mac2025minneapolis

Like any good hotdish, accessibility is made up of many different ingredients. And, like any good hotdish, there’s no single definitive recipe. Rather than framing accessibility as a set of steps or a list of ingredients, this panel frames it as a suite of potential actions we can take to enact our values around access for our users, ourselves, and our colleagues. Coming from a range of institutions and backgrounds, presenters will examine accessibility from multiple angles, by: 

– Exploring the intersection of disability with higher education and the job market, focusing on the structural and societal ways that disabled people are excluded and disempowered, whether that’s navigating school programs, internships, or job precarity and focusing on ways to lower the barrier to entry for archival workers with disabilities whose perceived “replaceability” gives institutions less incentive to accommodate them; 
– Looking at professional standards and regulations as carrots and cudgels toward advancing accessibility, including ADA Title II and SAA’s Guidelines for Accessible Archives for People with Disabilities;
– Making complex digital collections accessible, looking at both the systems being used along with the items themselves;
– Demystifying accessibility best practices in the classroom; and
– Driving a cultural shift towards greater accessibility within our institutions and broader profession. 

You will come away from this session with an increased understanding of how accessibility can be improved in archives, resources for further learning, and strategies/ideas/steps to implement in your home institution.

To conduct digital preservation activities, it is helpful to have a recipe or workflow. One can purchase a ready-to-bake off-the-shelf product, follow an existing recipe step-by-step, or improvise. You will hear from representatives of several institutions who will regale you with the progress they have made in developing/adapting their recipes for digital preservation workflows. University of Kentucky will discuss their efforts to define, streamline, and adapt existing workflows for born-digital materials that are elements of large hybrid collections, demonstrating decision trees and automation tools that have helped them fully-bake their workflows. Notre Dame will articulate their efforts to identify tools and develop workflows for born-digital processing/preservation that will work with existing infrastructure. Their work−not yet operationalized−has focused on a number of use cases regarding different media carriers/formats, and how to document handoffs, record actions taken, and other activities for multi-format collections that require input from their archival team. Ohio State will describe the evolution of their newest digital preservation repo−Gray−and how they cooked-up a homemade workflow adapting existing open-source and proprietary tools. Finally, Wayne State will discuss the challenges/opportunities of designing a digital preservation program, while navigating many enterprise-level IT transitions to collaborate on sustainable workflows, and accounting for born-digital and digitized materials, their description and appropriate access strategies. While these “recipes” have been developed at medium-to-large academic institutions, we believe they are adaptable to institutions of all sizes and backgrounds.

Over the past two years, colleges and universities across the country have experienced waves of campus protests in response to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and votes of no-confidence against administrators because of their challenges to free-speech, faculty governance, and DEIJ initiatives. Led by a board member from Project STAND, this moderated discussion will share approaches and lessons learned from five institutional archives (two private; three public). You will reflect on the decision-making processes within their archives during these events, including  following guidance from crisis-collecting best practices such as Project STAND and Documenting the NOW, the mechanics of soliciting and collecting contributions to physical and digital documentation initiatives, and strategies for incorporating perspectives and experiences that people might be reluctant to share directly due to fear of repercussions or distrust of parent institutions and their administrators. Additionally, they will discuss issues of ethics, anonymity, and access in balancing immediate, interim, and long-term collecting efforts.

To explore these issues, presenters will share unique campus-specific responses such as holding a writing workshop at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, offering fully anonymous submissions from protestors at Indiana University, working with a sociology research methods course documenting protest at Connecticut College, connecting collecting efforts with the congressional testimony by Northwestern University’s president, and looking at a full range of collecting options from the immediate to the long-term at the University of Minnesota. Common themes will include the implications of public vs. private institutional status, considerations about balancing documenting provenance while maintaining donor privacy, and the benefits of using student archives employees in this work. Ample time will be allocated for audience discussion.

For archivists across the country, exhibits have long served as a tool for bringing collection materials out of the stacks and into conversation with the public. This session brings together insights from the efforts of the Faulkner Morgan Archive (FMA) and the University of Louisville Archives & Special Collections (ASC) to build spaces for queer historical literacy and possibility. The speakers will share their experiences from a range of community and student-guided displays staged in 2024, designed to center the stories, agency, and organizing tools of LGBTQ+ Kentuckians past, present, and future. 

