Save the Date!

Mark off the week of March 18-22 for the 2024 BitCurator Forum! This year will feature virtual panels, lightning talks, “Great Questions!,” and other fun activities. A new template for Satellite events will also be announced soon that will expand this year’s Forum through unique in-person and hybrid programming.

About the Forum

The BitCurator Forum brings together representatives of all levels of experience from libraries, archives, museums, and related professions engaged in (or considering) digital archives work.

The Forum will balance discussion of theory and practice of digital forensics, curation, and related digital analysis workflows. There will also be hands-on activities with the BitCurator environment, and other useful tools.

You do not need to be a BitCurator Consortium member or BitCurator user to submit a proposal and/or attend the event.

#BitCuratorForum #HybridExperiment

Latest News

Code of Conduct & Community Agreement

The BCC is committed to fostering an open, inclusive, and safe environment.

View BCC Code of Conduct

 

In 2019, the BitCurator Forum adopted a Community Agreement which has served as a framework for inclusive participation and engagement for each Forum since. The community agreement is adapted from Aorta Collective’s Anti-Oppressive Facilitation for Democratic Process:

• One person speaks at a time
• Everyone has something to contribute
• Aim for more equitable participation
• Please feel comfortable participating (even if unsure about terminology, etc.)
• Be aware and considerate of time
• Embrace curiosity
• Acknowledge difference between impact and intent

Forum Committee

• David Cirella, Yale University Libraries
• Jessica Farrell, Educopia Institute
• Lara Friedman-Shedlov, University of Minnesota Libraries
• Katherine Martinez, The New School, Leadership Team
• Lori Podolsky, Texas A&M University Corpus Christi
• Kari Smith, Global Archivist LLC
• Emily Sommers, University of Toronto Libraries
• Hilary Wang, Brown University

Get in Touch

If you have questions or feedback about the BitCurator Forum, please contact Jess Farrell.

Call for Proposals

BitCurator Forum 2024 – 10 Years of BCC

Please note that the 2024 Forum will be virtual. We encourage in-person satellite events to be organized in conjunction with the virtual forum, see below for more information. We will be adding information to the Event page as it becomes available. We hope to see you there!

The BitCurator Consortium (BCC) invites proposals for the 2024 BitCurator Forum to be held virtually the week of March 18-22, 2024 (final dates TBD). An international, community-led organization with 39 member organizations representing 53 institutions, the BCC promotes and supports the application of free and open-source digital archives tools and practices in libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural heritage organizations.

2024 marks the 10th anniversary of the BitCurator Consortium. As we take a moment to celebrate our achievements from the past 10 years, we also take a step back to reflect on our journey so far.

How have things changed?

• How has your practice changed? (i.e., shifting away from digital forensics to other methods of transfer and acquisition)
• How have you faced the challenges of working with born-digital material in the cloud?
• How  do you make the decision to use AI and machine learning in your work?
• How have the existential issues facing digital archives changed and how has that changed your work?

Lessons learned?

• How are you working to reevaluate past work and reflect on your failures and successes?
• How do you measure your successes and failures?
• How are you incorporating changes into your existing workflows?

Where do we go from here?

• How do we sustain and foster a healthy community of practice?
• How do you achieve buy-in and support for your work?
• How to onboard folks new to the field of digital archives?

The BCC Forum Committee recognizes that the field of digital archives is broad and diverse, and accepts proposals that focus on any related topic from any areas of interest. We particularly encourage proposals to consider the themes mentioned above.

The Forum Committee welcomes participation from organizations and individuals working outside of academic and special collections libraries and archives, members from BIPOC communities, students, and new professionals.

The BitCurator Forum is open to all. You do not need to be a BCC member or BitCurator user to submit a proposal and/or attend the event. See examples of past Forum presentations here.

