SAA Conference Proposal

Here's the proposal that I submitted last month, so you all know what you signed up for.

The Society of American Archivist Student Chapter at the University of Pittsburgh would like the opportunity to present a poster at this year's SAA Conference in Austin, Texas. In discussion concerning this year's conference theme, Sustainable Archives, we were influenced by the recent economic crises that have affected nearly every aspect of American society over the past year. The increasing unavailability of credit, grants, and revenues across all sectors of the economy put many archives at risk as corporations, non profit institutions, and governments all seek cost reductions. This has thrown into sharp relief the need for archivists to demonstrate the value of the collections they maintain. To this end, we propose a poster documenting our research into the creation and application of materials for archive evaluation, specifically in the area of user surveys. We will review the literature currently available as well as draw directly on the experiences of many of our members currently working in the profession, some of which are already being asked to justify their project's existence. By incorporating existing frameworks available and addressing concerns as they appear in the institutional, private, and corporate archives in which we work, we hope to develop a survey that is sufficiently flexible to serve as a standardized tool throughout the profession and sufficiently structured to allow for meaningful comparison and contribute to the efforts of others exploring this aspect of archives. The poster will document our research and developments observed in the field as well as our findings and recommendations.