Josh Porter will present on three exhibitions from the FMA, an independent nonprofit devoted to sharing Kentucky’s LGBTQ history. Each exhibition will showcase a different method of curatorial possibilities, but all require an emphasis on collaboration. Cassidy Meurer will examine her efforts at ASC guiding students through the process of curating an exhibition of somewhat unprocessed traces of public and domestic queer life. The materials she will highlight come from the Williams-Nichols collection, one of the largest community-stewarded sets of LGBTQ+ materials at an American university. Chad Kamen will discuss a partnership between ASC and local activist organization the Fairness Campaign. The collaboration developed a display and programming about tools and practices for mobilizing intersectional organizing from the campaign's records. 

You will learn more about emerging approaches to staging and describing queer materials for various audiences, as well as frameworks for highlighting queer joy and liberation amid increasing institutional repression of power-informed language.

Based on the mishmash of a hot dish, this roundtable will discuss the ingredients needed to create a tasty grant project. From the simplest dump-and-go hot dish to a complex casserole, every recipe still requires essential ingredients and time away from your core duties. Panelists will respond to questions and discuss the similarities and differences between their experiences managing different types of grants within the context of their varying institutions. Takeaways will include the success and failures of budgeting time and money; the morale of staff; working with student employees, project staff, and vendors; the dynamics of working with project partners from other institutions and advisory boards; balancing application commitments with project realities; and more.

Amy Bishop, rare books & manuscripts archivist for Iowa State University, will share her perspective on managing a CLIR grant, particularly working with project partners and an advisory board. Laura Sullivan, digital collections librarian for Iowa State University, will incorporate managing several grants such as CLIR, NHPRC, local grant, and indirect grant contributions. Heidi Pettitt, director of the Center for Dubuque History for Loras College, will share her perspective on managing multiple grants simultaneously, working with student employees, and managing your time. Kristina Warner, archivist for NAHA, will discuss managing NEH, state, and private grants at a small cultural heritage institution. Lynn Smith, av archivist for the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library-Museum, will address working with the National Film Preservation Foundation to restore rare Kodacolor film and dealing with the media interest that followed the release of the films.

How do you go from a pantry stocked with aspirations for a digital preservation program in a well-prepared plate with the necessary skill and assessment ingredients to get started? In this session, practicing archivists and librarians will discuss their experiences in the digital preservation test kitchen of the 2024 Digital POWRR Peer Assessment Program. This program through Digital POWRR, or “Preserving digital Objects With Restricted Resources,” provides intensive training and establishes a community of practice around digital preservation concepts and assessment procedures. With the support of their cohort facilitator and peers, participants completed multiple self-assessments and an in-depth peer assessment, set goals, and ultimately created case studies to be broadly disseminated.

In discussion with their cohort facilitator, panelists will reflect on their assessments and case studies, emphasizing lessons learned, tools and practices they implemented at their different institutions, and areas that still need to be addressed or improved. Given the particularities, strengths, and constraints of each panelist’s institution, participants will share a range of takeaways that may be helpful for professionals attempting to provide ongoing care for their digital collections at a variety of institutions across the Midwest. Takeaways include advice, successes, and failures in the following areas: specific self-assessment models; advocacy and communication strategies with administrators and IT colleagues; creative stretching of resources for software and digital storage; and exploring digital preservation workflows and policies for born-digital and digitized collections.

Finding and applying for an archives job can be difficult, confusing, and time-consuming, especially for new archivists or those wanting to make a change in their career. A panel of archivists with current experience in hiring for academic, government, non-profit, religious, and museum archives are here to help demystify the hiring process! Panelists will provide an honest and straightforward discussion of how candidates are selected, what to expect during the interview process, timelines, and application packets for different types of institutions. 

The panel will also share hiring practices, including DEI practices to reduce bias and increase diversity, to ensure transparency with candidates, and to emphasize the importance of privacy in the search process. This is meant to be an open discussion where the panelists share their backgrounds and answer questions from you or prompts from the chair to encourage organic conversation. The audiences for this session include people looking for archives jobs, either new to the field or making a change, and people who are on search committees or have hiring responsibilities looking for advice and new ideas. By having a candid discussion about hiring practices, this panel hopes to empower the next generation of archivists in their job hunt and promote inclusive hiring practices for a more diverse workplace.

This session will introduce CROSS (Catholic Religious Organizations Studying Slavery). Established in 2021 by representatives of diocesan and religious archives the mission of CROSS is to promote open and honest access to the historical record to achieve a more comprehensive and truthful telling of enslavement within the Catholic Church in the United States. 

CROSS aims to help Catholic organizations and those responsible for Catholic archives by providing guidelines on communication development, access policies, research methodology and working with descendants to foster reconciliation. The session will have three parts over the course of 90 minutes. Dr. Emilie Leumas will discuss her research efforts to broaden the narrative on the Catholic Church’s participation in slavery. She will reveal various sources found within Catholic archives that contain information about enslaved people and communities. Eric Fair will describe how the Archdiocese of St. Louis is acknowledging its past by exploring its involvement with slavery and the different ways this history is being presented to its community and the wider public. Dr. Stephanie Jacobe will introduce the CROSS: Best Practices Guide, which serves as a model for any organization hoping to identify records of the enslaved, promote open access, and work with leadership to build community support. The session will finish with audience discussion.

