When it came time for the last talk of the last panel of the Simmons GSLIS 2nd Annual Graduate Symposium, presenter Eva Rios-Alvarado took a moment to acknowledge her presence: “It’s hard to be a librarian in a roomful of archivists,” she quipped. The statement served to lighten the late-afternoon mood and also set the tone for the talk that followed.
I was not in the room when this happened. I was 3,000 miles away in my San Francisco apartment, watching the Symposium via livestream as part of my ongoing efforts as an online student to remain connected to a campus that happens to be on the other side of the country.
As I have been processing my thoughts about and reactions to the Symposium over the past week, this particular moment stands out to me for several reasons: Rios-Alvarado’s spontaneous remark encapsulates a number of themes that emerged from the panels; it pinpoints what I understand to be a complicated distinction in LIS programs between different types of students, and it at once confuses and clarifies my own experience as someone new to these fields who interacts with them from a distance.
These thoughts can be expressed with a single question:?what does it mean to be in the same room together??For several of the panelists, this question might take different forms: for Elizabeth McGorty, these means building bridges between the archival and performing arts communities, whereas for Jessica Bennett, it could be the potential opportunities in exploring new ways to cultivate the public’s engagement with art. Astrid Drew’s talk on cultural identity among the Swedish-American community in Rhode Island outlined the particular contours of an in-between territory in which the distinctions are blurred between subject and scholarship. Kristen Schuster extended this idea of the “third space” to the architectural history of public libraries, explaining how the spatial orientation of libraries has evolved relative to librarians’ relationships with patrons as well as changing practices and priorities of information organization.
The conversation took a more theoretical turn with the final panel of the day. Genna Duplisea challenged fellow archivists to think critically about the idea of activism–to identify their own positionality and recognize that the archival process never occurs in a neutral space. Rios-Alvarado and colleague?Ren?e Elizabeth Neely sought to move the conversation beyond activism, focusing on the complex dynamic between memory, history, and archives.
As these panelists demonstrated (and I should note here that I’ve only highlighted a portion of the day’s talks–my West Cost time zone got in the way of my participation in the first half of the Symposium), it certainly does mean something to be in the “same room,” although what this means is constantly in flux and contingent on local conditions. What remains the same, however, is the idea that both archivists and librarians are always operating within and among a community–or communities. We must understand the shapes that these communities take, the inherent promises and challenges the contain, and the unique but overlapping?responsibilities?of each person in the room. From my room in San Francisco, I thought about my own space and my own role and about the memory and positionality I will bring with me as I make the transition from a student into what comes next.
Review the Symposium program here.
Panel broadcasts are available here.
We are excited to announce the schedule and topics of the highly collaborative 2nd Annual Graduate Symposium!
The Symposium will be Saturday, March 30th, 2013, from 8:30 AM – 5:30 PM in room C101 of the Main Campus Building. The?Symposium will also be livestreamed here thanks to the wonderful support from the GSLIS Media Lab and Simmons Technology.
Thanks to the generous donations of PLG, ALA-SC, Panopticon, LISSA, ASIS&T, UXPA, SLA and SCoSAA breakfast, lunch, and snacks will be provided throughout the day!
If you are planning to attend in person or via livestream, please register?here–there is NO cost!
Our Keynote Speaker is Professor Martha Mahard and our panels of student papers touch on topics of ethics, art, technology and “third space” within the larger context of Libraries, Archives, History and Museums.
