Scope and Content Monthly ACA Newsletter
June 2026, Volume 7, Issue 06 |
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Key Dates June 8–11: ACA 2026 Virtual Conference June 10: ACA Board of Directors Elections Open June 17: Virtual Annual General Meeting June 25: #ArchivesFashion Hashtag Party – Share materials in your collection which exhibit style inspiration, vintage looks, textiles, or anything else à la mode from your collections.
Click here if you are having trouble reading the newsletter.
The next Scope and Content will be published July 2nd, 2026. If you have any comments or feedback, please contact the Communications Committee.
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As this is my final message for Scope and Content as ACA President, I’ll be brief. I want to thank you, the ACA members, for the trust you have placed in me as President. I have enjoyed getting to know so many of you over the past several years, and I admire your passion and dedication to the ACA. Although my time on the ACA Board is coming to an end, I will not be disappearing. I plan to volunteer for the ACA in another capacity, and I hope to get the chance to work with even more of you in the future. Until then, “may the fonds be with you!” Sincerely, Anna Gibson Hollow, Outgoing President
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The 2026 ACA Virtual Conference will be upon us in just four short days! Here are all the resources you will need as an attendee and/or a presenter: Conference Program & Schedule
What to Expect
Day-by-Day Breakdown
June 8 – Day 1: The conference begins with governance meetings, pre-conference workshops/networking opportunities, including the Archives and Technology Unconference (TAATU), a Library and Archives Canada update, conference orientation, and the ACA Welcome Reception featuring a screening of Parade: Queer Acts of Love & Resistance.
June 9 – Day 2: Day 2 officially opens the conference with the plenary How Does That Help Us Listen? Unlearning “Hungry Listening” in the Archives, followed by a full day of conference sessions.
June 10 – Day 3: Attendees will hear the plenary An Accidental Archive: Implementing Archival Methodology at Rise Up! Feminist Digital Archive, participate in conference sessions, and celebrate sector achievements at the ACA Awards Ceremony.
June 11 – Day 4: The conference concludes with a poster session, Emerging Voices presentations, and the keynote address The Reconciliation Framework: From Theory to Practice.
Last Chance to Sign Up for Pre-Conference Workshop
We still have a few spots left for the pre-conference workshop Collaborative Strategies on Addressing Accessibility Barriers within Canada's Archives with instructor Michael Marlatt. Offered as part of the ACA 2026 Virtual Conference, this workshop is ticketed separately from conference registration. Read more details here and register soon to claim a ticket.
Sponsors & Vendors
The ACA wants to extend our sincere thanks to our sponsors and vendors for their support of this year's conference. Their partnership and commitment help make this event possible, and we are grateful for their contribution and looking forward to our collaboration! This year’s conference sponsors are:
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Upcoming AGM & Board of Directors Elections
The ACA's Annual General Meeting (AGM) will take place virtually on June 17. We encourage all members to attend and participate. To establish quorum, we require at least 37 members to be present, so your participation is important.
To help prepare for the meeting, members are invited to review the 2025-2026 ACA Bulletin. The Bulletin provides an overview of the ACA's activities over the past year, including Committee Reports and key accomplishments. Audited financial statements are available here.
On June 10, members will also receive a voting link to elect the next Board of Directors. We encourage you to review the nominees below and cast your vote between June 10-17, as voting will close right before the AGM.
Board of Directors Nominees:
 Alyssa Hyduk, running for President: Alyssa has been involved in the archival community in Canada since 2015 and is the University Archivist at the University of Regina where she oversees private records, collection development, reference and research. She received her Masters of Library and Information Studies from the University of Alberta in 2018 and has been active within the archival community since. Her experience with the ACA includes chairing the FRC committee and currently co-chairing the Program Team for the 2026 ACA conference, as well as being part of the Program Team for the 2024 virtual conference. Her interests include cultural memory acquisition, digitization and preservation, AI in archives, and archival appraisal.
 Jen Nangreave, running for Director-at-Large: Jen (she/her) is the Archives & Records Analyst at Carleton University's Corporate Records and Archives department. She holds a Master of Library and Information Science from Western University (2019) and a Bachelor of Arts (Honours Specialization) in English Language & Literature and Creative Writing (2015), also from Western. She also holds a Records & Information Management Certificate from ARMA International. Since 2020 she has volunteered with Rise Up! Feminist Digital Archive, most recently on the Archival Management Working Group. She was a member of the Canadian Council of Archives' ARCHIVESCANADA.ca Working Group (2024-2026). She was a member of the ACA Financial Review Committee from 2022-2026, and a member of the Host Committee for the 2025 ACA conference in Ottawa.
 Matthew Keels, running for Director-at-Large: Matthew earned a Bachelors degree in History from Memorial University of Newfoundland (2019) and a Masters of Information (Archives and Records Management) from the University of Toronto (2021). He was employed with Memorial University of Newfoundland's Archives and Special Collections as Accessioning Archivist from 2022 to 2026. He is currently employed with The Rooms Provincial Archives Division as Archivist - Reference and Collections. In addition to this, he volunteers with the Church Lads' Brigade Museum and Archive.
