Welcome!

The Building the Future of Archival Education and Research Initiative represents a collaborative effort amongst nine U.S. academic institutions to stimulate the growth of a new generation of academics in archival education who are versed in contemporary issues and knowledgeable of the work being conducted by colleagues. The initiative seeks to nurture and promote the state-of-the-art in scholarship in Archival Studies, broadly conceived, as well as to encourage curricular and pedagogical innovation in archival education across the United States and worldwide.

As part of this effort, annual week-long summer Archival Education and Research Institutes (AERI) are being hosted by partner institutions.  The Institutes are designed to strengthen education and research and support academic cohort-building and mentoring. Institutes are open to all academic faculty working and doctoral students working in Archival Studies, both nationally and internationally.  Scholarship support is available to untenured ladder faculty and doctoral students whose major focus is Archival Studies and employed by or attending U.S. academic institutions.

A second component of this effort is the encouragement of a larger and more diverse cohort of doctoral students in Archival Studies.  The Emerging Archival Scholars Program (2011-2015) provides scholarships to attend AERI as well as additional mentoring and research opportunities for minority students at the undergraduate and graduate levels who are considering undertaking doctoral education focusing in Archival Studies.  The Archival Education and Research (AER) Doctoral Fellows comprise two cohorts (2009 and 2010) of doctoral students who have been awarded 4-year fellowships to undertake a doctoral program focusing on Archival Studies at one of the eight participating colleges or universities through competitive 4-year Fellowships.

The sixth AERI will take place at University of Pittsburgh.  Please check AERI 2014 to learn about the upcoming program. Search the site to learn more about this project, the partnering institutions, and about AERI 2009 (UCLA), AERI 2010 (University of Michigan), AERI 2011 (Simmons College), AERI 2012 (UCLA), and AERI 2013 (UT Austin).

The Building the Future of Archival Education and Research Initiative is funded by two 4-year grants from the Institute of Museum and Library Services - Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program.

Latest News

Applications for the Emerging Archival Scholars Program 2014 now closed.

Doctoral & Faculty Applications to AERI 2014  now closed.

AERI 2014 will be July 14-18, 2014 at the University of Pittsburgh.

Read about AERI 2009, 2010,  2011,  2012 and 2013

AERI initiated research publications & presentations.

Center for Information as Evidence

This project is being coordinated through the Center for Information as Evidence (CIE) at UCLA. The Center serves as an interdisciplinary forum addressing the ways in which information objects and systems are created, used, and preserved as legal, administrative, scientific, social, cultural and historical evidence.   CIE is committed to incorporating perspectives from ethnic communities from around the world in order to sustain the diversity within indigenous cultural heritages and broaden methods of information analysis and conservation.