Call for Pop-Up Session Proposals for 2025 Annual Meeting

The ARCHIVES*RECORDS 2025 Program Committee invites submission of proposals for Pop-Up sessions for the Annual Meeting taking place August 24–27 in Anaheim, California. Pop-Up sessions enrich the conference program by addressing topics and concerns that may have “popped up” since November 2024 (when initial proposals were due). 

In crafting your submission, we encourage you to consider the conference theme of “Making it Count.” We are compelled to acknowledge a world where professional concerns are amplified by political, social, and environmental forces that shape how we work and will work in the future. The challenge, then, is to adjust practices, question our assumptions, and seek partnerships to ensure what we do counts—now and in the future. We seek proposals that explore how our profession can expand our ideas about impact, results, and what counts in a rapidly changing world.

Complete Pop-Up submissions include:

• A title.
• An abstract (300 words maximum) that explains the purpose of the session, the intended audience, and how the session will proceed.
• A short description (100 words maximum) of how your Pop-Up session promotes SAA’s core organizational value of “Ensuring the diversity of its membership and leaders, the profession, and the archival record.” Program sessions should reflect this commitment to a diverse and inclusive program and profession. As each session is composed of individuals and/or organizations with varied personal and professional experiences, perspectives, and identities, please indicate how—in a summative way—your proposal embodies individual, institutional, or geographic diversity, or supports the development, inclusion, and stewardship of a diverse profession or cultural record. 
• The name of a designated session chair and all CONFIRMED co-presenters, plus each person’s contact information for their office or remote work environment (institution, mailing address, email, and phone).
• The Program Committee has no format preference. Sessions must be crafted to fit within a 60- to 75-minute timeslot, including a brief Q&A period.

The SAA Annual Meeting will be a hybrid meeting with a combination of sessions held concurrently: in-person only, virtual only, or hybrid (held in-person and cast simultaneously to virtual attendees.) SAA does not have the capacity to stream all concurrent sessions. All attendees receive access to all recorded sessions, including in-person only sessions. Approved sessions will have the option of opting out of being recorded.

Three sessions will be selected based on an online vote of SAA members (i.e., not by the Program Committee). You will be notified of the vote results in eary June.

Proposals are due on May 5, 2025. Submission form will be available by April 30, 2025.

Reminder for Proposal Submitters and Session Participants

Archivists and records administrators who participate in the program (including in Pop-Up sessions) must register and secure institutional or personal funding. SAA cannot provide funding for speakers, whether they are international, non-archivists, non-records administrators, members, or nonmembers.

Questions concerning the proposal process may be sent to conference@archivists.org.