Roundtables & Small Group Discussions

Roundtables are an opportunity for members to hold small group discussions on a variety of topics facing the field.  Informal, collaborative discussions, Roundtables explore specific topics and issues in a small group (tables are seated for 10 people). There is no presenter or speaker, and they are open to anyone with an interest in the topic, or for groups of people to assemble without a topic who have shared interest/concerns and want to have a group conversation.  During these small group topical discussions, everyone’s voice is heard and there is a facilitator for support.

If your topic is of interest to the membership, we encourage you to take notes that can be shared after the conference (or through the Collaborative Notes).

10:00am – 11:00am |  Table 1
Program Alumni
This roundtable is geared towards recent alumni of any program looking for support and advice. Some discussion topics will include: navigating the job market, moving up in early career positions, and paying back student loans.
Facilitator:  Jen O’Leary, Education Committee co-chair

10:00am – 11:00am | Table 3
Understanding and Advocating for Salaries and Equitable Work Conditions
This roundtable will be an opportunity for AMIA members to reflect on recommendations from the Advocacy Committee of the Board’s Survey Report and Needs Assessment, particularly regarding increasing compensation and improving hiring practices. There is no shortage of work for skilled moving image archive professionals, but the field relies heavily on unpaid labor and project-based contract work. How can AMIA and the ACOB help advocate for a more sustainable living? One recommendation fo the report is to institute an annual employment and salary survey to gather data that can be used for ongoing advocacy. What questions should we ask?
Facilitator: Brenda Flora and Candace Ming

11:00am – 12:00pm |  Table 4  |  Provisional
PSLF––is it possible?
Many of us work for museums, libraries, archives, schools, and other nonprofit institutions, and many of us have significant student debt. Is the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program a viable option in this industry? Who all is trying to navigate this process, and has anyone successfully had their loans forgiven?
Facilitator: Needed

2:00pm – 3:00pm | Table 1
Unconventional Career Paths: How We Got Here (and you can too!)
There is no guide book for how to get into this field and it can often seem like a minefield of decision making, but we are going to discuss the decisions we made, the jobs we took (or couldn’t take!) that lead us to our jobs now. The goal is to discuss the variety of paths one can take, whether they started in law and ended up in copyright, started in chemistry and now work in preservation, or haven’t quite made the career shift and are hoping to in the future.
Facilitator: Lance Watsky

2:00pm – 3:00pm | Table 3
Brainstorm: How could we re-think AMIA committee structure to encourage more participation and engagement?
What’s working? What could be improved? Please join us for a conversation about how AMIA could support enhanced participation by rethinking committee structure and other forms of engagement. If you haven’t yet been involved in an AMIA committee, we want your input, too!
Facilitators: Yvonne Ng and Snowden Becker

3:00pm – 4:00pm | Table 2
Responding to Climate Crisis as a Profession and as Individuals
We are currently facing a planetary emergency that is human induced climate disruption, the most urgent challenge that we face as humans and as societies and as a profession charged with the preservation of cultural heritage. This roundtable will include a critical discussion around the impacts of the climate crisis on the archival profession and how archivists can and should respond.
Facilitators:  Casey Davis Kaufman and Tre Berney

 

 

9:00am – 10:00am | Table 1 | Provisional

Data Migration
Archives have to face the migration of their digital media (digitised films and videos as well as digital-born files) from one storage generation to the next. The quality of migration shall be as high as possible, in order to both preserve the archive content and allow for its optimal use in future.
Facilitator: Needed

 

Hit the Ground Running – A Discussion on the Needs of Emerging Professionals
The AMIA Diversity and Inclusion Fellowship Advisory Task Force invites you to discuss the needs of students, emerging professionals and others seeking entry into the audiovisual archiving field. This roundtable encourages emerging professionals, recent graduates, and representatives of institutions working to foster pre-professionals to share existing resources, articulate areas of need, and brainstorm on ways to network and support a diverse new generation of audiovisual archivists. Starting in Spring 2020, the AMIA Diversity and Inclusion Fellowship Pilot Program will launch as part of an effort to elevate equity, diversity and inclusion as priorities within the field of moving image archiving. The goal of this roundtable is to hear from students and early career archivists about existing gaps in archival education and professional development opportunities. A description of the ADIFP project is here.
Facilitators:  Andy Uhrich and Ashley Franks McGill

 

10:00am – 11:00am | Table 2
Building Sustainability into Queer Archives
This roundtable serves as a breakout discussion session for the session  “Building Sustainability into Queer Archives.” We hope to use this time to discuss any points of interest that arise during the panel, with an aim toward compiling resources to be published online.
Facilitator:  Claire Fox

 

10:00am – 11:00am | Table 4
Sustaining the Profession – Action Items to Enrich Continuing Education Opportunities
This roundtable will be led by members of the AMIA Continuing Education Advisory Task Force which in 2019 conducted an evaluation of continuing education opportunities and gaps within AMIA and the moving image archival profession. This roundtable will include a discussion around these opportunities and gaps and will seek input from participants on continuing education needs among a wide range of professionals, from students through retirement.  The roundtable discussion will inform the Sustaining the Profession panel later in the day.
Facilitators:  Andy Uhrich and Karen  Gracy

 

11:00am – 12:00pm | Table 1
Sustaining the Profession – Action Items to Make the Field More Equitable
This roundtable will feature a critical discussion around the findings and recommendations of the National Film Preservation Board’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion report which evaluates the status of these issues across the moving image archival profession. It will also include a discussion around practical action items that can be taken on the individual and institutional level. The roundtable discussion will inform the Sustaining the Profession panel later in the day.
Facilitators:  Teague Schneiter, Candace Ming, and Jacqueline Stewart

 

11:00am – 12:00pm |  Table 3
Licensing Roundtable
Please come prepared for an open discussion of current issues in media licensing, including digital distribution and streaming.
Facilitators:  Alan Munshower & Jenni Matz

 

12:00pm – 1:00pm | Table 2
Sustaining the Profession: Professional Advocacy Recommendations
This discussion will be an opportunity for the AMIA community to give feedback on the Advocacy Committee of the Board’s recent advocacy survey report and needs assessment, particularly regarding recommendations to improve professional advocacy efforts within and outside the workplace. Several respondents to the survey lamented that our labor is often invisible and underestimated. In order to raise the stature of moving image archivists, how can AMIA and the ACOB best support you at your institution, and help explain the value of what you do to the general public, to funders, and other members of the Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums (GLAM) field? The roundtable discussion will inform the Sustaining the Profession panel later in the day.
Facilitators:  Rachel Beattie and Pamela Vadakan

 

1:00pm – 2:00pm | Table 1
A/V Archivists of Color Focus Group
This focus group will examine and hopefully provide feedback on barriers to entry for A/V archivists of color, DEI issues in AMIA and the wider field and suggestions on how to do outreach to both archivists and communities of color.
Facilitator:  Candace Ming