2025 Annual Meeting:
Minneapolis, MN, April 10-12, 2025

Plenary Session

For this year’s plenary session, Fallon Carey, from the National Native American Boarding School Coalition will  highlight the multifaceted nature of this work, including the technical and ethical challenges of managing sensitive historical data, ensuring cultural protocols are respected, and addressing the dual responsibilities of providing public access and safeguarding Indigenous perspectives. By collaborating with tribal nations, researchers, and policymakers, this effort not only preserves history but also creates pathways for community-driven storytelling, education, and advocacy.

Fallon Carey, The National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition Fallon Carey joined the team at NABS in fall of 2022 as the digital Archives Assistant and took on the role of Digital Archives Manager summer of 2024. She is passionate about advocating for tribal sovereignty in archival collections and has worked to facilitate relationships between tribal and nontribal institutions. Since graduating from the University of Wisconsin- Madison with a master’s in library science in 2020, she has worked at the University of Utah cataloging oral histories from individuals from 90 different Tribal Nations for the Native American Oral History project funded by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation.

In addition to her archival projects, she has partnered with Franklin Library staff to promote Indigenous collections and library services in Hennepin County. Her past projects include a position as a contributor to the Hennepin County Library Native Advisory Council, and the Minnesota Department of Education’s Indigenous Representations Project. Before moving to Minneapolis, she lived on the Cherokee Nation reservation and got her BFA in Ceramics with a minor in Art History from the University of Tulsa. Fallon is a descendent of a boarding school survivor who attended Chilocco Indian Training School.

Workshops and Special Events

SAA DAS Workshop: Digital Forensics Fundamentals (Wednesday all day)

The field of digital forensics often evokes imagery of prime-time television crime dramas. But what is it, and how can archivists put digital forensics tools and processes to use in their home institutions? Archivists are more likely than ever to be confronted with collections containing removable storage media (e.g., floppy disks, hard drives, thumb drives, memory sticks, and CDs). These media provide limited accessibility and may endanger the electronic records housed within, due to obsolescence and loss over time. Caring for these records requires archivists to extract whatever useful information resides on the medium while avoiding the accidental alteration of data or metadata. You’ll explore the layers of hardware and software that allow bitstreams on digital media to be read as files, the roles and relationships of these layers, and tools and techniques for ensuring the completeness and evidential value of data.The enrollment for this workshop will be capped at 35 participants.

Instructor: Joshua Kitchens, Director of Archival Services and Digital Initiatives, Georgia Public Library Service

Oral History Workshop (Thursday morning)

This workshop for oral historians of all levels of experience will focus not only on what oral history is, but also how and why the oral history field has emerged as one of the most flexible and dynamic methods of historical account collection available. Over the course of the four-hour workshop, the instructors will empower MAC attendees to come face-to-face with the history they are documenting, and demonstrate how to navigate thorny issues of empathy vs. exploitation, trauma-based accounts, and who has the right to tell whose story in the archives. The nuts and bolts of oral history will be covered extensively, offering participants the opportunity to submit their own projects for feedback and development in project design, interviewing, transcription, preservation and access.

Instructors:
Matt Jones, Director of the Center for Oral History Research, Eastern Michigan University
Alexis Braun Marks, University Archivist and Department Head, Eastern Michigan University

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Unconference (Thursday morning)

This free event will feature conversations exploring how we, as archival professionals, have successfully and unsuccessfully integrated diversity, equity, and inclusion into our individual and collective/institutional work. Topics may include collection priorities and management, outreach, conservation, donor relations, hiring practices, and more. Together, we will examine how to move beyond well-meaning but insufficient efforts to create meaningful and lasting change. Our goal is to empower archivists and librarians to act as agents of transformation within their institutions, regardless of size or staffing, and to provide tools for navigating challenges such as resistance and backlash. Registrants will have the opportunity to propose and select discussion topics in advance, ensuring the conversations reflect the priorities and experiences of the community. Attendees will leave the Unconference with actionable strategies, renewed energy, and a sense of momentum to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion in their home institutions.

Discussion facilitators:
Kheir Fakhreldin, University Archivist, Chicago State University
Ellen Holt-Werle, Institutional Archivist, University of Minnesota
Cecily Marcus, Director, Collections at Minnesota Historical Society
Davu Underwood Seru, Curator of the Givens Collection of African American Literature, University of Minnesota

Friday Forums (Friday afternoon)

Please join one of our Friday Forums from 1pm to 1:45pm. Coordinated by the MAC Education Committee, these facilitator-led sessions are informal and interactive, so come prepared with questions and to share your thoughts! More details in the full program.

• Networking for Archives Managers and Supervisors
• Networking for Solo Archivists
• Publishing with MAC

Tours

All tours will be held on Thursday, April 10th beginning at 10am

• Hennepin County Library Special Collections, Minneapolis Central Library
  Hennepin County Library Special Collections holds several in-depth collections including the Minneapolis and Hennepin County Collection of local history. See behind the scenes of our archives and digitization programs.
• Minnesota African American Heritage Museum and Gallery
  Join MAC for a guided museum tour of the Minnesota African American Heritage Museum and Gallery. The Minnesota African American Heritage Museum and Gallery (MAAHMG) preserves, documents and highlights the achievements, contributions and experiences of African Americans in Minnesota.
• Minnesota History Center
  Get a behind-the-scenes look at the Minnesota Historical Society Library and Archives storage facility. MHS collections chronicle a wide range of material that represents Minnesota’s diverse history and culture.
• University of Minnesota Archives and Special Collections
  The University of Minnesota Libraries’ Department of Archives and Special Collections (ASC) collects and preserves an amazing array of materials that support interdisciplinary research. Join us for a behind the scenes tour of the underground caverns where the collections are stored.
• Walker Museum/Archive
  The Walker Art Center’s Library and Archives contain a comprehensive collection of artists’ monographs and catalogues, and over a century's worth of archival material related to the Walker’s long history.