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Session Ideas - Full Call for ProposalsYour Name & Contact InfoAnything else? Session type?Interested folks name & contact info (include short note on how you will contribute)Interested folks name & contact info (include short note on how you will contribute)Interested folks name & contact info (include short note on how you will contribute)Interested folks name & contact info (include short note on how you will contribute)Interested folks name & contact info (include short note on how you will contribute)Interested folks name & contact info (include short note on how you will contribute)Interested folks name & contact info (include short note on how you will contribute)Interested folks name & contact info (include short note on how you will contribute)
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Accessibility issues - implementing measures to overcome accessibility barriers, partnering with disability communities, acquiring collections highlighting collections of groups/people with disabilities, incorporating accessibility into archival pedagogy, etc. Kelsey O'Connell (she/her), kelsey.oconnell@northwestern.eduPanel presentation or roundtableKelsey O'Connell, Catie Huggins, and Dana Lamparello (Northwestern); improving accessibility measures in the Reading Room: changes to policies and workflows, accommodation requests workflow for patrons, physical room improvements, remediation to electronic documents for compliance with assistive technologiesKate Orazem (University of Iowa, katherine-orazem@uiowa.edu); I'd be interested in speaking about my work on alt text, including: the relative lack of archival perspectives in alt text literature and some reflections on our particular needs/priorities as curators of archival images online); some specific tips/tricks I have used to improve alt text for our public-facing archival materials (e.g. how to make text-heavy images work in a LibGuide); and our work to develop consistent "house style"-type guidance on these issues, such as when and how we describe racial identity in alt textAmy Malventano (Northern Kentucky University, malventana1@nku.edu). At Northern Kentucky University’s Steely Library, I am leading a Digital Accessibility Action Team that is assessing barriers across library and archival resources and developing practical workflows for remediation, accessibility requests, and staff training. I could share how collaboration with campus accessibility partners and scenario-based discussions are helping us translate accessibility requirements into sustainable archival practices, particularly for legacy digital collections.
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Bridging Disciplines. Ex: UNK has been working with the Biology Department and birding organization to digitize materials; Bio is entering those into online tools and planning re-surveys of original observation sites while we are able to use it in primary source instruction. Laurinda Weisse weissell@unk.edu
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Taking the 'scary' out of deaccessioning: it's a vital part of what we do, but many of us get the heebie jeebies when the word is even mentioned! I'd like to explore examples in our literature (Mark Greene, among others) and have practical examples of current deaccession practices that makes it a holistic and less 'scary' part of our work.April Anderson-Zorn, aander2@ilstu.eduPanel presentationAnnie Benefiel, abenefiel@butler.edu; I've been involved with some sizable deaccessions at my previous institution, as well as dealt with the fallout of a mishandled deaccession by a former colleague. I'd be happy to contribute some important decision making points and lessons learned. Matt Gorzalski; mgorz@siu.edu - I might be able to speak to deaccessioning regrets, or decisions made in haste. I can also speak to revising our deaccession form which is influenced by state law and the SAA best practices. I don't know if I have any lessons learned other than how it changed my deaccession approach/process/thinking.Megan Mummey - megan.mummey@uky.edu. I could talk about this from multiple angels. We just moved out of our building (it is getting renovated) and had to let go of some collections that no longer served our institution. Additionally, I've jumped through my institutions multiple bureaucratic hoops to transfer collections to other non-profit institutions.Mae Casey (mmc6974@psu.edu) and Cassie Florian (cmf6200@psu.edu); we've been undergoing a massive project with what was once known as the "Relics collection;" it has involved deaccessioning to multiple external partners, responsible disposal of materials, repatriation to other collections, and finally the creation of a new collection.
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How is AI being incorporated into archives education? The economic and cultural ascent of generative AI has prompted repeated calls from within the archives profession to reconsider how we train archivists to be more prepared for an AI-dominated reality. This session will gather archives educators to discuss the evolving role of AI in preparing archives professionals for this future.Brad Wiles, bwiles@niu.eduPanel or RoundtableDonald Force, force@uwm.edu; Will report on experiences with AI from an instructor's perspective, as well as overall trends appear in the LIS/Archives education landscape.
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Backlog/collection management as a data issue. How have you utilized data of any kind to inform decisions regarding accessioning, processing, or any other aspect of archival stewardship?

For instance, I have developed a Python script to analyze raw accessions data generated from ArchivesSpace custom reports. The script applies a weighted scoring model to rank our backlogged accessions based on time in backlog, general priority, and alignment with our collection development policy. This system helps us prioritize the processing of our extensive backlog, ensuring that the collections we process emphasize our current collection development focus.		Evan Brandon, evanbran@umich.eduPanel presentationSteven Gentry (University of Iowa) - steven-gentry@uiowa.edu

Can report out on the original scoring model developed at the Bentley Historical Library, the further refinement and development of the tool subsequently as a software package that can be adapted at other institutions.(which will be subsequently published in a forthcoming book chapter), and how it is / will be at the University of Iowa.
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Getting creative with social media to engage with students at a small private college as a solo archivist.

