A new professional at our Belfast Conference 2023
In this guest blog Iida Saarinen - Records and Archives Engagement Archivist at National Records of Scotland; ARA Diversity and Inclusion Ally; ARA Scotland Diversity Officer describes here experiences at the Belfast Conference as the recipient of the New Professionals Bursary.
I was delighted and grateful to be offered a bursary to attend the ARA 2023 Conference in the lovely city of Belfast. This was my first time at ARA conference, and I would most likely not have been able to attend the full conference without the financial support I received for this purpose. The New Professionals Bursary was especially lovely as it enabled me to attend the social events in addition to the programmed sessions. For someone with invisible disabilities in their first ‘proper’ job, starting out on a new-ish career path, it was an invaluable experience to learn, to share, and to explore.
During the first day, I particularly enjoyed the presentations by Hannah Smyth (UCL), Sarah Trim-West (Brunel University Archives and Special Collections), and Neil Fraser (Historic Environment Scotland), speaking of UCL’s Archives and Records Management Summer School’s cohort selection, the journey of getting an assistance dog as an archivist, and a fascinating Deaf community engagement project, respectively. In the evening, PRONI treated the attendees to a tour of its premises as well as its café’s famous curry. The ‘walking-train’ of conference attendees from the Europa Hotel to the Titanic Quarter was a lovely way to see more of Belfast as well. Obligatory tourist photographs were taken!
The second day’s highlights for me were in exploring inclusivity in archive collections, trauma and archives, and Harmful Language Statements. The keynote by Emma Markiewicz and her colleagues at London Metropolitan Archives was also an inspirational example of embedding equality, diversity and inclusion in an exhibition and beyond. The day was wrapped up with a Gala Dinner and some dancing, I hear (although I was in bed by 10pm).
On day three, I particularly enjoyed hearing of Methodist Missionary archives’ work to reflect on diversity, inclusion and colonialism. Dr Peter Crooks’ (Trinity College Dublin) Keynote on Ireland’s Virtual Record Treasury project was moving as well as inspirational, and recreating the collections of Public Record Office of Ireland, destroyed in the opening engagement of the Civil War in 1922, is no small goal!
While I was enjoying my role as a conference attendee, I was also participating in sessions on the first and the second day of the conference. The first one was a panel discussion on accessibility (‘From Recruitment and Retention to Serving Our Users’) alongside the fantastic Ella Clarke (Disabled People’s Archive) and Jack Kirby (Science Museum Group), chaired by a fellow ARA Diversity and Inclusion Ally, Philip Milnes-Smith. It was brilliant to be able to share our experience and thoughts with our colleagues, and have our colleagues share with us. Being a disabled recordkeeping professional is not as uncommon an experience as we would perhaps tend to think, and there is a lot in this experience that we can extend to making our archives more accessible to our users.
The second session I was invited to participate in was an ‘Is It Okay?’ session chaired by Jenny Moran, focusing on disability. I shared the stage with Philip Milnes-Smith and Sarah Trim-West (Brunel University Archives), and we discussed the social model of disability, invisible disabilities and ‘spoons’ (see ‘spoon theory’), autism, and the respective lived experience we had of disability. From these discussions, it became clearer that when it comes to accessibility in terms of disability, it is not entirely sufficient to expect people to communicate their needs; we must also make an effort to make people comfortable to communicate their needs. The other trouble with persistent and partially unconscious attitudes is that we may need to reach the person as well as the professional, and that takes work. Unconscious bias is a tricky beast, and internalised ableism is difficult to tackle for disabled folks themselves.
In terms of the conference venue, I was particularly grateful to find a ‘quiet room’ at the conference. This was a welcome space to simply sit and recharge, and I do hope this could become a permanent feature in ARA conferences.
As my background is in history, this is not my first experience of a conference of this calibre in terms of attendees and duration. What made the ARA conference different, I feel, was its atmosphere. This was definitely reflected in the social events, and the general approachability of folks. it was especially lovely to see archivists, records managers and conservators in a relaxed context, enjoying making new connections as well as reconnecting with friends and colleagues, some of whom I had gotten to know during the pandemic but had never before had the chance to meet in person.
As someone who works largely from home, the ARA 2023 conference was at times an overwhelming, but also an overwhelmingly positive experience. It was perhaps impossible for one person to absorb the sheer amount of experience and knowledge shared at the conference, but even though I was inevitably exhausted when the conference finished, I left the city of Belfast feeling motivated and inspired.
Thank you again for this opportunity.
Thumbnail photo by Lost Lens Caps Photography