Archives Association of Ontario (AAO) Conference 2018

Date

May 9, 2018 09:00 - May 11, 2018 17:00

Location

Waterloo

Details

Website:https://aao-archivists.ca/2018

Theme: Celebrations: The good, the bad, and the ugly

Celebrations come in many forms, and they can be judged successful or less so. The past five years have seen two major government-driven national celebrations—the War of 1812 bicentennial and the Canadian Confederation sesquicentennial celebrations—as well as many more regional and local, and more grassroots celebrations. We celebrate International Archives Day on June 9; we celebrate Archives Awareness Week on the first week of April. And certainly we celebrate our own achievements by holding public launches of digital exhibits, by mounting physical exhibits, by going into classes and showing the value of primary resources, by running outreach events at community festivals. All of these activities might be considered celebrations of the rich array of archival materials we make available to the world.

BUT… Sometimes our celebrations can be controversial, or get us into trouble. Sometimes celebrations can delay or derail other work. Grant funding tied to specific celebrations affects how we plan our projects and programs. Sometimes celebrations present skewed emphases on, or interpretations of, events.

The conference theme for 2018 will focus on celebrating: what we collect, what we do, who we are as a profession. However, this conference will not examine just celebrations themselves in their many forms, whether successful or not, but also the concept of celebration.