This year Josh Redd was awarded SAA Annual Meeting Travel Grant funds to attend SAA Annual Meeting in-person. Here’s Josh’s rundown of his experience.
Hello everyone, I am Josh Redd and I was a recipient for the Delaware Valley Archivists Group Travel Grant for the ARCHIVES*RECORDS 2023 Conference held in Washington DC. I am extremely grateful for the opportunity to attend this conference. As a current graduate student, this was an excellent opportunity to learn and hear from other active archivists.
Folks who wanted to attend were able to attend virtually or in person and many sessions were available in a hybrid format to increase the overall turnout. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect for the number of attendees, but I thought that the over 2000 registered, with about 600 attending virtually was quite impressive!
The SAA took Covid-19 very seriously, despite the pandemic “officially” being deemed over. Masks were highly encouraged among other social distancing procedures. It was also great to see other features like a Quiet Room and a room for nursing mothers, two great ways to ensure expanded accessibility for those who want to attend.
The Expo Hall featured products and services from over 50 companies, it’s a good chance for those already working in the field to talk with vendors and even other colleagues about the products they use or are interested in. Also, an excellent opportunity to stock up on company pens, highlighters and other free goodies.
Besides the Expo Hall, there were multiple designated time slots for networking with colleagues and on Thursday morning there was a time before the first plenary for SNAP members to grab a coffee and meet others who were also new. I appreciated this opportunity, I am not necessarily introverted but the extra nudge to meet with others can be helpful, especially with so many people you could meet.
The conference made use of the conference app, Whova, which provides the agenda schedule, allows you to create a profile for yourself, and there is a community section for user-created channels – it’s essentially a social media app. The topics in the community section varied but one was for SNAP members, another was for members to share genealogy research, another for local restaurant recommendations, and of course what would be an internet web community without a place to share pictures of our beloved cats and dogs and other family pets!
Whova is helpful to keep track of the session schedule and where each was located. However, the community section was often overwhelming with notifications, for future attendees I would suggest not having the app on your phone and just making use of the website version online your laptop/tablet, a few colleagues said they did the same. If it feels essential to have then I highly consider turning off push notifications for the duration of the conference and just checking the app when you need to.
Another recommendation for future attendees is to dress comfortably for the venue, the International Ballroom at the Hilton in DC was kept at a very chilly temperature to make up for when it is filled with people. So, if you’re attending a smaller session be ready with a sweater or something else warm. A third thing is a Linkedin account. I didn’t have one before attending this conference, but I noticed that a lot of people had an account. I’m not sure how useful it is, but if you want to step up your networking game, creating an account could be worth your time. I have already been able to add a few of the people I met in addition to people already in my social circles.
Delaware Valley Archivists Group 