SAA Receives IMLS Grant to Create a Research Agenda for the Profession

September 5, 2024—The Society of American Archivists has received a $150,000 grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Grant program to establish a prioritized research agenda for the archival profession. Spearheaded by the Committee on Research, Data, and Assessment (CORDA), SAA will convene 35 archival experts, educators, community leaders, and grantmakers—archivists from across key sectors and professional positionality as well as relevant non-archivist stakeholders—to be part of a professionally facilitated two-day forum. The participants will transform the recently adopted SAA Research and Innovation Roadmap into a research agenda and a framework for its implementation and adoption.

During the first seven months of the project, from August 2024 to February 2025, the CORDA-core project team, in collaboration with SAA leadership, will lay the foundation for the project. Efforts will include selecting and hiring a facilitator, working with facilitators to develop an application process and weighted rubric for participant selection to ensure an inclusive and diverse group of participants, establishing a communication plan to launch the application and call for participants, and determining the dates for the two-day in-person forum in Chicago. More details will be forthcoming as the project progresses.