Delaware Valley Archivists Group

This year Sophia Stutte was awarded SAA Annual Meeting Travel Grant funds to attend SAA Annual Meeting in person. Here’s a rundown of her experience.

Hello, my name is Sophia Stutte, and I was a recipient of the Delaware Valley Archivists Group
Travel Grant to attend this year’s SAA meeting. This being my first year in the world of
archivists, I have been generously granted the opportunity to go to SAA’s Annual Meeting this
year. As an undergraduate at Drexel University, I was nervous yet eager to make the trip down
to Washington D.C. for ARCHIVES*RECORDS 2023. My co-op as an Archival Assistant with
Drexel University Archives, who were supportive of my attendance, made me hopeful for a
future in archives.

Being in the heart of DC for this conference was a wonderful experience. I got to explore the
National Mall with a professional perspective. I grew up in the area, so I’ve been to these
museums my whole life. However, being able to attend the special event that was held in the
National Archives for SAA, as well as going to different Smithsonian archives on my own time
and meeting new people, brought an entirely new experience to the table. If anything, it made
me fall in love with Washington D.C. by seeing it from a different perspective and fall even more
in love with archives as a career.

When I first arrived at the annual meeting, I was warmly greeted by the people staffing the
event. Everyone I came across and talked to was super helpful and welcoming. After
experiencing this during the first day, I easily became comfortable with the atmosphere of the
conference. One thing that helped me get more acclimated (as I was younger than most people
there, being an undergrad) was the meetups that could be organized by conference-goers
through the app used to organize the event. I saw so many kinds of meetups, with the Queer
Archivists meet-up group being the event I was naturally drawn towards. These meetups helped
me find people who were of similar background or interest.

The sessions provided by SAA had a large range of topics, all of which seemed interesting to
me. The only issue I had with this was that at times it was difficult to decide what sessions I
wanted to go to (which is a good issue to have, in my opinion). I found it very convenient that
some hybrid sessions/sessions were being recorded that I could watch later, as it made
scheduling a lot easier.

I had two sessions that stood out to me the most, the first session being People’s Media Record:
Archiving Activism. I currently reside in Philadelphia, so this session intrigued me. Being able to hear how people’s voices in Philadelphia activism are recorded and archived was such an
educational experience as a newer resident. The thing that stuck with me the most out of that
panel was hearing the speakers talk about how they went about completing their projects.
Having little experience in archival work, being able to hear how people applied the things I
have been researching was of much help to me in seeing how I could use the skills I have, as
well as what skills I want to strengthen. Learning about the process of web archiving opened my
mind to different ways I could approach my educational career to better understand the changes the archival world is going through.

To my surprise, I was able to fit one of my hobbies into a session. Outside of archives, I have a
huge love for video games and gaming culture. You can imagine how excited I was for the panel
Life in the Fast Lane: Video Games Archives Level Up. As I didn’t even think about how this job
extended to the video game world (partially because of how new it is in that industry), learning
about how different forms of media are archived by different production studios showed how I
could combine two things I love: video games and archives. From listening to archivists at
Blizzard Entertainment and Riot Games talk about their favorite collections, to hearing about
how the archival skills are adapted to fit the needs of a video game archivist, I was happy to
come out of the presentation with people who were happy to connect with me to talk more about what they do.

Being younger, it was very nice to be able to talk to people and connect. The people I met at the
conference made me feel like I belonged in this field. Hearing different experiences and projects from different people, some even from across the country, I was delighted to come back to Philadelphia with a brighter plan for my future as an archivist. Hopefully, I will be able to attend the next SAA Annual meeting, as I will be looking forward to it.