Give a little back? Help fund our New Professionals Bursary for ARA Belfast 2023

Our New Professionals Bursary for our ARA Conference 2023 is, as it has been in previous years, crowdfunded from the recordkeeping sector and ARA members. It is a chance to give a little back to the next generation of recordkeepers. Give a fiver - or a little more and one New Professional will have a chance to attend our conference in Belfast this year.

Last year, Anne Courtney was the recipient - here, in her own words, she sets out the experience:

I graduated as an archivist in 2019 but the first ARA conference I attended was in 2022, on the New Professionals bursary. One of the overriding reasons why I wanted to go was because I was curious about what it would be like (and what is an archivist without curiosity?) I identified the sessions I was already interested in, and which were relevant to my work, but I was perhaps more interested in sessions which I had no prior knowledge of, such as collecting memorials. I wanted to keep up to date with what other archives were doing - not just the exciting ground breaking discoveries reported in the magazine and Archives & Records, but the day to day small solutions.

My first impressions of the conference were that it was a very large group of a very small world. Ever since I started volunteering, people had said that it was such a small profession, you were bound to meet the same people again. I'd already had some experience of this, but the conference brought it to a whole new level - there were lots of people whose names I knew, even if we had never met, and new people where we were almost certain to discover a connection somewhere. Reuniting with course mates was also illuminating as everyone had gone on to different things, and it made me think about what my future in archives was going to be.

Looking back on the conference afterwards, I think the most valuable part was meeting records managers and conservators. These are areas of my work which I don't spend as much time on, so it was very useful to be able to talk to more experienced professionals.

I really valued the variation between the detailed talks, where I came away with notes of ideas to try in practice, and the broader outline talks, where my notes are full of 'things to think about' like automatic updating, why do we put on exhibitions, and what does it mean to be 'pioneering'?

The broad keynote speeches which highlighted where the profession might be headed, such as the balance between innovation and stability, were particularly thought-provoking, as it's not something which I find I have much time to think about normally.

After the conference, I found the sessions I had attended on digital preservation most helpful, because we were working on our digital strategy at the time. I also found speaking to people who were further through the process helpful for me before I started out. I was also surprised by how much I had already learnt and how much I could contribute.

The whole conference made me feel a lot more connected to my profession, as well as learning about new processes and ideas which I had not considered before.

Other Bursaries

Other bursaries are available:

4 ARA Bursaries
4 Ancestry Bursaries
2 Diversity Bursaries

You can find out about the criteria for these bursaries and how to apply (and how to apply for the New Professionals Bursary) on the conference website here.

The deadline for bursary applications is 2nd May 2023