ARA Conference 2022 - Let’s get digital
Our 2022 in person conference in Chester (31st August to 2nd September) has a particularly strong programme of presentations, workshops, panels and seminars looking at digital preservation.
The Wednesday morning looks at two contrasting national endeavours with presentations from Shadrek Bayane of Botswana Investment and Trade Centre on ‘Artificial Intelligence for Records Management in a Developing Country – a Readiness Reality Check!’ and from Sarah Higgins from Aberystwyth University and Scott Lloyd from the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales, on ‘Towards a National AI-enabled born-digital repository for Wales’.
This is followed by two case studies:
‘Leading the Way: Digital Preservation Solutions in the Disability Arts Sector’ from Ellie Pridgeon and ‘Born-digital transfers during lockdown within the National Library of Ireland’ from Kieran O’Leary of the National Library of Ireland in Dublin.
Karyn Williamson of abrdn looks at how you can do digital preservation on a budget with her ‘May Open Source Be With You – Digital Preservation for all!’ session and Euan Cochrane from Yale University Library, USA, looks at ‘Reducing Costs and Barriers to Transfer with Whole-System Preservation’.
Climate change is never far from our minds and Stacey Anderson of The Box, Plymouth explores the interesting dilemma that decarbonisation presents for those who are involved in DP planning in her session ‘This Green and Pleasant Storage’.
The theme of diversity and inclusion is wound through the different streams of the conference programme and in the final session on Thursday two presentations look at social implications of digital preservation:
‘Digital Preservation with Sociotechnical approach’ from Irian Schmidt of AUC, Cairo
And
‘Digital Preservation by collaboration: Archives, records management and research data management’ with Juulia Ahvensalmi and Kirsten Hylan from St George’s, University of London.
Chris Jones from the National Archives, London also looks at the challenges of advancing digital archiving through a diversity programme in her session on Wednesday afternoon.
On Friday afternoon we have a very interesting session looking at how audiences engage with different kinds of digitised material: ‘Digital options: an assessment of audience engagement with a digitised archive set transformed from online text and images to audio format’ presented by Bruce Ryan and Hazel Hall of Edinburgh Napier University.
And if you’ve ever wondered what to do with your Archival Information Package (AIP) then Dr Viv Cothey from Gloucestershire Archives may provide the answers in her session “I’ve created my AIP. What do I do now?’
Digital for all:
There will also be an opportunity for all delegates to get involved and ask those tricky questions with the semi-structured, participant led lean coffee discussion led by Andrew Janes and Emma Hancox from ARA’s Section for Archives and Technology: ’60 Minute Workshop – Facing forward with digital: a lean coffee discussion’
Also not to be missed by everyone (whether actively involved in Digital Preservation or not) is Ken Liu’s (Renmin University of China, Beijing) presentation ‘Artificial Intelligence and Archives Management’ which looks at all aspects of AI within archives from store room management to finding aids to interpretation.
The full conference programme can be found here https://conference.archives.org.uk/2020-programme/
Social Events
As if all this wonderful content wasn’t enough there are also social events!
The Wednesday night drinks reception will be in the cloister of Chester Cathedral – a short walk from the conference hotel – and fully wheelchair accessible. The cathedral is a one of the UK’s finest and the cloister dates from the 15th Century. If the weather is wet the event will move into the nave of the Cathedral.
Dinner in the Stables Restaurant at the Conference hotel is provided on Wednesday night for those booking the full conference package.
On Thursday we have our Gala Dinner and Awards ceremony.
A sit down dinner followed by live band and dancing.
The awards will be presented during the evening and you can vote on who should win up to 8th July here: www.archives.org.uk/ara-awards
If you are new to conference, coming on your own, not affiliated to any particular group or region and wondering whether attending the Gala Dinner will be a trial in social awkwardness we have the solution! There will be three ARA staff hosted tables and anyone looking for a group to join is welcome to sign up for a place at one of them – your ARA hosts will make the introductions and ensure the conversation flows as freely as the drinks.
Register now!
Rooms in the conference hotel are going fast so don’t delay with your registration!
Full conference package is £555 (including accommodation)
Day rate is £195 (you can add accommodation and social events to this for an extra charge)
Book here https://conference.archives.org.uk/conference-registration/
Bursaries are available (deadline for application 13th June)
Find out more here https://conference.archives.org.uk/delegates/