Submission Information

Deadlines

• Submission Deadline: Friday, November 17 Tuesday, November 21
• Acceptance Notification: Friday, December 8
• Speaker confirmation/changes: Friday, December 22
• Program Posted: Week of January 8

Session Types

The Forum Committee encourages participant-focused session formats that incorporate interactivity. This can include any type of non-traditional session format, such as peer-to-peer learning sessions, collaborative working sessions, roundtables, goal-oriented hack-a-thons, etc

Demos / How-to’s

Sessions facilitated by individuals or groups are welcome. 60 minutes

Please submit a 250-word (maximum) abstract describing the session format and topic(s), as well as learning objectives if applicable.

These sessions are intended to replace workshops and have a broad audience, but serve as an opportunity to share workflows or demonstrate a new tool or process you are working on or have used at your institution.

To encourage participation and access for all attendees, these sessions will not have registration limits.

Panels Presentations or Short Papers

Panel: 40 minutes

Short Papers: 20 minutes

Please submit a 250-word (maximum) abstract. If submitting a short paper, individual panelists may be matched by the BCC Forum Committee based on the complementarity of subjects or overarching themes. 

We encourage presentations to move beyond the case study (see Lightning Talks for this format) and address pressing issues, best practices, opportunities for collaboration, visions, and expanded uses for digital archives in libraries, archives, museums, and beyond. The Forum Committee strongly encourages proposals from underrepresented groups, and/or those that feature the perspectives of a variety of roles — including students — organizations, or fields. For group presentations, we strongly discourage proposals from all white male presenters. We particularly welcome alternative panel formats that will facilitate engagement, including group discussions.

Lightning Talks

1 presenter, 5 minutes

Please submit an abstract of no more than 250 words.

Lightning talks are a great format for case studies, digital archives “success stories” or “tales of woe,” research updates, and short demos or how-tos.

BitCurator Satellites and Other Formats

Other types of formats can be proposed, and we welcome formats that incorporate in-person elements.

This year we again encourage community members to host BitCurator Satellites, local on-site events held in conjunction with the online BitCurator Forum. This is an experimental hybrid conference model, intended to complement the online BitCurator Forum by supporting partners and friends so they can host sessions, workshops and talks for a local audience. Here are some examples of events from 2023.

A call for satellite hosts will be sent out later this fall.

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All sessions will be hosted live on Zoom. Final time length of sessions may be adjusted in the final program. The Forum Committee will communicate any changes about this with speakers as early as possible.

How to Submit

Submit proposals using the online form.

How Proposals Will Be Evaluated

The BCC Forum Committee will review all proposals. Criteria used to evaluate proposals includes:

• Is the proposal relevant to the conference themes or goals?
• Would a broad audience benefit from this presentation or panel?
• How original is this proposal?
• Does this session encourage engagement, interactivity, or unique approaches to virtual presentation formats?
• Does this proposal address or center BIPOC, student, new professional perspectives and experiences and/or perspectives beyond academic institutions?

The Forum Committee strongly encourages proposals from a diversity of views, including members of BIPOC communities, students, new professionals, and organizations and individuals working outside of academic and special collections libraries and archives.

Eligibility & Requirements

Presenters must register for and attend the conference. (Note: we offer a $0 registration rate for presenters.) Presenters must also designate their permission in the submission form related to livestreaming their presentation during the event, making a recording of their presentation available online, and posting their presentation slides online. Please see Presenting at the BitCurator Forum to understand more about the experience of presenting at the Forum.

BitCurator Consortium

The BitCurator Consortium (BCC) is an independent, community-led membership association that supports born-digital archives in libraries, archives, and museums in order to help ensure the longevity and reliability of the cultural, scientific, and historical record. We strive to address the needs of the BCC community through training, collaboration, research, software development, documentation, integration, and scripts, while also advocating for the expansion of born-digital archives practice worldwide.

For more information on how to get involved, visit the Get Involved page.

Rolling registration is now open for year two of BitCurator Satellites: local in-person events held in conjunction with the online BitCurator Forum.

