About the Program

ARCHIVES 360°
Celebrating SAA’s Past, Present, and Future

SAA will celebrate its 75th anniversary in conjunction with the 2011 Annual Meeting in (where better?) our own sweet home—Chicago!

As we considered with SAA President Helen Tibbo a theme for the 2011 Annual Meeting—knowing full well that we hoped to offer at least one set of sessions devoted to looking back at SAA’s history—we realized the importance of taking a good look around. At SAA and its role as a professional association. At the archives profession and its intersections with other professions and domains. At ourselves as professionals in an evolving global information environment. At our present and future as well as our past. With that in mind, we settled on the theme: ARCHIVES 360°.

Organizations of all kinds have been using a 360˚ feedback process since the 1950s to acknowledge milestones, assess progress, identify ongoing challenges and opportunities, and formulate strategic directions. It’s appropriate at this moment in our history to adapt a long-standing and proven process to:

  • Consider SAA’s role, contributions, and challenges past, present, and future. What should/could SAA look like at its 100th anniversary?
  • Discuss SAA’s opportunities and concerns in relation to the professional societies of other domains (e.g., records management, libraries, museums), both national and international.
  • Assess the development and promulgation of our existing and desired capacities and competencies for all or portions of the archives life cycle. What does/should good archival practice look like?

The 12-member Program Committee couldn’t be more delighted with the scope and content of the 122 proposals received in response to our Call for Proposals, or of the 70 sessions accepted for presentation on August 25, 26, and 27 at the Hyatt Regency Chicago.

The 2011 Annual Meeting provides an opportunity to step back and take a long look at 75 years of SAA’s accomplishments and challenges and to celebrate our anniversary together. To commemorate this milestone, the program will include a sequence of eight sessions devoted to the anniversary celebration and covering the many facets of archives that fall within SAA’s scope. These sessions include presentations on the emergence of records management as a profession; early leaders in the archives profession; descriptive standards; reference, access, and outreach; efforts to educate about archives; the roles of regional archives associations; and international women’s collections. We’re particularly thrilled that one session will feature the perspectives of seven past Presidents of SAA!

But because we also have a compelling interest in understanding what’s going on now and anticipating our future, look for a blend of sessions on appraisal, description, records management, access and privacy, preservation, reference, standards, management, methodology, professionalism, education, advocacy, facilities and security, diversity, ethics, electronic records, audio and visual materials, digitization, Web access, international perspectives, and social memory. Whew!

With 70 education sessions plus dynamic plenaries plus a host of special events, you’ll have 75—or more!— opportunities to celebrate and ponder as SAA turns 75.

We look forward to celebrating with you!

— 2011 Program Committee Co-Chairs Nancy McGovern and Richard Marciano


SAA Thanks the ARCHIVES 360° Program Committee:

  • Richard Marciano (Co-Chair)
    University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
  • Nancy McGovern (Co-Chair)
    Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research
  • Kelly Eubank
    North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources
  • Cristela Garcia-Spitz
    University of California, San Diego
  • Brenda Gunn
    University of Texas at Austin
  • Rebekah Kim
    GLBT Historical Society
  • Christie Peterson
    Princeton University
  • Jeff Pirtle
    NBC Universal
  • Paige Smith
    Birmingham, Alabama
  • Francine Snyder
    Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
  • Kenneth Thibodeau
    National Archives and Records Administration (Retired)
  • Jennifer Young
    Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community
  • Petrina Jackson
    University of Virginia
    (Ex-Officio — 2012 Co-Chair)
  • Rob Spindler
    Arizona State University
    (Ex-Officio — 2012 Co-Chair)
Annual Meeting referenced: