By Eric Reed, FOCAS Intern, Fall 2025 / University of Arizona
Hello everyone,
Last August I had the opportunity to attend the Society of American Archivists (SAA) Conference with my fellow FOCAS interns. This was the first SAA conference I had ever attended, and I found the experience very rewarding. From socializing with archivists and archival students from across the country, as well as a few from outside of the United States, to attending all the fantastic lectures they had at the conference. There were multiple times at the conference where I felt conflicted about which session to attend because there were so many excellent panel discussions, plenaries, and educational sessions which were happening throughout the entirety of the conference. Two of the most memorable sessions I had attended at this conference were Sessions discussing sustaining queer archival projects and brief discussion on Atlas Data Storage’s latest innovation in storage.
The first session which comes to mind when thinking back on this conference was the session on sustaining queer archival projects in a repressive political climate.
This session was special and memorable for me because it strongly resonated with the work I and my fellow interns, and archivists do at the Arizona Queer Archives (AQA). With today’s political climate being as it is, and the current widespread antagonism faced by many trans people across the nation, sessions like these are important for archivists to hear. This was in fact one of the first sessions I had marked on my agenda to go to when I first read the lineup of all the various discussions that were happening. With two of the presenters coming from a community archival background also spoke to me, since it made this session feel more personally relevant to the work I do at the AQA and what I could learn from the presenters of this session in the work which I do. Hearing what things the OUTWORDS community archive and the Sage Singers community archives were equally informational as it was rewarding to hear about. The session reminded me of all the work which the AQA does, all the stories and all the memories which are preserved from across the spectrum of age, gender, and sexuality within our collections. Hearing from the speaker from the Sage Singers community archives how critical aging studies and queer theory can be woven together was something which stuck out to me. This was because it got me thinking about how some of what was mentioned in this session could be integrated into the work which I do. It was for all these reasons why I felt this session in particular was so special and memorable for me at this year’s SAA conference.
Next, the session by Atlas Data Storage’s CEO Varun Mehta titled “Preserving What Matters, Forever” was quite memorable. Their discussion of encoding information onto synthesized strains of DNA which are then subsequently freeze dried in capsules which could hold approximately 50 terabytes of information, and which could feasibly last for over a millennium was at the very least intriguing. While this discussion was interesting in its own right, I found the questions asked by my fellow conference attendees to be the highlight of this discussion. This is because the questions which were asked such as the error rate for writing the information on the DNA strains, how long the process takes, and the viability of using the information if the capsule is destroyed, were all excellent questions to ask. I found it so interesting to hear about what innovations were happening at this conference, since technology is ever advancing and by being aware of what is out there can be helpful for me and potentially for whatever institution I am with currently, or will be in the future.
Other than the amazing sessions, another aspect of the SAA conference I found particularly memorable was all the posters presented there by all the graduate students. As a graduate student myself, I was a bit biased. When I was at the SAA conference, I wanted to support my fellow colleagues and check out each of the graduate posters and to both see what my colleagues have been up to, as well as learn a few things. I have attached photos of three posters which I found interesting. All the student poster presentations I absolutely loved reading, and I had some pleasant conversations with some of my fellow graduate students regarding their presentations. This was my first SAA conference, and it was amazing. It was such a golden opportunity to attend the conference and meet my fellow FOCAS interns and team members, as well as listen to a few of their discussions during their sessions at SAA. All in all, I found my experience at the Society of American Archivists conference 2025 to be very rewarding in more ways than one and I still feel so blessed to have had the opportunity to attend this conference.