Tag: SAA

CFP: Graduate Student Paper/Poster Proposal, SAA Annual Conference

To submit a paper or poster proposal, please complete the proposal form below no later than March 30.  (Proposals received after this date will not be considered.) E-mailed submissions or submissions in any other format will not be accepted.

SAA encourages broad participation in the ARCHIVES*RECORDS 2026. All presenters including speakers, session chairs, commentators, and poster presenters are limited to participating in one session. Please alert the 2026 Student Program Subcommittee if you have agreed to participate in another accepted session.

If presenters wish to attend any portion of the 2026 Annual Meeting, they will need to secure institutional or personal funding to register for the conference. SAA is not able to consider complimentary registration for student presenters.

Proposals are due on March 30.

Proposals received after this date will not be considered. If you have any questions, please contact conference@archivists.org. 

Submit a proposal.

Call for Nominations for the Archival History Article Award

The Archival History Section is now seeking nominations for its annual Archival History Article Award. The prize encourages and rewards an article or other short piece of excellence in the field of archival history, regardless of subject, time period, or national boundaries. Journal articles as well as stand-alone chapters in edited essay collections and anthologies will be considered for the award. Nominations may include works by archivists as well as by others writing scholarly articles on the history of records and archives. The work must be published in English during the previous calendar year (January-December 2025).

We encourage you to nominate your own work or that of a colleague. Please send your nominations to Elizabeth Jones-Minsinger (ejonesmins@haverford.edu) by Tuesday, March 10, 2026.

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

Upcoming Talk on A Practical Guidebook to Trauma-Informed Archival Practice, Feb. 25th

Please join us for the first public online talk of 2026 of the Society of American Archivists’ (SAA) Crisis, Disaster, and Tragedy Response Working Group (CDTRWG). 

CDTRWG maintains and updates SAA’s Documenting in Times of Crisis: A Resource Kit; develops and provides immediate and ongoing resources and response assistance to archivists, allied cultural heritage professionals, and their communities in times of tragedies, disasters, or other crises; and builds partnerships with organizations focused on relief efforts and cultural stewardship and preservation. As part of that partnership building, we are conducting a series of public talks in 2026 to hear about related work. 

Book launch for A Practical Guidebook to Trauma-Informed Archival Practice

Wednesday, February 25th 2026, 12 noon EST (9am PST; 5pm BST)

Register for the event

Summary

Join editors and authors, Michelle Ganz, Veronica Denison, and Sarah Aisenbrey as they discuss their new book about archival trauma. The authors will discuss their experiences with trauma and how it impacted their approach to archives and how the book can be used to develop your own policies around trauma.

Biographies

Sarah Aisenbrey has served as the Archivist for the Sisters of the Precious Blood in Dayton, Ohio since 2018. She also serves as Vice President/President-Elect of the Archivists for Congregations of Women Religious. Sarah became a Certified Archivist in 2020 and holds a Master’s in Public History from Wright State University.

Veronica Denison is an Assistant Professor, and the Digital Archivist and Special Collections Librarian at Rhode Island College. She received her MLIS from Simmons University in 2013 and has published articles and book chapters on disability and accessibility in the archival profession, as well as teaching with primary sources.

Michelle Ganz is the Archives Director for the Dominican Sisters of Peace. She has previously worked in academic, museum, corporate, and private archives. Michelle has served in section leadership roles in the Accessibility & Disability Section, the Independent Archivists Section, and was part of the working group who first developed the Best Practices for Working with Archives Researchers with Physical Disabilities in 2008. Michelle received her MLIS from the University of Arizona in 2006, her Archival Certification in 2008, and her Bachelors in Medieval literature from The Ohio State University in 2003.

The event will be recorded and be made available on the CDTRWG Website after the event. 

TS-DACS Seeks Presenters for Spring Webinar on “The Power of Dacs”

TS-DACS is seeking three presenters for a webinar centered on, “The Power of DACS,” to discuss how and why they have implemented DACS at their institution. We are looking for presenters who can answer questions such as: Why did you choose DACS as your descriptive standard? How have you used DACS to create finding aids and gain intellectual control over your institution’s collections? This webinar is meant to appeal to a broad audience and we are especially interested in presenters from various institution types and sizes.