| 8:30 – 9:00 | Registration and Breakfast |
| 9:00 – 10:00 | Keynote Speaker |
| 10:00 – 10:15 | Coffee Break |
| 10:15 – 11:30 | Panel 1: Technology |
| 12:00 – 1:15 | Lunch in Special Functions Room on 1st floor of the Main Campus Building |
| 1:15 – 2:25 | Panel 2: Art |
| 2:25 – 2:40 | Coffee Break |
| 2:40 – 3:45 | Panel 3: Third Space |
| 3:45 – 4:00 | Coffee Break |
| 4:00 – 5:05 | Panel 4: Ethics |
| 5:05 – 5:15 | Closing Remarks |
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On April 21, 2012 SCoSAA, along with SLA, hosted Simmons College first Graduate Symposium. This one-day event featured presentations from GSLIS students on their recent research. The variety of papers and topics demonstrated how GSLIS students plan to contribute to their respective fields once they graduate. All of these lively presentations sparked a fruitful conversation on the future of archives and archival practices. Please read the following panel reports (link below) to learn more about the papers presented. We hope that you will all consider attending or presenting next year. — SCoSAA
Simmons College First Annual Graduate Symposium Panel Reports
When: Saturday, April 21, 2012 from 9:00 – 5:00pm
Where: SOMC M223 (School of Management Building)
SCoSAA and SLA invite you to attend the First Annual Simmons College Graduate Student Symposium. The conference will consist of presentations of papers on topics related to archives, special collections, and the many ways in which the study of history and archives converge. Though the Symposium is free of charge and open to the entire Simmons community, we kindly ask that you register in advance. To register for the Symposium please go to our event registration link at: http://tinyurl.com/6ntxu5l. You can learn about our pre-conference event and view the complete schedule of the Symposium on our website at: http://slis.simmons.edu/blogs/scosaa/category/graduate-symposium/.
Graduate Symposium
When: April 21, 2012 from 9:00-5:00pm
Where: School of Management M223
Description:
The Student Chapter of the Society of American Archivists (SCoSAA) and the student chapter of the Special Library Association invite you to attend the First Annual Simmons College Graduate Student Symposium to be held on Saturday, April 21, 2012 in the School of Management Building at Simmons College. The conference will consist of presentations of papers on topics related to archives, special collections, and the many ways in which the study of history and archives converge. We are excited to announce that the keynote speaker for the conference is Gregor Trinkaus-Randall, the current President of SAA (The Society of American Archivists).
Schedule for Symposium
9:00-9:20 am ? ? ? Event Starts/Breakfast
9:20 am ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Introduction to Keynote Speaker
9:30-10:15 am ? ? Keynote Speaker
10:15-10:30 am ? Questions for Keynote Speaker
10:30-10:45 am ? Break
10:45-12:00 pm ? Panel One: Through the Looking Glass: New Perspectives on Archives and Archival Theory
12:00-1:20 pm ? ? ?Lunch
1:20-2:15 pm ? ? ? ?Panel Two: Weighing Practice Against Theory: An Examination of Archival Policies
2:15-2:30 pm ? ? ? ?Break
2:30-3:15 pm ? ? ? ?Panel Three: Sustainability Considerations in Cultural Heritage Sites
3:15-3:30 pm ? ? ? ?Break
3:30-4:45 pm ? ? ? ?Panel Four: History Detectives: Using Archival Materials to Connect People to Communities
4:45-5:00 pm ? ? ? ?Closing & Thank you
5:30 pm ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?SCoSAA Meet-up at a local restaurant (Location: TBD)
Dear Simmons community,
SCoSAA is excited to announce that we are hosting the first Graduate Symposium for all graduate students at Simmons College on Saturday, April 21, 2012. This conference is a unique opportunity for students to present on their research interests, prepare for future professional conferences, network with their peers, and learn about how archives, libraries, history, and other disciplines converge.
If you are a graduate student at Simmons College, we invite you to submit your proposal (or a joint proposal) on topics related to archives, rare books, or special collections for presentation at the conference. Historical research is welcome if it covers the convergence of the study of history, archives, and primary source research. Each student can submit only one proposal.
Each paper session will be an hour and fifteen minutes long and will include two to three presenters. Each presenter will have approximately fifteen to twenty minutes to speak, and the session will conclude with a fifteen-minute period for questions and answers.
To be considered as a presenter, please submit a proposal to [email protected] by Wednesday, December 21, 2011. Your proposal should be outlined in the form found here, and needs to include the following information: your name, your email address, your graduate program, an abstract of no more than 250 words, a working title, and any audiovisual needs that you may have for your presentation.
The papers will be discussed and voted on in a blind judging process, and you will receive an acceptance or decline email by January 21, 2012. You will be required to submit the completed paper by April 12, 2012 to have your acceptance finalized.
If your proposal is accepted, you will be sent more detailed information on April 12, 2012. Please do not hesitate to email me at [email protected] or Amanda at [email protected] if you have any questions!
We look forward to receiving your submissions!
Best wishes, Camille and Amanda
Download the?2012 Graduate Symposium Paper Proposal Form.
See the proposals here.