[SOA] MAC Student Poster Competition: call for submissions

[Janet Carleton]

Call for Student Poster Proposals - 2010 Midwest Archives Conference

The Student Interest Subcommittee of the Midwest Archives Conference
2010 Program Committee/Local
Arrangements Committee is now accepting proposals for a special poster
session dedicated to showcasing student scholarship and projects
related to archives and records management. The student poster session
will be held Friday April 23, 2010, during the MAC 2010 annual
meeting, Thursday April 22 to Saturday April 24, 2010 in downtown
Chicago, Illinois.

The student poster session will be competitive, with the presenters of
the best judged poster given a $100 award and a certificate from the
Student Interest Subcommittee. Proposals from students from all types
of academic programs will be accepted. Recent graduates (less than six
months out-of- school) are also welcome to submit proposals based on
research or projects conducted while a student. Up to eight posters
will be accepted for display during the conference.

Proposals are due FEBRUARY 20, 2010, and are to be submitted to Noah
Lenstra at nlenstr2 at gmail.com.
Individuals, groups and/or student chapters are all encouraged to
submit proposals.

Submission Instructions and Deadlines
Submissions must include the following: Your name, postal address,
telephone number, and email address;
The name and address of your college or university; Your degree
program (e.g., M.A., MLIS, C.A.S., Ph.D., etc.); A brief description
of your poster topic (not to exceed 250 words); A one-sentence
statement affirming your commitment to attend the MAC 2010 conference
and present your paper/poster in person if selected by the
Subcommittee. (For posters with multiple authors at least ONE of the
authors must commit to attending).
Proposals must be received no later than FEBRUARY 20, 2010, and must
be sent electronically to:
Student Interest Subcommittee of MAC 2010 Program Committee at
nlenstr2 at gmail.com. If you have any questions, or would like advice in
the creation of your poster proposal, please contact Subcommittee
Chair Noah Lenstra at nlenstr2 at illinos.edu.

What is a Poster Session?
The Poster Session is a format for presentations about projects that
use visual evidence. It offers presenters an opportunity to share
their work through one-on-one discussion, which can be especially
useful for work-in-progress or recently completed research, and may be
a particularly appropriate format for presentations where visual or
material evidence represents a central component of the project.

Presenters are to stand by their posters for two 45-minute periods on
Friday, April 23, to discuss them with conference attendees, and the
posters will be mounted in a public location throughout the day.
Presenters are encouraged to limit their posters to a small amount of
text designed to spark conversation and share information. Pictures,
graphs, data, and text are the typical tools used by poster
presenters.  Examples of posters in archives and records management
can be found in the Society of American Archivists’ Research Forum
virtual proceedings,
http://www.archivists.org/publications/proceedings/researchforum/index.asp.
Posters should be persuasive and visually compelling, and can be
coupled by hand-outs and business cards. Imagine that the audience for
the poster is a potential employer or professor. The Midwest Archives
Conference will provide presenters with a tripod and bulletin board to
successful presenters to enable them to mount their posters at the
conference. Posters are not to exceed 36 inches by 48 inches. WIFI and
electricity will NOT be available for presenters.

What is a Poster Proposal?
Individuals, groups of individuals and student chapters are all
encouraged to submit poster proposals. Examples of proposal themes
include: 1) original research that is completed or underway; 2)
descriptions of interesting collections with which students have
worked and their significance to the profession; 3) reports on
projects in which students and student groups have participated. Your
proposals should succinctly describe (in 250 words or less) what your
poster will cover, with an emphasis on why your poster will be
meaningful both to other students and to working professionals.

What is the Midwest Archives Conference?
The Midwest Archives Conference (http://www.midwestarchives.org) is
the nation's largest regional professional association for archivists.
Founded in 1972, MAC now has approximately 1,000 individual members.
MAC's 177 institutional members include a variety of corporate,
government, religious, and university archives, as well as historical
societies and other manuscripts repositories and special collections.
The MAC region is the thirteen heartland states: Illinois, Indiana,
Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North
Dakota, South Dakota, Ohio, and Wisconsin. However, MAC has individual
and institutional members from over 30 other states and five other
nations, and more are always welcome. The Midwest Archives Conference
sponsors various awards for students and new professionals to which
poster presenters are encouraged to apply to off-set the cost of
conference attendance:
http://www.midwestarchives.org/mc/page.do?sitePageId=92919&orgId=midwestarc