The webinar will be held on April 24, 2026 1pm EST/10am PST and will last one hour. Presenters will each speak for 10 minutes, followed by a 20 minute Q&A. 

Please reach out to Sarah Jones (sarah.jones1@unlv.edu) if you are interested in presenting, or have any questions.

Thank you,

Sarah Jones (on behalf of the TS-DACS Education Subgroup)

Call for Preservation Coffee Chat Topics and Presenters

SAA’s Preservation Section hosts monthly Coffee Chats on the last Thursday of each month. These 45–60 minute sessions are virtual, not recorded, free, and open to all. We’re currently gathering topic suggestions as well as volunteers who would like to share informally about a project or subject that could spark conversation or broaden the group’s understanding of preservation-related issues at future coffee chats.

We welcome all ideas, topics, and proposals, big or small!

If you’re interested in suggesting a topic, presenting, or simply have questions, please reach out to me at jkeel@nedcc.org.

Please feel free to share this announcement widely. 

Jesse Keel
SAA Preservation Section Steering Committee

CFP: SAA Records Management Section Annual Colloquium

This colloquium is a great way to share your records management expertise and connect with your colleagues! We are seeking proposals for short presentations (6-12 minutes) on records management topics. The colloquium will be held virtually and is scheduled for Thursday, April 30, 2026 from 2-3:30 PM ET.

If you are interested in presenting, please complete the following proposal form no later than Friday, February 27, 2026. Late proposals will not be accepted. We will review proposals and notify presenters by the end of February.

The event will be free!

Send any questions or concerns to the section chair, Autumn Oakey, at oakeyaf13@uww.edu.

Please find the form here: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/…

SAA RMS Committee

New Issue: American Archivist

In issue 88.2 of American Archivist, Alex H. Poole and Ashley Todd-Diaz evaluate the efficacy of North American graduate archival education curriculum; Elizabeth Joffrion considers the history and current situation of state archives; and Sonia Yaco, Bala Desinghu, Claire Warwick, and Richard Anderson share their research findings after testing thirty-three software tools to explore how AI can be used in special collections to improve accessibility and discoverability.

This issue also includes seven reviews of recent publications in archival literature that explore historical collecting around the Panama Canal, the development of archives on the internet, disability and archives, and much more!

From the Editor

No Time (Not) to Read
Amy Cooper Cary

Articles

“Putting It into Practice Is the Best Way to Really Learn Something”: Evaluating the North American Graduate Archival Education Curriculum
Alex H. Poole and Ashley Todd-Diaz

Charting a Profession: A Comparative Analysis of Seven Regional Archival Journals and American Archivist, 2013–2023
Daines, J. Gordon, Coulter Gill, Ryan K. Lee, and Cory L. Nimer

The State of American State Archives (Revisited)
Elizabeth Joffrion

Instilling Primary-Source Research Confidence in Undergraduate History Majors: Insight into Instructional Impact and Student Preferences
Matthew Gorzalski

The Mumia Rules for Carceral Collecting
Murphy, Mary O., and Amanda M. Knox

“I Despise It, But It Works”: Social Media Outreach in Special Collections
Thomas, Nikki Lynn, Colleen Theisen, Juli McLoone, and Sean Heyliger

What Can AI Do for Special Collections?
Yaco, Sonia, Bala Desinghu, Claire Warwick, and Richard Anderson

Reviews

From Local to Global: Variety in the Archival Literature
Rose Buchanan and Stephanie Luke

Box 25: Archival Secrets, Caribbean Workers, and the Panama Canal
Katie Sutrina-Haney

Scattered and Fugitive Things: How Black Collectors Created Archives and Remade History
Gabrielle Dean

Averting the Digital Dark Age: How Archivists, Librarians, and Technologists Built the Web a Memory
Kailyn Slater

Beyond Evidence: The Use of Archives in Transitional Justice
Sarah R. Demb

Preserving Disability: Disability and the Archival Profession
Moira Armstrong

Records and Information Management
Brady Kal Cox

The Handbook of Archival Practice
Audie Robinson

Call for Nominations: SAA Publications Awards

More information

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