Last year’s events included lightning talks, watch parties, and a BitCurator mixer! We encourage you to start thinking about how you might contribute to the Forum in this unique way. Stay tuned for more information in the coming weeks.

While BitCurator Satellite events may be scheduled for any day of the virtual forum (March 18-22), the Forum Committee will leave open the following times in the official program for in-person events:

• Tuesday, March 19th, 9am – 1pm ET
• Thursday, March 21st, 3pm – 5pm ET

About BitCurator Satellites

This year we encourage community members to host BitCurator Satellites, local in-person events held in conjunction with the online BitCurator Forum. This is an experimental hybrid conference model, intended to complement the online BitCurator Forum.

A call for satellite hosts will be sent out later this fall.

BitCurator Satellite events may include:

• Watch party during BitCurator Forum with local discussions
• Tour of local collections or processing spaces
• On-site demonstration of workflows and documentation
• Workshops, lightning talks, presentations

BitCurator Satellites will be self-organized by the local hosts. The BCC will not provide financial support for Satellites this year. The BCC will support Satellite hosts by providing:

• Online program schedule with suggestions for potential times for in-person events for each North American time zone
• Template promotional material for Satellite hosts
• Promote BitCurator Satellites with an online map of all in-person BitCurator Satellites
• Two support calls, inviting BitCurator Satellite hosts to join the BitCurator Satellite Organizing Team for a Zoom call to answer questions and share ideas

Satellite Hosts will agree to:

• Abide by the BCC Code of Conduct and include an event monitor
• Communicate available accessibility accommodations
• Provide point of contact for how accommodations can be requested
• Clearly communicate covid-19 guidelines and must be in accordance with local regulations
• Stay up to date with BCC communications about the BitCurator Forum

Registration Rates

Registration for the Forum will open on Monday, December 11, 2023

We are happy to offer a variety of registration tiers for this year’s Forum, including a Pay-What-You-Can tier. Revenue generated through ticket sales contribute to Forum operating expenses and the sustainability of the BCC community, including the support and maintenance of the BitCurator Environment.

All prices are in USD

$0 – Forum presenters

$1 to $39 – Pay-What-You-Can ($10 suggested)

• New professionals, students, and/or those who have no institutional funding for professional development.

$40 – Attendees from BCC member organizations that have organizational support for virtual professional development.

$50 – Attendees from non-BCC member organizations that have organizational support for virtual professional development.

$100 – Attendees who have organizational support for in-person professional development.

Registration closes on Friday, March 15, 2024. We encourage you to register early! Links to the events will be sent via email to registrants a few days before the start of the Forum.

Presenting at the BitCurator Forum

What can you expect after submitting a proposal to the BitCurator Forum?

Communications

One important volunteer role on the Forum Committee is “Speaker Liaison.” You will have communication with Forum committee representatives throughout the planning process who are there to answer any questions you have.

Review Period

The Forum Committee reviews proposals and responds to submitters by the stated deadline. Often the Committee responds with requested changes, such an expansion of the topic, different format, or other feedback based on their understanding of the whole program.

Sharing your Work

If accepted, you will receive a release form that asks you for permission to share a recording of your presentation and a copy of your slides. Recordings and slides are a great way to share knowledge back to the community, and presenters can point to the web posts as work samples throughout their careers. Forum Committee members often add links and other supplementary material along with the recordings, creating rich resources on the topic you discuss at the Forum. But it’s also okay to not record your presentation! You have the option to share as much or as little publicly as needed when submitting your work to the BitCurator Forum. The Forum livestream is open to registered attendees only.

Scheduling your Session

Once the Forum Committee has the set of selected proposals, they form the schedule. Presenters are informed as soon as their presentation time is set and asked to confirm their participation at the chosen time.

Fees

All fees for presenters are waived for the BitCurator Forum. Presenters are encouraged to register at the “Forum Presenter” rate.