This session will consider how instructional spaces impact instruction and the specific challenges of planning and teaching class sessions that feature primary source materials. It will be structured in three parts, with opportunities for audience engagement during each.
Part 1: What are the current challenges and opportunities with space in special collections? Carly Dearborn and Jolie Braun will share findings from their recent survey, which sought to understand the role space plays in teaching, the current trends in instruction spaces, and the strategies being used to address the shortcomings of these spaces. 
Part 2: How are you reimagining your space to better serve instruction activities? Jeremy Pekarek will discuss his experience in creating instructional space in the archives to accommodate a classroom, and how the archives become a component in all First Year Seminar courses for the College of Arts and Sciences at IUN. Meghan Courtney will share lessons learned during the process of updating technology in an existing archives instruction space with an eye for accessibility. 
Part 3: How can we begin to develop best practices for our instruction spaces? During the final segment of this panel, you will have the opportunity to reflect on and share your own experiences. Discussion questions will be provided to help guide the conversation and may include: “What strategies have you used to make the most of your space?,” “What is one thing you’d love to change about your space?,” and “What are the protocols for taking special collections materials to another location?”

Storing records offsite, especially those that aren’t frequently accessed, is a great way to reclaim precious space onsite. Yet, juggling multiple storage locations brings its own set of unique challenges for archivists and records managers. Much like the many ways to perfect a casserole, there are countless ways to master the art of offsite records storage. Hannah Pryor will discuss the challenges her team faced and share insights and strategies for those dealing with non-permanent records stored off-site, including access, records transfers, and the annual destruction of eligible, non-permanent records. Jenna Stout will share her work to refine retrieval and disposal procedures, establish perimeters for eligible materials for offsite storage, and revise records retention schedules at the Saint Louis Art Museum Archives. Michael Barera will discuss the Milwaukee County Historical Society’s off-site storage facility and its preservation conditions, retrieval practice and policy, and the process of searching for a new off-site storage facility. Each method offers a distinct recipe for success, crafted to meet the diverse needs of our institutions.

Archivists have been asked to do more with less for decades, while also being encouraged to advocate for additional resources. But what do you do when you find yourself as the proverbial dog who has finally caught the car? How do you ensure that you don't under-deliver? The Eastern Michigan University Archives (EMUA) team has systematically grown their archives program (both staffing and space) over the past 12 years, but it has come with numerous wins and countless complications. University archivist Alexis Braun Marks will talk about the advocacy efforts she has undertaken to get additional staff and a major gift to renovate space in the University Library, but also the politics that have surrounded the expansion of the archives. Amber Davis and Brooke Boyst will share how the newly constructed archives has provided long-dreamed-of geographic unity, but how this also threatens the familial culture that has defined the effectiveness of EMUA. They will talk about how they are creating systems and workflows that make sense and do not rely on the “way things have always been done.” Finally, Matt Jones will talk about how the shift from being the EMU Oral History Program (OHP) to a Center has been influenced by local and university politics, handshake agreements, and debates over who tells whose story. But also how they are working to maintain their vision for the OHP, and, by proxy, the University Archives as a whole. The session will provide time for an open dialogue between you and the panelists to understand the ups and downs of getting what you want, as well as inspiration to create a collaborative and effective team that can overcome potential ego pitfalls to create a cohesive work environment.

The Soomaal House Library & Archives Center, established in 2021 under the aegis of Soomaal House of Art, plays an imperative role in preserving and celebrating Somali art and culture. The center’s archival collections—organized into Contemporary Somali Art and Artists, the History of Somali Minnesotans, and the Historical Archive of Somalia & Somalis—invite critical engagement with the intersections of art, history, and identity.

This talk will further explore how the center's approach to archiving goes beyond traditional methods, using art as a lens to view personal narratives, community histories, and cultural memory. By combining the creative work of artists with historical materials, the center aims to generate archives that reflect not only the past but also the present-day experiences of Somali Minnesotans. As a result, these archives become living, evolving collections that inspire research, creativity, and knowledge production, prompting critical questions about identity, locality, and the connections that bind Somali artists and communities worldwide.

In addition to preserving the artistic and historical legacy of the Somali community, the center emphasizes the dynamic relationship between art and archives. This relationship fosters new forms of archiving that capture the lived experiences of the Somali community, contextualizing their stories through both historical documentation and contemporary artistic expression.

