Authors: Alison Quirion and Sabrina Holecko
Edited by: Sereen Suleiman
It’s that time of year again: conference time! Ever wondered what the process of presenting is like? Now you can hear it directly from SAASC as former executive board members (and recent MLIS graduates) Alison Quirion and Sabrina Holecko share their experience in collaborating on a poster presentation for this year’s Society of American Archivists (SAA) Conference: Archives * Records 2021.
As a quick note, due to COVID-19, this annual conference was virtual, but next year’s conference may not be. With that being said, let’s go on to the interview!
***
Poster title banner. Please contact Alison Quirion at alison.quirion@gmail.com for more information.
1. What was the process for participating in the Student Poster Presentations at the SAA 2021 Annual Conference?
Sabrina –
I believe Alison is better equipped to speak to this than me. The process seemed simple from my end. We used Google Docs and our Canva account to come together and pull pieces from our chapter’s Covid responses into a poster. We focused on numbers from our social media and YouTube accounts, as well as a few of our online events.
Alison –
The process is sort of a blur to me now. I think I first saw a post early in the Spring 2021 semester in either the SAA Announcements or the SAA SNAP section calling for student or student chapter proposals for conference presentations or posters. Proposals and abstracts were due in March, so I mentioned it in an SAASC team monthly meeting to see if anyone was interested in submitting something with me. Luckily, Sabrina and fellow board member, Samantha Hamilton, expressed their interest.
First, I threw out the idea of how our student chapter adapted to the pandemic. Then we decided to do a poster rather than a full presentation. Afterwards, we started collaborating on the title and abstract to meet the March submission date. Some time in May, I think we received confirmation that our poster proposal was accepted, and our final title, abstract, and poster would be due at the end of June. Then, as Sabrina mentioned, we used our Google doc to collect some information and statistics as well as our Canva account to create the poster visual. Once we submitted, it was just a matter of waiting for the conference to begin and monitoring our poster page in the conference portal to answer any questions that were posted.
2. Is this your first poster or presentation for a conference? If not, what other experience(s) do you have?
Sabrina –
It is my first presentation!
Alison –
This was my first, too! Even though I had instructors advise that we, as students, should try to participate in conferences as much as possible, repurposing research papers to use as presentations or poster presentations, I just never made time for it or didn’t think my work was good enough. However, around graduation time, I quickly learned that my resume just didn’t cut it, and I needed to ramp up my professional participation. This poster was a good way to test the waters.
3. How did you decide on the subject of your poster?
Sabrina –
I believe it was thrown out there in one of our monthly meetings, and we all agreed. We really wanted to highlight what our chapter has done from social media promotions to events and our webpage. Everyone has worked hard in our chapter and they should be proud.
Alison –
I definitely agree with Sabrina. It was obvious after the Fall 2020 semester that as a student chapter, we were making a lot of progress in terms of membership and engagement. We wanted to toot our collective horn by highlighting our achievements during an unusual year.
4. What did you think of the overall experience?
Sabrina –
It was a learning curve. I enjoyed that they left it pretty open ended so that we could shape our poster however we wanted. It was also during a time that I had a lot going on, and so that part was difficult for me personally. Overall, it was relatively painless. We received a detailed and helpful email of what and when to submit. After that, it was up to us to pull the numbers and focus our topic.
Alison –
The experience of putting the poster together was pretty easy, sort of like a class project. I was a little disappointed that we didn’t get any comments or feedback on our poster during the conference, but I’m still hopeful that attendees are still going through the posters and catching up on presentations, just as I’m still going through the conference materials. If nothing else, I hope that current student chapter officers check out our poster and maybe pick up some ideas that they can apply to their group.
5. Would you do anything differently or did you learn anything you might apply to the next conference presentation opportunity?
Sabrina –
I learned to simply do it. Before it was suggested, I never thought about submitting anything to present at the SAA conference as an entry-level archivist. The poster was more my speed, since we didn’t have to physically present anything. It was great to not only attend the conference, but to be a part of the community. There are a few things I would have done differently and people I would have included, but overall I’m happy with our poster.
Alison –
I never really understood the concept of a poster presentation. Most of the posters I’ve seen cram too much information onto an oversized board, and they look like someone just copied and/or pasted a research paper into a bunch of boxes. I really wanted to try to avoid that, but I still think we had too much text. If the conference were in-person, rather than virtual, I might have felt more comfortable using only high-level vocabulary on the poster. That way, I could stand by the poster and elaborate or answer questions to anyone who was interested.
Moreover, I learned that the posters that received comments or questions primarily focused on a specific project. The general student chapter posters had less active chats. If I did this again, I would definitely try to limit the scope of the topic, but go deeper on that one topic. I still don’t love the poster concept. And as Sabrina said, we could have and should have contacted others regarding their participation in the poster, but when you have three people who are also in the middle of the e-portfolio process steering the ship, you ultimately find things slip through the cracks.
6. Any tips or suggestions for SJSU students who may be too intimidated to submit a conference proposal?
Sabrina –
Submit! You never know. Similar to job applications, you have to take a chance that things may work out. Make sure to read instructions a few times, look at other examples of what you’d like to submit, and take the plunge. Best of luck to anyone thinking about submitting!
Alison –
Don’t be intimidated, submit anything: a paper you wrote for class, a topic you find interesting and want to do more research on, a digital collection you want to evaluate, etc. Unless you are already working in archives, special collections, or a library setting and only need the degree to get a promotion, you need to seriously think about presenting and publishing. Don’t feel bad if you get rejected, I’ve applied for at least one hundred jobs, internships, volunteer leadership roles in the past six months and have been rejected for all of them with the exception of this poster and an upcoming website review for ARLIS/NA. It’s kind of like the lottery. You can’t win if you don’t play, and one of these days your numbers are going to come up!
***
I would like to thank both Alison and Sabrina for generously giving some of their time to share their thoughts with SAASC and the SJSU School of Information community. Congratulations to you both for graduating, and we wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors! If you did not attend the SAA 2021 conference and would like to see the poster that Alison, Sabrina, and Samantha submitted, please send a request to Alison at: alison.quirion@gmail.com.
Sabrina Holecko (left), Alison Quirion (middle), and Samantha Hamilton (right). Pictures are provided by them.