I would also be open to expanding this to other types of outreach initiatives that allow solo archivists or small archives teams to connect with constituents in unique, fun ways.		Hannah Hacker-Snyder, hackersh@lawrence.eduPanel or RoundtableSarah Young (Kirkwood Community College) - sarah.young@kirkwood.edu - I can talk about how I used existing relationships and outreach opportunities in order to reach new stakeholders (President, our foundation, athletics, etc.) at a large, public community college as a solo archivist (and archivist is only half of my job duties - so I really need to do outreach in small, targeted ways that will make a bigger impact and ended up using a lot of skills/ideas from my "past life" as a political organizer to achieve this).StarRose Keyes-Lebergott - skeyeslebergott@luc.edu
Assistant University Archivist, Loyola University Chicago. Small archives team with no dedicated outreach staff; I run the archives’ social media. I can speak to social media outreach under limited capacity, including conducting an audit, building engagement, and tracking results to figure out what works.
(Only if needed) Colleen Theisen colleen-theisen@uiowa.edu Hannah, if you don't find enough people, I could say a bit more about the data that we collected that didn't fit in last year's American Archivist article, "“I Despise It, But It Works”: Social Media Outreach in Special Collections" that is relevant to your topic, but, I wouldn't want to take a spot from anyone else! https://american-archivist.kglmeridian.com/view/journals/aarc/88/2/article-p404.xml
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Roundtable discussion on perspectives from early career archivists. Possible topics: The current state of the archives job market and/or advice for those searching, transitioning from the theoretical (grad school) to the practical (on the job work), navigating generational change in the workplace, starting an archival career during an era of technological change (transitions towards digital archives, impact of AI, etc), inheriting legacy collections and archival debt. For context, I finished my MSIS in 2024, and I've been in my current role for just over two years.Evalyn Stow, stoweval@msu.eduRoundtableBecca Taylor (University of Kentucky) - becca.taylor@uky.edu - graduated MLS in 2025 working in an achivist position since Fall 2024 (almost 2 years). So far I've spent a lot of time grappeling with unruly legacy collections including backlogs of collections that desperately need to be weeded and reprocessed. This presents challenges as I learn the job. Fixing problems has pros and cons as a way to learn. But spending time imersed in collections processed to different standards than we would use today has given me some bad processing habits. Evan Brandon (University of Michigan) - evanbran@umich.edu

I finished my MLS in 2025, held a position at Indiana University for just over a year before joining UM. I've had a lot of thoughts about "survivor's guilt" regarding the job market, having now held 2 positions, and I've spoken to IU's student SAA chapter (trying to) give advice about navigating the job market while I was in my first job. I can also speak to archival debt, efforts to reduce backlogs, etc. 		Jo Otremba (Purdue) - jotremba@purdue.edu I have an interesting case where I'm 2.5 years into my position and I'm in a spot where I'm providing career advice and mentorship on graduate school for undergrads interested in the field of archives or museums. As someone still fresh from grad school, I can share with students (either undergrad student employees or in the semester long Introduction to Archives and Musuems course I co-teach) my experiences with application tracking tools, resume and cover letter writing, and holding discussions on the comptetition within the field.Daniel Cichowlas (MSU) - Graduated in December 2024 and joined MSU back in March 2026 for my first permanant full time position. Have a lot of insight into translating/developing skillsets not gained through the classroom, career advice/job search, how skillsets from previous career work translated to this field, and definitely issues surrounding immense amounts of archival debt and how to handle try and tackle something intimidating like that (developing workflows, untangling legacy workflows that make no sense, etc)
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Instruction: New uses of space and especially technology. We had a big shift to online instruction with new technology purchases in 2020. What survives? I teach in the MLIS Program at U. Iowa and teach in-person, hybrid, online synchronous, and also asynchronous, so, with the special collections team we have had to invent strategies to make visits to collections work for different class formats. Colleen Theisen colleen-theisen@uiowa.eduPanel or RoundtableClaire DL. Dunker (University of Nebraska at Omaha) cdulaney@unomaha.edu. I would be interested to talk about spaces, particularly in working with larger classes sizes and what that means for our reading room, materials that can be selected and how to use other classrooms in the library.
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Departmental Outreach & Archival Literacy through Documented Workflows: The cleanest archival intake starts at the creator's desk. However, institutional departments often lack basic records management awareness, leading to disorganized "shoebox" dumps upon staff transitions. This session explores proactive outreach strategies for building archival literacy among non-archival colleagues. Learn how to create simple intake guidelines, run short departmental training sessions, and position the archive as a valuable partner rather than a dumping ground for forgotten files.

Actionable takeaways from the session: Simple, user-friendly guides to help non-archivists prepare files for transfer.

