The ICA wants to thank its members from all over the world who joined us in promoting the essential role played by archives and records professionals in 21st-century knowledge societies. In 2021, you have shared with us how you are #EmpoweringArchives in the work that you do every day. In 2022, we shall continue this work by not only continuing to empower archives but also by giving you the opportunity to demonstrate how #ArchivesAreYou!
Looking ahead
Rome Conference 2022
In 2022, the biennial Conference will take place in Rome from the 21st of September to the 23rd. The theme is Archives: Bridging the Gap and registration will open on the 1st of February, 2022.
The Call for Papers is now open, and will remain open until the 21st of March, 2022. Be sure to be thinking about what you would like to present!
Find out more about the Conference.
Virtual Conference – Empowering Knowledge Societies 2021
Thank you to all of you who participated in our first Virtual Conference! If you didn’t get a chance to participate in the Conference, you can still register with a reduced rate and watch all of the talks.
Registration will remain open until 16th of December. For those who have registered, access to all of the Conference content will be available until October 2022.
Register here.
As part of the #ICAEKS2021 activities, there was also a series of free online workshops presented by the ICA Training Programme. Two of these workshops were recorded and are now available on the ICA’s Youtube Channel.
PCOM Project Funding
Funding was recently allocated based on the 2021 PCOM Call for Projects. These projects will take place from December 2021 to March 2022.
A new call for funding will open in the first quarter of the year, to fund projects for the remainder of 2022. Moving forward, we intend to have one call for funding per year which will take place in the Fall and cover the following calendar year.
New Professionals Programme
The 2020-2021 cohort launched and analyzed a survey titled Whose Stories Do We Tell? A New Professional’s Survey on Archival Digitization Strategies. They also presented their findings on this survey at the Virtual Conference in October 2021.
We will announce the 2021-2022 cohort soon! And in January, we will be presenting their Mentors.
Training Programme
This year, the Training Programme launched another online learning course! The course, which is available in English and French, is titled “Managing Digital Archives”, and provides a thorough grounding in the management of archives in digital formats.
The Training Programme currently has three other online courses available for those interested in records management, family archives, and the Universal Declaration on Archives.
Africa Programme
Phase two of the Africa Programme is currently underway. Phase 2 focuses on two objectives: to develop sustainable knowledge exchange initiatives and to develop training and trainer competencies.
One of the major projects in 2021 has been the enrollment of almost 100 professionals affiliated to organizations from different anglophone countries in the ICA online course in records management, as part of the benefits that we are offering in 2021 to our current ICA members in good standing.
For 2022, the Africa Programme will collaborate with different partners in the francophone archival community on identifying African experts, with the aim of establishing a Register of Experts.
Comma Journal
Two issues of Comma were published this year. The first one, Archives and Intergovernmental Organizations (2019:2) is the result of the work of the Section on International Organisations (ICA-SIO). The second one, Archives and Human Rights (2020:1-2) has been co-edited by the new Section on Archives and Human Rights (ICA-SAHR).
A call for papers for the next issue on “Archives and climate change” is to be open soon. Submissions are to be sent to Dr. Bethany Anderson and Dr. Frans Smit, the new editors in chief of Comma, at comma@ica.org.
ICA Membership 2022
Don’t forget to renew your ICA membership! This will give you continued access to our materials, network and resources, including all of the new tools and courses under development!
The ICA office will close between the 17th of December and the 4th of January so we take this opportunity to send you our warmest greetings and best wishes for the New Year!
With our best regards,
The ICA Team