Slides

Slides are encouraged for sessions. For demo’s and how-to sessions, slides are typically run by the presenter, but please ask the Forum Committee if you need assistance running your slides. For sessions and talks, the Forum committee runs slides to reduce the time spent turning over between each presentation. Slides are typically due a week before the event to provide time for the Forum Committee to organize the slides for a smooth show.

Practice Opportunities

A week before the event, you will have the opportunity to join a practice Zoom session to test anything you wish to test. You are encouraged to take this opportunity whether it’s your first or 50th time presenting at a virtual conference! It’s a great way to meet the team supporting you on the big day and to let the session leaders know a little more about what to expect during your talk or session so they can give you the best support possible.

Executing your Session

There are typically no special presenter links. Zoom links are shared each morning of the event for that day.

The day of the event, we hope you’re already there attending the rest of the conference – but at the least, arrive at the Zoom link at least 15 minutes before your presentation starts. The Forum Tech Host will give you presenter permissions.

The Forum Committee takes seriously our commitment to upholding the BCC Code of Conduct and you will have a Code of Conduct monitor in your session. In addition, you will have a Tech Host, a Moderator to introduce you and moderate discussion after your talk, and someone to advance your slides. Just sit back and focus on you!

After your talk, you will be asked to participate in a short Q&A session. Again, a Forum Committee moderator will facilitate the discussion.

First-time presenters are encouraged to submit to the BitCurator Forum. You will receive guidance along the way and support the day-of to make your presentation a success!

Sponsorship Information

Sponsorship of the BitCurator Forum (BCF) offers a valuable opportunity to demonstrate your commitment to a community of digital practitioners within libraries, archives, museums, and beyond, including their many affiliates and partners. Your sponsorship will help to sustain the community that maintains the BitCurator Environment and the many free and open resources and opportunities that the BCC creates and makes available to all. The BCC will use sponsorship funds directly to offset the costs of the 2024 BitCurator Forum and future BCC meetups and events. Recent past sponsors have included the Art & Obsolescence Podcast, Global Archivist LLC, and Myriad Consulting & Training, for whose support we are grateful.

Your sponsorship will:

• Subsidize the operating expenses associated with hosting and promoting a virtual conference
• Contribute toward the cost of making the conference more accessible
• Contribute to the sustainability of the BCC and our community of learners and practitioners

The BCC will acknowledge your support by:

• Displaying your logo on the Forum website
• Recognizing you on the BCC listserv and “shout-outs” via the BCC social media accounts before, during, and after the Forum
• Publicly recognizing you at the event during the session introductions

Why Sponsor Us?

BCC members are the experts who administrators turn to when they are selecting products or vendors, or when they are embarking on new strategic activities related to born-digital archiving. By becoming a sponsor, your organization will reach a highly influential, international audience of potential new partners and clients.

The ninth annual BitCurator Forum, to be held in March 2024, will bring together archivists, librarians, museum curators, and other information professionals to explore major questions and challenges related to digital archival practice and the development and adoption of open source tools. We expect to host over 350 attendees at next year’s Forum on March 19-21, 2024, virtually and in select in-person locations across the US and Canada.

• The BCC, host of the BitCurator Forum, has over 39 member organizations representing 53 institutions and over 350 practitioners across the US and Canada.
• The BCC maintains the BitCurator Environment and the 400-plus member BitCurator Users Google Group, both of which are free and open and stand as a service to the digital archives community.
• The community is open and committed to making digital archiving skills available to anyone who wishes to come and learn. We emphasize inclusion and our Code of Conduct guides all of our spaces including the Forum.

The last three years, a virtual format led to record registration and attendance rates. In each year, we registered over four times the usual number of Forum registrants, and on each day of the meeting, we had twice the number of usual attendees. We anticipate similar numbers this year.

To become a sponsor please contact Jess Farrell (jess.farrell@educopia.org). The Forum Committee is cognizant of the impact the pandemic has on institutional or organizational budgets. For anyone interested in becoming a sponsor who cannot commit to any of the sponsorship levels listed, we will be happy to discuss other funding options.

We look forward to working with you this year.