Welcome to the 2026 SGA Annual Meeting, Hardening the Archive: Moving from Storage to Strategy. Society of Georgia Archivists invites you to attend the meeting, to be held at the Gainesville Civic Center, Gainesville, Georgia, Thursday, November 5 through Friday, November 6, 2026.
We are excited to host a day full of presentations, working groups, skills labs, and demonstrations on a broad spectrum of archival work as we move from the basics into strategy. Our keynote speaker is former SGA President, Angela Stanley, State Librarian and Vice Chancellor for Public Libraries with Georgia Public Library Service.
Continental breakfast and snacks will be provided during the meeting, and a Thursday evening reception will be held at Bourbon Brothers Smokehouse and Tavern with a light dinner and cash bar. More information to come!
Register today!
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Preliminary Schedule
Thursday:
9:00-10:00am
Keynote, Angela Stanley, State Librarian and Vice Chancellor for Public Libraries with Georgia Public Library Service.
10:10-11:00am
Interest Group 1
- Advocacy/Outreach
- Conservation/Preservation
11:15am-12:25pm
70 Minute Labs
- Putting the Agility in Usability Testing: A Case Study with UGA’s Special Collections Finding Aids Site
- Beyond Custody: Building Meaningful Partnerships Between Institutions and Indigenous Communities
12:00-1:30pm: Lunch
1:30-2:20pm
Interest Group 2
- Post-custodial community archives and online hosting
- Lone Arrangers
2:30-3:20pm
50 Minute Labs
- Transcribing Your Collections: OCR and AI
- What do I do now? Instruction basics for the overwhelmed archivist
3:30-4:15pm
25 Minute Labs
- Designing an Embedded First-Year Special Collections Experience: A Case Study in Student Engagement and Assessment
- From Atlanta to Shanghai: Remote Assessment, Appraisal, and the Architectural Legacy of John Portman
4:30-5:20pm
Interest Group 3
Lightning Talks
- Getting the Central of Georgia Railway project on track: utilizing institutional knowledge and archival community connections to tackle a monumental task.
- When "It Should Be Fine" Isn't Enough: Hardening Archives Against Water Intrusion
- Georgia Heritage Responders Update
6:00-8:00pm: Reception
Awards Announcements
- Fellows Award
- President’s Award
Friday:
9:00-950am
25 Minute Labs
- It’s All Fun & Games: How To Bamboozle College Students into Engaging
- The Under Preserved Country: Public Libraries and Digital Preservation
10:00-10:50am
50 Minute Labs
- Don’t be a dragon: Providing rapid access to collections using Accessioning-as-Processing (AaP)
- Mapping Archival Education to On-the-Ground Needs in Georgia
11:15am-12:00pm
25 Minute Labs
- Facet-Busting as Metadata Assessment: Evaluating and Restructuring Subject Headings in the Digital Library of Georgia (A Case Study)
- “Yours in the Bonds of Honor,” : Collaborative Processing of the Mrs. Kirby Smith Anderson Papers
1:30pm: Membership Tour of Preserve South followed by lunch (optional)
Posters:
- Scaling Archival Transcription for Asynchronous Learning: A Collaborative Workflow Case Study
- Frogs, Spiders, and Flies, Oh My!: Lessons Learned Processing Biology Faculty Papers
Third Space:
Thursday: Networking (available all day)
10:10- 11:00am: Workshop 1 Conversation
11:15am-12:00pm: Resume/CV and Interview Preparation
1:30-2:20pm: Graduate School pathways
2:30-3:20pm: Lost in the Stacks Podcast Recording
3:30-4:15pm: Career Pathways Beyond Traditional Library and Archives Work
4:30-5:20pm: Workshop 2 Conversation
Friday: Networking (available until noon)
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There are a variety of hotel options available.
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If you have questions or need more information, please email localarrangements@soga.org
Not a member?
To join SGA, click here.
Want to donate to one of our scholarship funds? Click here.
Purchase meeting registration by clicking the 'Register' button. You may pay online by credit card or debit card via secure PayPal service set up by SGA. You do not have to have a PayPal account to pay online. If you do not wish to pay online, please select the option to complete online registration then pay by mailing a check to the Society of Georgia Archivists Treasurer (address in payment window).
The Early Bird window for registration will close on October 9, 2026. The regular registration window will close the week before the meeting, October 29, 2026. On-site registration will include a late fee.
Cancellations are to be refunded as follows:
Registrations cancelled more than 60 days before the event will be refunded 100% of the registration fees.
Registrations cancelled less than 60 but more than 30 days before the event will be refunded 50% of the registration fees.
Registrations cancelled less than 30 days before the event will not be eligible for a refund.