Led by the co-founders of the Free ‘Em All Radio Archive and two student collaborators, this session will provide a case study of a community oral history archives at Dominican University. Launched in 2016, Free ‘Em All Radio--a call-in podcast hosted by The Lady of Rage and Chairman Fred Hampton Jr. of the Black Panther Party Cubs--has become a historic record in its own right. Each week, the podcast broadcasts the voices of incarcerated people and political activists across diverse communities who report on current events and critical issues including racial injustice and prison abolition. Founded in 2021, the corresponding archive fosters the development of an equitable and inclusive cultural record.

In this session, presenters - including host Chairman Fred Hampton Jr. - will offer a live demonstration of the ArchivesSpace repository, describe the podcast cataloging process, and discuss relationship-building among student catalogers and community stakeholders. The presenters will introduce you to podcast preservation and give practical tips for archivists who wish to begin collecting this new but valuable digital medium. This collection and its collaborators will illustrate an achievable method of developing a community archive on an open-source digital platform, offering a blueprint for those who seek to preserve a more diverse collection of human voices.

Archival repositories don’t often hold materials created or authored by Indigenous peoples. Some archival repositories don’t even have many materials written by colonizers about Indigenous peoples. So how do archivists do outreach and programming to include Indigenous perspectives, if these perspectives aren’t in our archives? In this session, Jenny DeRocher and Henry Greengrass will tell the story of how they started working together, the projects they’ve collaborated on, and the lessons they’ve learned together, and give tips on how to conduct projects in your own institution that focus on Indigenous perspectives instead of the colonizers’ because our collections do that enough for us.

Since 2022, Jenny DeRcoher and Henry Greengrass have collaborated on various projects, including: two video podcast productions featuring Indigenous voices, research and presentations on the myths of community founders, a scavenger hunt featuring local Indigenous history, a circulating library collection of books by Indigenous authors, an Indigenous film series, and education outreach at community events like Indigenous Peoples’ Day and a Missing & Murdered Indigenous Women 5k. During these projects, they learned a number of lessons together and in this session will give examples of how they problem-solved, what allyship vs. co-conspiratorship looks like, and how they fought institutional systems that worked against their projects.

This is a session of advice for archivists who want to do similar projects with decolonized mindsets.

Having an active and accessible archive for PreK-12 schools provides a unique course offering for students. Archivists find challenges as well as wonderful opportunities to share their collections with children and teenagers. In many instances, little bites are served to these audiences in contrast to the bigger portions of archival research served to college students. Panelists will discuss programs they have initiated at their institutions, the successes and failures of those initiatives, and practical tips/advice for those looking to create archives-based programs for younger students in collaboration with faculty.

Records management is integral to the documentary record of any public institution, organization, or private company - which is to say that these workflows and schedules are nothing short of complicated. After the Larry Nassar and USA Gymnastics scandal at Michigan State University (MSU), it was decided to separate the Records Management program from the University Archives and Historical Collections and transition programmatic oversight to the Office of Audit, Risk, and Compliance. University records management had been aligned since the University Archives opened in 1969. Throughout the six-year transition, the Acting Records Manager was not allowed to create new retention schedules, and maintained the status quo. When the global pandemic befell all of us, it led to hiring freezes, departing administrators, slow bureaucracy, and failed searches. The MSU RM program sat stagnant before a new University Records Manager was hired in 2024. Untangling 55 years worth of permanent, archival materials from retention-based accessions has been a challenge.

This panel will discuss the more than six-year process to untangle hundreds, if not thousands of records. Specifically, participants will discuss the challenges of two archival management software migrations on data integrity, realigning the roles and responsibilities of two different units and the associated staff and faculty, updating university-wide and departmental policies and procedures, and rebuilding the university’s record retention schedules to align with federal and state requirements, but also to ensure records with permanent or historical value were identified and preserved. Thoughtful, transparent transition processes can empower and support these decisions.

Due to budget cuts, layoffs, or other kinds of institutional restructuring, it’s not uncommon for archivists to take over positions that have been vacant for several years. These extended transitions often lead to gaps in institutional knowledge, which in turn exacerbate the usual learning curve of a new position. Many work hours can be lost recreating procedures, getting up to speed on the organizational system, or just figuring out where these stacks of miscellaneous documents came from.

Though the hurdles these archivists face can overlap with those faced by archivists tasked with establishing a new archives at an institution, there are also distinct differences. An archivist entering a long empty role may also have to contend with an established (and perhaps out-of-date) cataloging system, half-finished projects, and commitments that their predecessors made that are no longer feasible. Before they can begin “Serving It Up”, they first need to make sure that we know where all the tools to do the job are.

