[Air-L] Call for Contributions - Archival Education and Research Initiative 2026 Vancouver, Canada, July 20-24, 2026

[Amelia Acker]

Apologies for cross posting! AERI is a wonderful institute for colleagues, including early career colleagues, practitioners and doctoral students interested in archival studies. If you have any questions, please reach out off list!

AERI Call for Contributions<https://arc.net/l/quote/jbatqkih> – deadline January 5, 2026

The School of Information at the University of British Columbia (UBC iSchool) is looking forward to hosting the 2026 Archival Education and Research Institute (AERI) to be held in July 20-24, 2026, in Vancouver, Canada, on the traditional, ancestral and unceded territory of the xwməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam) People.

These week-long institutes are designed to strengthen archival education and research and support academic cohort-building and mentoring. Institutes are open to all academic faculty/staff and students at all levels working in archival studies, as well as archival professionals and others engaged in archival education, research and scholarship, broadly conceived.
AERI seeks to advance the field of archival studies by:

  *   Creating a dynamic community of researchers, teachers, and students to help mentor doctoral students and academic faculty in areas such as dissertation/thesis preparation, grant writing, publishing, career development, and work/life balance.
  *   Advancing curriculum development in archival studies at all levels –  undergraduate, graduate/postgraduate, and continuing education.
  *   Furthering current research development inside the academy and in practice through paper presentations, posters, and workshop activities.
  *   Fostering interest in future collaborations, intra- and internationally.

Since this is a working institute, all participants, with the exception of students who are about to commence their studies, are expected to contribute in some way to the working meeting. Contribution might be in a variety of roles, including but not limited to presenters, instructors, mentors, moderators, and AERI steering committee members.
We invite proposals for contributions that fit within AERI’s goals. These could include:

  *   short papers (15 minutes)
  *   panels (1.5 hours, with 3 or more speakers)
  *   workshops (half day or full day)
     *   pedagogical
     *   curricular
     *   methodological
     *   technological
     *   mentorship/professional development
  *   performances
  *   posters
  *   round tables for gathering scholars with mutual interests
  *   unconference proposals for half- or full-day programming structured by participants
As a research institute, we welcome any of the above contribution formats to focus on research at any stage (e.g. findings of recently completed projects, works in progress, etc.). There is no formal theme for AERI; as a research institute, we invite you to come talk about the work you are doing now with other archival scholars and educators.

AERI is a primarily in-person event, but the Program Committee is conscious that not everyone will be able to travel in person to the conference. We do not have the funds to make the conference fully hybrid, but we may have capacity to offer a limited number of hybrid sessions. Final decisions on hybrid sessions will depend on proposals received.

To submit:
Please submit a 250-300 word abstract outlining your proposed contribution. Be sure to also indicate the format for your contribution (e.g. paper, panel, poster, workshop, performance, etc.), as well as 100-150 word bio(s) for all confirmed speakers.
Abstracts and speaker bios should be sent to aeri.2026 at ubc.ca<mailto:aeri.2026 at ubc.ca> by midnight PST, Monday, January 5, 2026.
Timeline for Applications:

  *   Deadline for submission of proposals: Monday, January 5, 2026.
  *   Applicants notified of admission / registration opens: Early February
  *   Registration closes: TBD
As with past AERI meetings, there will be a series of  local tours as well as social and mentoring events held around the meeting schedule.  Additional information about these will be posted on the forthcoming AERI 2026 website.
We look forward to welcoming you to Vancouver in July 2026.




Amelia Acker, Associate Professor
Department of Library & Information Science
School of Communication & Information
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
http://www.ameliaacker.com/

Editor, Journal of Cultural Analytics<https://culturalanalytics.org/about>

New book:
Archiving Machines: From Punch Cards to Platforms<https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262553247/archiving-machines/>
Recent publications:
How “Archive” Became a Verb<https://issues.org/archiving-machines-acker/>
Data Work in Memory Institutions: Why and How Information Professionals Use Wikidata<https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3757575>
The Sage Handbook of Data and Society<https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/the-sage-handbook-of-data-and-society/book281091>