Communication strategies to build positive relationships with department heads and administrative assistants.

How to turn record transfers into an ongoing, collaborative relationship rather than a one-time event.		Estée O'Connor

eoconnor@racinedominicans.org		Panel with case studies?

Round table discussion?
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Gaps and absences in the archival record that we discover as we process and/or preserve our collections, and what we do to "bridge" those gaps, if anything. This comes up for me as the Media Preservation Unit at the MSU Library concludes its two-year WKAR-TV early television films digitization project; what we found as we were digitizing these films is that even though we have certain programs overrepresented—like 20 episodes of a puppet show to teach elementary French—there are other programs that we know from paper records must have been at least as prolific, but that the our institution apparently did not hang onto (such as a series of programs about the international student experience, or about home economics). I'd love to discuss what we do to address and acknowledge those gaps we come across in our collections that we steward.Melanie Goulish; goulishm@msu.eduroundtable?I am interested in this topic because my proposed idea above in A11 came from realizing that there were huge gaps in our collection that were institutionally important and, in some cases, legally required. I would be happy to expand upon not just what I did to fix the gap, but how I got there.

Estée O'Connor

eoconnor@racinedominicans.org		I'm sorry to respond this late. If there is still time I would be ahppy to contribue. The main part of my job scope is to identify gaps in our records pertaining to underrepresented groups and if there are ways to fill the gaps. In addition I've written two articles about this area. If there is still time to be included and considered I would love to be part of this panel. Jessica Ballard-Lawrence ballard9@illinois.edu


Hi Jessica just sent you an email!
Estée
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COVID-19 abruptly halted projects and tasks without the luxury of a planned wind-down. This sometimes meant pausing physical processing in the middle of complex processes and transitioning to digital-only projects that our repositories could work on remotely. Upon return, new priorities absorbed archival labor and attention, and interrupted projects sat on a shelf, semi-forgotten or put on hiatus with no defined re-starting point.
In our repository, we recently had the bandwidth to revisit one such project – a collection of thousands of VHS tapes and DVDs that were in the process of being digitized and migrated in 2020.

We’d be interested in co-presenting on this restart process for archival projects derailed by the pandemic or other disruptions and share how we’ve resumed the work of others in this unique situation.

Potential areas of focus: reconstructing institutional memory, ongoing recordkeeping practice for future success, lessons learned that might guide future interruptions.
Becca Taylor and Andrew McDonnell, University of Kentucky Libraries
becca.taylor@uky.edu; mcdonnell@uky.edu		Standard presentationHi Becca, Andrew, and Melanie,

I'm actually thinking that our ideas in A11, A12, and A13 are actually really well linked together. It's all about preventing gaps in our collections.

Our three topics actually fit together really well around a single theme: dealing with gaps, disruptions, and missing context in our archives.

Full lifecycle of a collection:

At the start: We look at outreach and setting up clean workflows with other departments so we can stop records from getting lost or dumped on us in the first place.

In the middle: We tackle what happens when life gets in the way—like picking up cold tracks on a massive media digitization project after COVID or major interruptions stall the work and leave half-done stuff on shelves.

At the end: We share how we handle and acknowledge the historical gaps that turn up once we actually process or digitize a collection (like finding missing TV episodes that paper records say should be there).

By tying these together, our panel covers how to prevent gaps at the source, how to recover when projects get derailed, and how to talk about the missing pieces in our collections.

How does that sound to everyone as an overarching frame?

Estée O'Connor

eoconnor@racinedominicans.org		Hi Estée! Thank you so much for posting this idea. I'd definitely be interested in presenting within the overarching frame you're suggesting for our ideas. Becca and Andrew, what do you think? Maybe we should start an email thread and schedule a time to have a brief chat as a group sometime next week, before proposals are due next Friday?
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Starting an instruction and outreach program from the ground up. I'm a early-career Special Collections Librarian who started 2 years ago at a large institution that had no formal instruction or outreach program. Since then I've increased outreach and instruction by 137% working mainly by myself. We could touch on starting a program at your institution or using creative outreach to reach students.Jennifer Ottinger, jennifer.ottinger@utdallas.eduStandard presentation, round tableAmy Malventano, (Northern Kentucky University, malventana1@nku.edu); I have experienced this in a somewhat a different away. I am thinking of the topic Starting Where You Are: Instruction and Outreach During Institutional Change, with the question driving presentation as How do we sustain engagement while building capacity? My presentation would explore how we can use the collections, relationships, and resources currently available to create meaningful engagement while developing the staffing, workflows, and infrastructure needed for the future. Examples could include collaborating with Athletics to share historical photographs, connecting faculty collections with student learning, and using digital archives development as an opportunity to engage campus partners. I would also discuss how to balance these opportunities with capacity, set realistic expectations, and choose projects that support both immediate engagement and long-term departmental growth.
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