How can these archivists make sure that they are continuing the work of their predecessors and not reinventing the wheel? And, once they have established themselves in their new roles, how can they minimize the damage of further delays in hiring? The speakers will share their experiences stepping into revived roles, and facilitate discussion on these questions and more.

In 2005, Greene and Meissner's article “More Product, Less Process” (MPLP) revolutionized archival practices by advocating for minimal arrangement and description to increase access and reduce staff labor. As MPLP reaches its 20th anniversary, this session examines its evolution and current relevance. How has our understanding of MPLP changed? Do minimal processing techniques align with digitization and reparative description efforts, or do they conflict with these initiatives? Is MPLP helping us make collections available to researchers more quickly? Are our backlogs smaller?

Each panelist will share perspectives on how MPLP is implemented at their repository before joining a discussion moderated by the session chair. Panelists hail from a variety of institution types ranging from museum to public library to academic settings. Discussion will touch on several relevant topics, including managing born-digital records; practical workflows for minimal accessioning and cataloging; iterative processing; the current relationship between MPLP and environmental preservation conditions; promoting inclusivity and accessibility through arrangement and description; archival advocacy; the slow archives movement; and evolving archival theory.

Through this roundtable, speakers will foster a dialogue about the legacy of MPLP and its impact on archival practice. This session will be valuable to any archival professional who has felt the inherent tension between doing fast work and doing quality work.

This panel presents case studies of collections used in unexpected ways through public programming. Presenters will share strategies and lessons about collaborating with stakeholders and advocating to supervisors on behalf of a bold idea. With focuses on outreach, instruction, and donor relations, you will be inspired to transform that daring idea you’ve long held into reality.

Sara DeCaro will discuss collaborating with city and county governments in Baldwin City, Kansas to create a historic preservation conference on Baker University's campus. In addition to organizing the event with community stakeholders, she used the Baker archives for outreach and promotional materials, walking tours, and research on local preservation projects. Matthew Strandmark will explore his collaboration with University of Kentucky faculty to enhance the Campus Archaeology Project. This initiative turns students' work with archival documents into an engaging exploration of campus history and strategic archaeological digs. Strandmark will demonstrate how this partnership redefines archives and invigorates academic programs. Gavin Strassel will present on his unique collaboration with the UAW to produce and star in a popular series of videos for social media about the labor union's archives. He will discuss how emphasizing donor relations and outreach can help bring archives to the public in exciting ways. Matt Gorzalski will discuss Brazilian guitarist Franco Galvão's study of Vadico Gogliano, who composed Choro music for dance pioneer Katherine Dunham. Collaborating with faculty and students, he performed scores from the Dunham papers at Southern Illinois University's International Guitar Festival.

This session focuses on the ingredients used by the University Archives at Minnesota State University, Mankato to make a successful Research Apprentice Program Hotdish. In 2024, the University Archives at Minnesota State University, Mankato participated in the Undergraduate Research Center’s Research Apprenticeship Program (RAP). The RAP provides students new to research with opportunities to collaborate with faculty and staff on mentored research, scholarly, and creative projects. Daardi Mixon, University Archivist will discuss the development and implementation of the RAP program within the archives and how library and university strategic plans were incorporated into the outcomes with a focus on high-impact learning practices and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion goals. Heidi Southworth, Digital Initiatives Librarian will discuss the Minnesota Digital Library Wikimedia project and how it was used as a foundation for the RAP. Jamison Vierstraete, junior undergraduate student will share his experiences in the RAP and how it helped advance his research and collaboration skills. A good recipe is one you want to make again. The presenters will also share how they’ve adjusted the RAP recipe and implemented it again this year.

Primary documents about food and drink are evocative sources that are relevant to nearly all historical disciplines. Despite this, the history of food and drink is often relegated to specific research on culinary trends or household experience. Inspired by this year’s “Serving It up!” theme, librarians and archivists from the University of Minnesota are joining to examine cookbooks and food in the archives to argue for the cross-disciplinary value of these texts. Together, we will discuss the materials we hold, how cookbooks can be used in historical research and pedagogy, and what they can teach us about the past, from gender and health, to incarceration, exploration, and cultural identity. We will examine recipes from the mundane to the bizarre - and perhaps even recreate a few! Collections represented will include the Doris S. Kirschner Cookbook Collection, the Wangensteen Historical Library of Biology and Medicine, the Social Welfare History Archives, the Upper Midwest Jewish Archives, the James Ford Bell Library, the Kautz Family YMCA Archives, and the Children’s Literature Research Collections.