A busy week ahead–Archivists descend on San Francisco

I’ve noticed that quite a few library bloggers post their schedules before ALA and similar meetings, so, if you’re interested in where I’ll be or what I think is worth attending, here’s my tentative schedule, otherwise known as my “best bets” for SAA 2008:

Monday, August 25:

My traveling companion just shakes his head, but I’m thinking of sitting in on the SAA Council meeting. I know, I’m in one of the world’s most interesting cities, and I’m thinking about voluntarily spending one more day in a hotel meeting room, I must be crazy. Actually, I’m just nosy. I like to know what’s going on. The agenda is posted here. Would you go to this or Alcatraz? Or do you want me to go and report back so you can go to Alcatraz?

Tuesday, August 26:

What I should be doing is going to the Research Forum. There’s a ton of information posted on wiki, so they make it very easy to see what to expect. This is the day we had planned to go to Alcatraz. Maybe I’ll try to split the day between work and play.

Wednesday, August 27:

Now that I’ve made it to the inner circle of SAA “leaders,” I get to spend this morning in a hotel meeting room at the Leadership Orientation and Forum, where I’ll learn things like “How to Get Things Done Within SAA” and hear a few talks on leadership. If I learn anything worth sharing, I’ll let you know. In the early part of the afternoon I might have considered going to the Business Archives Colloquium, but I can’t find any information about it anywhere online. (Tsk, tsk, business archivists!) Instead I have the choice of taking a long lunch or going to the Records Management Roundtable meeting. Records management isn’t my favorite topic, but this roundtable has a lot going on–I encourage you to go and maybe I’ll see you there.

If you’re in town, I know I’ll see all of you at the Issues & Advocacy Roundtable meeting (3:15 to 5:15). I won’t do any trash-talking about the other roundtables meeting in this time slot, but I think if you take a look at what my group is trying to get going, you’ll see that this is the meeting to go to.

Much as I would love to spend more time in hotel meeting rooms, I’m afraid I won’t make it to any of the next round of roundtable meetings–I’ve got a baseball game to go to.

Thursday, August 28:

I know I spent a lot of time listing the possible 2.0-related sessions, but that’s not the only thing that interests me. It’s going to be hard not to go to session 106, “What, Why, How? Archival Meaning in a R/Evolutionary Age” to listen to Fran Blouin and Rand Jimerson. But in the next session slot, I will definitely be going to session 201, “Finding Aids 2.0.”

I hope I’ll see some people at the AASLH Archives Affinity Group Brown Bag (from 12:15 to 12:45). As I’ve said elsewhere, some of us are in the process of forming this new group for archivists within AASLH, so if you’d like to share thoughts about what you’d like this group to do or just want to learn more, please stop by.

I scheduled the AASLH event to wrap up early so that people could go to most of the Global Issues Forum on Archival Ethics and Social Justice.  I really recommend that you try to attend.

As I wrote earlier, I’ll be going to session 308, the Graduate Student Paper session, specifically to hear the paper on tagging. Here’s hoping these papers aren’t so academic that they put us to sleep in this mid-afternoon time slot.

Like most people, I’m looking forward to hearing John Dean, the speaker at the Opening Plenary, and I’m also looking forward to the always festive happy hour in the exhibit hall, and catching up with people at the University of Michigan Alumni Reception.

Friday, August 29 

I can’t stay out too late Thursday night though, because I’m on the Web 2.0 panel at the Manuscript Repositories Section meeting at 9 am. I’m very excited to hear the other two speakers.

After enjoying some free food at the Exhibit Hall Brunch, I’ll probably have to hop between section meetings in the afternoon. Until I saw his post on the Free Government Information blog, I’d missed the fact that Jim Jacobs would be speaking at the Acquisition & Appraisal Section meeting.  I’m interested in meeting him and hearing what he has to say, but I also want to attend the section meeting of the Reference, Access and Outreach section, so I hope those two meeting rooms are close together!

I’m not sure what session I’ll go to after those meetings, but do stop by and visit me during the “Last Chance” Break in the Exhibit Hall–I’ll be demonstrating the American Historical Association’s Archives Wiki at the “Office Hours” table. They’re very clever over there at AHA–they put me on the advisory board for the wiki, so I feel obligated to do a little promotion for it at SAA.

I’m looking forward to hearing Mark Greene’s Presidential Address at the 2nd plenary session. I usually try to go to the Awards Ceremony, but this year I might be getting together with some other bloggers during that time slot. In any case, I’ll see y’all at the reception at the San Francisco Public Library.

Saturday, August 30 

I’m still mulling over which sessions to go on Saturday, but if I’m up early enough I may have to stop by Session 507 “The Non-Record: Is It Evolving?” just to see what fellow former NARA-ites Mike Miller and Ren Cahoon are up to working for Lockheed Martin. They’ve posted their presentation online at the SAA site (click on the link for the session and click on “Presentation” in the pop-up). Again, this isn’t really my area any more, but I think these two would be worth hearing.

And everyone should go the Membership Meeting at 11:30. Granted we don’t have a dues increase to vote on this year, but who knows what might be on the agenda? (Has anyone seen one? Do we get to see an agenda ahead of time?) [Update: We now have an agenda--it's not a very exciting one, but we have an agenda.]

Whew! I’m exhausted just from writing all that! As always, I’m looking forward to seeing so many old friends at SAA, but since I started this blog it’s also been an opportunity to meet some of my readers. If you’ll be in San Francisco, please don’t feel shy about introducing yourself and letting me know what you think about the blog–I’m always looking for reader feedback.

And I’m happy to report that Tom Hyry has bowed to the pressure of 86 of his friends (and some complete strangers) and joined Facebook. Now the mighty force that is the “Get Tom Hyry on Facebook!” group is turning its attention to what other feats it could accomplish. Join up and see what they’re up to . . .

2 Comments

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  By Seth, August 26, 2008 @ 12:41 pm

  Since it is now Tuesday and I am still in my office chair (I fly in tomorrow) I would appreciate your observations on the Council meeting and especially the research forum. I only realized that the research forum was going on until after I had made my travel arrangements.

  See you at the UM Alumni reception!

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