Lighting the Way: A Preliminary Report on the National Forum on Archival Discovery and Delivery

Stanford Libraries hosted Lighting the Way: A National Forum on Archival Discovery and Delivery, which focused on information sharing and collaborative problem solving around improving discovery and delivery for archives and special collections. The meeting had 71 participants drawn from multiple disciplines and job functions in the archives, library, and technology sectors. The Forum, held over two and a half days, included a series of plenary presentations in the first half of the first day, and a series of facilitated activities held over the rest of the event. The presentations and facilitated activities were intended to highlight both successes and ongoing challenges faced by participants and their institutions in terms of archival discovery and delivery. The presentations and activities also were designed to serve the goals of the Forum, which included 1) allowing participants to see, map, and build connections – between one another, their work, the systems they rely on, and the communities they serve; 2) organizing around shared opportunities and challenges, identified by participants during group activities; and 3) providing a platform for engagement with the project. Participants used idea generation activities focused on eliciting these opportunities and challenges, as well as potential areas for further work. Following the event, the project team synthesized the activities, outputs, and feedback from the Forum into this written report shared with the participants and the broader archives community. The project will host an online working meeting and asynchronous activities in Spring 2021 focused on collaborative writing and in-depth exploration of topics and themes raised in the Forum.

This project was made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services, through grant LG-35-19-0012-19. The views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this publication do not necessarily represent those of the Institute of Museum and Library Services.