRACTS FOR THE SAA RESEARCH FORUM 

On behalf of the 2026 Research Forum Committee, we invite you to submit abstracts (of 300 words or fewer) for either 10-minute platform presentations or 5-minute lightning talks. Topics may address research on, or innovations in, any aspect of archives practice or records management in government, corporate, academic, scientific, or other settings.

The 2026 Research Forum will be conducted as two Zoom-based virtual sessions, each four hours long, on July 8 from 12:00 – 4:00 pm CT and July 15, 12:00 – 4:00 pm CT.

The 2026 Research Forum will be made up of 10-minute platform presentations and 5-minute lightning talks. A limited number of presentations will be accepted to allow for longer presentation times, extended Q&A periods, and opportunities for discussion between attendees. An abstract submission rubric will be used by the Committee to evaluate submissions. Before submitting, please review and adhere to the Norms and Recommendations of the American Archivist Generative AI Statement. The Research Forum webpage provides additional information about the schedule and links to past Forum proceedings.

The Research Forum Committee and CORDA encourage submissions on a range of topics, including:

  • Rethinking archival training
  • Demonstrating the value of archives
  • Collaborating with communities
  • Making archives more accessible
  • Engaging with technology
  • Responding to the climate crisis

These themes can be found in the SAA Research Agenda (first draft available here).

Abstracts will be evaluated by the 2026 Research Forum Committee convened by Emily Lapworth (University of Massachusetts Boston) and Jane Fiegel (Tulane University).

Deadline for submission of abstracts: May 1, 2026.

Proposals can be submitted online here. On the submission form, please indicate whether you intend a platform presentation or a lightning talk.

Best,

Emily Lapworth and Jane Fiegel

2026 SAA Research Forum Coordinators

Call for research participation: Seeking MLIS, PhD students and faculty perspectives for Schomburg Study

My name is Manuel Mendez, and I’m leading a research project titled “Arturo Schomburg and Library and Information Science: A Multi-Method Analysis.” The project aims to explore the extent to which MLIS, PhD students, and faculty know about Arturo Schomburg’s library (bibliographic) and archival (curatorial) practices. 

Participants will be asked to complete a 20-minute survey questionnaire and an optional 20-30-minute follow-up interview. Participants will receive a $20 Tango card within 2 weeks. 

The study seeks to elucidate Arturo Schomburg’s LIS practices and to identify methods for integrating them into MLIS curricula. 

Involvement in this study is voluntary, and all responses will remain strictly confidential. Participants can withdraw from the study at any point. Stringent measures will be implemented to safeguard data integrity. 

You can sign up for the study by visiting our link below. If you have any questions, please contact the researcher directly at mduranme@umd.edu.

Participation link: https://umdsurvey.umd.edu/jfe/form/SV_4T4eYQA6ryP4LKC 

Manuel Julio Durán Méndez, PhD Candidate

University of Maryland, College Park

College of Information

Call for Participation: Researching Accessibility in Archives

Please Respond by the end of February 2026 to participate: 

A student researcher at the University of Maryland is seeking practitioners and managers working in libraries, archives, or museums to participate in a research study on the processes of creating, revising, and implementing accessibility policies in their institution or department. Maisie Jones, a Ph.D. Candidate in Information at the University of Maryland College of Information is the PI of the Investigating Accessibility Policies in Archives research project. Funded by the UMD College of Information’s Frank E. Burke Graduate Research Award, this project seeks interviews from current cultural heritage managers and practitioners who have experience creating or revising internal policies, especially around accessibility, digital accessibility, or disability and accommodation.

This research is focused on learning more about what kinds of accessibility policies exist in the profession and the role those policies play in the work of libraries, archives, and museums. Practitioners who accept to participate in this project will take part in a semi-structured interview about their institution, policies, standards of practice, workflows, and the role of accessibility or digital accessibility and accommodations within their library, archive, and/or museum.

The interview will last roughly 30 minutes to an hour over the Zoom video teleconferencing platform. With consent from the interview participant, the interview audio will be captured and transcribed. There is no expectation for interview participants to be named either personally or by the name of their employer or institution. All publications or reports will default to anonymity unless a pseudonym is otherwise suggested by the participant. Participants in this research can be compensated for their time.

Please contact the project PI, Maisie Jones, at majones@umd.edu with any questions or to schedule a time for the research interview.

Maisie Jones

Doctoral Candidate in Information (ABD)            

University of Maryland College of Information

majones@umd.edu

Call for Participation: practices and attitudes of generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) refusal amongst academic library workers in the United States

We are a faculty member and graduate student in the Information, Library and Research Sciences Department at the University of North Carolina – Greensboro, and we are conducting a research study to explore the practices and attitudes of generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) refusal amongst academic library workers in the United States. This survey will ask you questions about your attitudes and practices related to generative AI at your workplace.

The survey is open to anyone who works in an academic or university library in the United States. If you are a paraprofessional, student worker, or professional librarian in an academic or university library, we welcome your participation. Employees at university, college, community college, and special or branch libraries at an academic institution qualify to participate in this survey. You must be 18 years of age or older to participate.

The survey is expected to take about 15-20 minutes to complete. Participation is totally voluntary, and respondents can stop filling out the survey at any point. At the end of the survey, you will be asked if you would like to participate in a follow-up interview to further elaborate on your thoughts on this topic; participation in the interview is also entirely voluntary. Respondents will not receive any compensation for filling out this survey, though this information may contribute to the development of policy recommendations to support AI refusal in academic libraries. Responses will be anonymized to protect participants’ privacy.

Please review the full information sheet on the next page. After reviewing this sheet, we will ask you to agree to participate in the survey.

Survey form

Call for Participation: Food in Collections Survey

We are a group of archivists and librarians at Oberlin College working to quantify the impact of food in collections. We are asking you to consider participating in a brief Qualtrics survey about food in museum, library, or archival collections. The purpose of the survey is to assess inherent vice within different types of collections and its impact on preservation and conservation priorities. We are surveying librarians, curators, collections managers, conservators, and archivists from collecting institutions who are at least 18 years old and who currently work in the United States. 

Participation in this survey is entirely voluntary. Should you agree to participate in the survey, your responses will be kept confidential. Your anonymized data will be used for analysis. This study, Protocol AY25-26-ER-02, has been deemed exempt by Oberlin College’s institutional ethics board. For questions related to this survey and your rights as a participant or information about its IRB approval, please contact Associate Archivist Emily Rebmann (erebmann@oberlin.edu) or the Oberlin College Institutional Review Board, Cox 101, (440-775-8410) or email: ocirb@oberlin.edu.

To learn more about the project or to take the survey, please use this link. The Qualtrics survey will remain open until February 28, and we anticipate that it will take no more than 10 minutes to complete. 

Thank you for your consideration,

Emily Rebmann, Eugénie Fortier, and Gena Reynolds

Open Call for Feedback: A Research Agenda for SAA

We are pleased to announce that the first version of the SAA Research Agenda Draft (SAA-RAD) is now available for public comment. 

The SAA-RAD aims to provide SAA and its membership with a focused, practical agenda to guide prioritized research on the archival profession’s most pressing issues over the next 5 years.

The SAA Research Agenda project is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program grant.

To read more context about the project, view and comment on the draft, see the Research Agenda microsite.

The deadline to submit feedback is January 30, 2026. 

With kind regards,

Chris Marino (Project Director), Jane Fiegel, Jennifer King, Emily Lapworth, Dennis Meissner