In our “Emerging Voices” series, we highlight reflections from students, early career professionals, and first-time conference attendees from the ACA 2026 virtual conference! Today we’re featuring Emma Hutchinson, a first-time attendee.

The 2026 ACA conference marked my first time attending and presenting at a professional conference. Between in-person and recorded sessions, I had serious information overload by the end. I wanted to attend them all! Thursday and Friday evening found me binge-watching recorded sessions when most normal people would be binge-watching their favourite shows. So much information, so little time. After attending the conference, though, what stood out to me most was not the lessons from any one session, but three things that encouraged me about the archival community and professionin Canada: collegial support in the face of imposter syndrome, professional generosity in the face of limited budgets, and real uses for theory in the face of practical challenges. 

Collegial Support in the Face of Imposter Syndrome 

I’m sure that many, like me, new to the profession, have wondered what we have to add to the conference. Why did I want to present? What can I possibly teach these smart and seasoned professionals, many of whom I know from the emails they send on ARCAN-L, or their published articles that I’ve cited in my papers? These thoughts were certainly running through my mind in the lead-up to the conference. 

However, I was heartened to find that many other students and new professionals were also presenting at the conference, and not just in the Emerging Voices sessions. I attended many of these sessions and found that I benefitted a lot from the reflections of these other newer members of the archival community, whether the topic was tackling backlogs, addressing digital preservation challenges, or the relevance of theory to one’s career. When my own turn to present came around, I appreciated the way that the archival community responded to my presentation and those of my fellow Emerging Voices presenters. They asked thoughtful questions, sent encouraging messages in the chat, and made me feel like I had something to add to the conversation, even despite my lack of experience. In the face of imposter syndrome, the archival community at the ACA was welcoming, even in an online environment. This encouraged me about the field I’m entering. 

Professional Generosity in the Face of Limited Budgets 

Over and over throughout the conference, I was impressed by the way that the Canadian archival community banded together, with memberssharing their professional knowledge and resources freely. It’s no secret that most archives are perpetually short on financial resources, but throughout the conference, I saw working archivists willingly offering to support colleagues in their particular areas of expertise. Presenters routinely shared their emails at the end of their slide decks. Some shared the slide decks themselves, or offered links to the policies they’d developed for digital preservation, decolonization, and other topics. Whenever someone in the Q&A asked whether a presenter would share a workflow or policy they’d mentioned, I never saw anyone refuse. I was encouraged to see this professional generosity on display, knowing that I will likely need to lean on other professionals for help many times in the coming years as I develop my skills and encounter new challenges. 

Real Uses for Theory in the Face of Practical Challenges 

Given the conference theme, “How Does That Help Me? Making Archival Theory Relevant to Daily Practice,” I appreciated the blend of practical sessions and more theoretical ones. No matter which side of the balance the presenters leaned toward, I found a consistent throughline as they asserted that there is a place for theory in day-to-day practice. Many speakers, especially earlier career speakers, spoke about how they approached new tasks, whether donor relations or arrangement, through the lens of theory, and how this benefitted their work. As a recent grad myself, I found this heartening—there is a reason I’ve been reading all this theory for the last two years! I appreciate a field that allows me to think deeply about how and why I do what I do, without being so highly theoretical as to lose its value to those doing the day-to-day work of archiving. 

Looking Forward to Next Year 

Finally, I’d be remiss if I failed to mention how excited I am to attend the in-person conference next year in Winnipeg. The virtual conference was surprisingly good, but there’s still nothing like meeting people in person. I’m looking forward to spontaneous coffee line conversations, putting more faces to the names I’m beginning to recognize, and being in a room full of like-minded, slightly nerdy people who really understand archives. As I’ve been living in Winnipeg during the past couple of years of grad school, this also feels like a home-turf conference, so it will be fun to welcome the archival community to my current stomping grounds! 

Emma Hutchinson is a recent graduate of the Archival Studies stream of the University of Manitoba/University of Winnipeg Joint Master’s Program in History. Her presentation at the 2026 ACA Conference, “Love for the Dead in the Archival Endeavour,” was based on her Major Research Paper for the program. She is currently working at the Louis Riel Institute Archives and Special Collections in Winnipeg.