ARCHIVES * RECORDS 2025: Making it Count Call for Program Proposals

ARCHIVES*RECORDS 2025: Making it Count

^*Sunday, August 24, 2025 - Wednesday, August 27, 2025

Anaheim, California

As archivists, records managers, information professionals, and cultural heritage workers, we are charged with making an impact through our work. 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 in the future.

The Program Committee seeks perspectives from across our profession that emphasize the results and impacts of our work and our workers. The conference theme—Making it Count—encourages proposals that demonstrate the impacts of our work and even expand our understanding of what counts in our profession. The Committee recognizes that part of making our work count for others means making sure it counts for us as well, and we invite proposals that challenge what counts as success in our work. Overall, we seek proposals that explore how our profession can expand our ideas about impact, results, and what counts in a rapidly changing world. Among other topics, proposals might consider:

• Impactful innovations in collection development, management, arrangement, and description.
• Making access and outreach count for users and communities.
• Applications of AI in our work and the ethical implications of its use.
• Partnerships and collaborations, including post-custodial or community-led initiatives—making the way we engage count for others.
• Accessibility of archives, both as repositories and workplaces—broadening the way collections and institutions can be counted on to work for everyone.
• Labor and making our profession responsive to workers' needs and growth—making it count for us.
• Assessing the outcomes of our work—making our impacts count.
• Data gathering and use of data in our profession—how we analyze our work

We welcome proposals on other topics related to archives and archival work.

Proposal Evaluation

The Program Committee invites submissions for 60- to 75-minute sessions (live and/or hybrid) and poster presentations. Proposals are welcome on any aspect of archives, records, and information management—local, state or territorial, national, and international—especially their intersections with other professions and domains. Each proposal will be evaluated on its completeness and the strength of the 150-word abstract. Proposals should incorporate one or more of the following:

• Statement of potential impact on archives, records, and information management;
• Diversity of presenters, including but not limited to racial diversity, gender diversity, experiential or professional diversity, institutional diversity, diversity of ability, and/or geographic diversity;
• Relevance of the topic for SAA members and other interested attendees; and/or
• A plan for, or description of, how the session will incorporate interaction and engagement with session attendees.

We expect program sessions to reflect SAA’s commitments to a diverse and inclusive program and profession. Each session should include individuals and/or organizations with varied personal and professional experiences, perspectives, and identities. Please indicate—in a summative way—how your proposal reflects individual, organizational, or geographic diversity and/or supports the development, inclusion, and stewardship of a diverse profession or cultural record. This could include positionality statements that reflect on the unique identities of the panelists in relation to the work they will discuss, a recognition of dominant positionality inherent in your identity or organization, or the ways in which privilege and power manifest in the session and how you will use or respond to it.

Session Formats

The Program Committee encourages submission of proposals that may include, but are not limited to, the following formats:

Panel Presentation. Session consisting of a panel of three to five individuals discussing or presenting theories or perspectives on a given topic. Session may consist of a series of prepared presentations or a moderated discussion and should include time for audience feedback. If giving prepared presentations, presentation titles should be provided and will be included in the program. A moderator is required (this role may be performed by the chair); a commentator is optional.

Professional Poster Presentation. Report in which information is summarized using brief written statements and graphic materials, such as photographs, charts, graphs, and/or diagrams mounted on poster board (if in person) or in a PDF document (if virtual). Presenters will be assigned a specific time during which they must be with their poster to discuss it with attendees if presenting in-person.

Lightning Talks. Session consisting of eight to ten lively and informative 5-minute talks. The session chair secures commitments from speakers and compiles all presentation slides into one single presentation to ensure timely speaker transitions.

Mix and Match. “Mix and Match” debuted in 2024 as a new proposal format that allows individuals to propose an individual talk rather than a full session. Similar or complementary proposals will then be combined into one session. We hope this option will encourage individuals who have not previously submitted a proposal to do so and provide an opportunity to connect archivists who might not have otherwise met one another. We will accept proposals for 5 or 20-minute presentations.

Alternative Format. Don’t feel confined by the prescribed formats—suggest an alternative or create your own! Alternative format sessions may take a variety of forms. Examples include world café and fishbowl discussions. Propose a moderated debate offering opposing points of view, or an “experiential” format involving simulation, role play, or games to convey key principles and learning objectives. We welcome your creative ideas about how your topic might best be addressed! Proposals in this category must: 1) specify the format and session facilitator and 2) describe briefly how the format will enhance the presentation of the material. You may suggest up to four presenters for the session.

Your format choice will not affect the Program Committee’s decision. The Committee may, however, recommend the proposed format be changed if it believes that a different format may better serve the session’s learning objectives or desired audience.

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. Participants whose employment does not involve performing, teaching, or managing any aspect of the archival or records administration function, or who are from outside the United States and Canada, may be eligible for complimentary registration upon request. SAA cannot provide funding for speakers, whether they are international, non-archivists, non-records administrators, members, or nonmembers.

Submit Proposal

Proposals for the 2025 Annual Meeting are due on Friday, December 6, 2024, at 11:59 p.m. CT. The Program Committee will not consider proposals received after the deadline.

The 2025 Annual Meeting abstract and speaker management system is synced to the SAA association management system (AMS). If you are subscribed to a discussion list via SAA Connect or have made a purchase with SAA (membership, book order, donation, and/or registration for a SAA course or Annual Meeting) you already have an account in SAA’s AMS. You need not be a member of SAA to submit a proposal or gain access to the SAA AMS. See FAQs for more information. 

• You may create or edit your profile via the SAA homepage.
  We strongly recommend instructing your co-presenters to create or update their profiles prior to starting the speaker submission section. This will expedite the process when adding them to the proposal and have correct presenter information. 
• Review the submission form questions (PDF) before submitting your proposal. Note: Submissions will only be received through the online submission form not the PDF.

Proposals for the 2025 Annual Meeting are due on Friday, December 6, 2024.
The Program Committee will not consider proposals received after the deadline.

*Please Note! The 2025 Annual Meeting will take place on different days of the week than in previous years. Education sessions will be held on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday (August 25–27) rather than from Thursday to Saturday. Other aspects of the schedule may change as well. Look for a preliminary schedule of events in March 2025.

Questions? Contact the Conference Office at conference@archivists.org.