 Adam Williamson, running for Treasurer: Adam is currently a General Council Processing Archivist at the United Church of Canada Archives and previously worked at the Archives as the Digitization Assistant. He has also worked as a Research Assistant under Fiorella Foscarini. Adam recently graduated from the University of Toronto's iSchool with a Master of Information (2024) and has a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in History from Brock University (2021). He currently holds the Director-at-Large portfolio supporting the ACA's student chapters and provides general support for the maintenance of the ACA's website.
Archives Under Pressure – ACA Survey Results
The ACA has surveyed 109 members and contacts to understand how they are experiencing and handling the impacts of Bill C-3, program cuts, budget pressure, and staffing shortages all converging at the same time.
The survey results show that the pressures are not isolated to one setting but rather showing up across public, academic, community, religious, and heritage contexts. 83% of respondents have experience increased workload since last December. Core archival functions are being squeezed: service delivery is rising while processing, digitization, preservation, and outreach still need attention.
“Staff are experiencing burn out. If further cuts happen, we likely will not be meeting our mandate even at a minimal level.” - Anonymous Respondent
The survey remains open – if you haven’t had a chance to share your thoughts, please do so here. The ACA will be keeping a living archive of media coverage on the website here. We have compiled the data collected as of May 26th and you can view the results here.
Call for Volunteers
Are you interested in becoming more engaged with the Canadian archival community? Do you have an eye for design, or do you want to build this skill?
Communications Committee
The ACA Communications Committee is looking for volunteers to join our social media team! You’ll be working with a small team of fun and dynamic individuals and using Canva Pro to create and help run all the ACA’s social media accounts. This opportunity is a low time commitment, with just a one-hour meeting once a month and a few hours of independent work outside of that. It’s also a great way to develop relationships with like-minded colleagues across the country. Please send any questions to Natasha Fisher at communications[at]archivists.ca and apply online.
Financial Review Committee
The Financial Review Committee is looking for volunteers to join their dedicated team that advises the Board of Directors on financial matters and supports the Executive Director in preparing the annual budget and coordinating the annual audit. This is a great opportunity to gain governance experience, contribute your financial expertise, and connect with colleagues from across the archival community. For more information, please contact the Treasurer at treasurer[at]archivists.ca and apply online. |
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Upcoming ACA Events & Opportunities |
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Introduction to Digital Preservation Workshop – July 8 & 9
Mary Grace Kosta, host of the Introduction to Digital Preservation Workshop on July 8 & 9.
This two-part workshop series by Mary Grace Kosta will introduce digital preservation with a focus on strategies for archives with limited resources. The topics covered will include Preservation issues concerning digital records, preservation strategies and actions (including fixity checks for integrity), the Open Archival Information System (OAIS) reference model, the National Digital Stewardship Alliance (NDSA) Levels of Preservation, file formats, metadata, and more.
The workshop dates are:
See more details and register here.
2026 Hashtag Party!
You’re invited to the ACA Hashtag Party! On the last Thursday of every month, the ACA Social Media Team organizes a hashtag party, which takes place virtually on Facebook, Instagram, and Bluesky. There is a different theme for each month, which we announce on social media and ARCAN-L in advance. On the day of the party, you can share materials in your collections related to that theme, tag us and use the hashtag, and we’ll re-share your post. The goal of the parties is to engage more with institutions across Canada, see what kinds of materials other institutions have, and promote weird, fun, and interesting items from your own collections.
Last month’s #ArchivesCuisine hashtag party took place on Thursday, May 28th. Thank you to everyone who participated in sharing materials related to recipes, cooking videos, and more with us.
The next ACA Hashtag Party will take place on June 25, 2026, and the theme will be #ArchivesFashion. You can participate by sharing materials in your collection which exhibit style inspiration, vintage looks, textiles, or anything else à la mode from your collections.
The upcoming themes for the ACA Hashtag Parties will be:
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July 30, 2026: #ArchivesAudio (Spotlighting materials related to sound including recordings, snippets, transcripts, and more)
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September 25, 2025: #ArchivesUniqueItems (Anything rare, unique, or funky that you’re dying to show off)
Keep an eye on future issues of Scope and Content and on all our social media accounts to learn more about what we’re interested in for each of these themes!
For any questions or feedback, or if you have initiatives that you would like the ACA Hashtag Party to support, please email us at communications[at]archivists.ca.
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Access to Information Act Public Input Recommendations from ACA’s Access and Privacy Special Interest Section
Over the past year, Canada's Access to Information Act has been under review for updates and legislative amendments. As part of this process, the federal Treasury Board Secretariat initiated a call for public input in the form of a structured questionnaire. This questionnaire puts forward a series of policy directions that are being considered for the review, and asks for feedback in support of or in opposition to the various policy directions.
The details of this call, and the link to submit feedback, are available here: https://www.canada.ca/en/treasury-board-secretariat/services/access-information-privacy/modernizing-access-information/reviewing-access-information-act/2025-review-access-information-act.html
This year the ACA's latent Access and Privacy Special Interest Section has been revived, and put together a working group of several members to complete this questionnaire. We would like to share the positions we took, and the comments we submitted on the various policy direction, with the wider ACA community to encourage others to submit their feedback.
Here is the link to our recommendations: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1asbduZZSUo4ZbbMj_h7zO2193Ts3agiSpjXG81MMB90/edit?tab=t.0
Please note, our submission reflects only the views of the working group and the SIS members who reviewed our comments; they do not represent the views of the ACA more broadly. We are sharing them not to ask ACA members to copy our responses, but to encourage you to consider the policy directions for yourself, and to submit comments on any or all of these policy considerations. The federal Access to Information Act provides a fundamental right of citizens to access information for purposes of greater transparency of public bodies and government accountability, and this review is an opportunity for Canada's archival community to share its expertise with regard to access and privacy.
Any questions or comments about the process can be directed to SIS Co-chairs Jesse Carson (carson.jesse.p@gmail.com) and James Franks (james.franks@ualberta.ca).
Lunch and Learn: Introduction to OpenRefine – June 4
Erin Greeno of the United Church of Canada will deliver a virtual presentation on how to use the data clean up tool, Open Refine on June 4, 2026, 03:00 PM Eastern Time/12:00 Noon Pacific Time (US and Canada).
Erin Greeno is the Digital Archives Systems Lead for the United Church of Canada Archives in Toronto. She has extensive experience using OpenRefine to migrate legacy data to current systems. Erin holds a MISt from University of Toronto and has been a certified Digital Archives Specialist (SAA) since 2020. This session will be recorded and available later on this YouTube channel: SAA ARCS Resources
Date & Time: June 4, 2026 at 3:00PM (Eastern Time (US and Canada)
Register here: Introduction to Open Refine
Lunch and Learn: Introducing Flickr Commons & Data Lifeboat, a tool for archiving Flickr – June 18
George Oates is a designer and digital strategist with over two decades of experience building open, public-interest platforms on the web. She was one of the earliest team members at Flickr.com, where she shaped the product's community and interface during its early years. She later led design at the Internet Archive, initially running Open Library, then designed the Wayback Machine, and worked on improving usability of large-scale digitised collections. Through her studio, Good, Form & Spectacle, she has partnered with museums, libraries, and archives around the world to make collections more accessible and meaningful online. In 2022, she established the Flickr Foundation, dedicated to the long-term preservation of Flickr as a unique, vast artifact of our shared visual heritage.
In her presentation, George will introduce you to the Flickr Commons program, which has been running happily since 2008. She will also present the Data Lifeboat service, which can create archives of Flickr pictures and metadata with consent for archiving elsewhere.
Date & Time: Jun 18, 2026 at 3:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)
Register here: Lunch and Learn: Flickr Commons and Data Lifeboat
CCA Launches Survey on the use of Rules of Archival Description (RAD)
On May 19, 2026, the Canadian Council of Archives launched a survey to learn how RAD is being used and adapted to support future work on updating Rules for Archival Description. This survey can be completed by both active and retired archival professionals. Please answer as many questions as relevant. No field is required. The deadline to complete the survey is June 19, 2026.
Click here to fill out the Survey on the use of Rules of Archival Description: https://form.jotform.com/261324717590054
Catch Adam Williamson’s Presentation at the CHA Graduate Student’s Committee Roundtable - 'What Can You Do With That?': Alt-Ac Careers After the Grad Degree
Last month, the CHA’s Graduate Students’ Committee hosted a roundtable of alumni from History and Archival Sciences graduate programs who work in and beyond the academy. The three panelists, including the ACA’s own Adam Williamson, discussed their career trajectories after grad school and how the skills gained in their graduate degree(s) helped them find ‘alt-ac’ success.
Participants: Dr. Sharanjit Kaur Sandhra, Dr. Taylor Starr, Mr. Adam Williamson, and Aino Pihlak (CHA Graduate Students’ Representative).
You can watch the recording here. |
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Submit your job opportunity here and it will be posted to the ACA website. We will also share these opportunities on our social media channels.
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Do you have news you’d like the ACA to share via its social media channels? Contact the Communications Committee to give us the details! Communications(at)archivists.ca
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The next issue of Scope & Content will come out on
Thursday, July 2nd, 2026. See you then!
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Contact Us
Suite 1912-130 Albert Street
Ottawa, Ontario K1P 5G4
Email: aca(at)archivists.ca
www.archivists.ca
The ACA office is located on the unceded, unsurrendered Territory of the Anishinaabe Algonquin Nation whose presence here reaches back to time immemorial. |
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