Fall 2025 Symposium: Sustainability and Archives

Facilitator: Eira Tansey of Memory Rising

October 27, 2025
Hagley Museum and Library Soda House

REGISTRATION

Symposium Location

Join us on Monday, October 27, at Delaware’s Hagley Museum and Library Soda House for MARAC’s symposium to discuss sustainability.  Topics will include impacts of climate change on archives or, conversely, the environmental impacts of our own work on our communities. How is climate change influencing and altering our staffing, institutions, collections, and work overall?

Symposium Registration

Registration includes lunch: Regular $125, Student  $70
Optional Winterthur House Tour (Advance registration required.): $5

If your employer is paying for your registration and you will pay for the tour, please review these instructions before registering.

Register at Fall 2025 Registration by October 17, 2025. There will not be any on-site registration.

Schedule for Monday, October 27, 2025

Vendors will be available in the Hagley Soda House galleries throughout the day. Please make a point of stopping by and chatting with them. Their support is paramount to the success of MARAC’s meetings. There will be beverage service (coffee, hot tea, water) from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Lunch is included with registration.

  8:00      Registration Table Opens
  9:00      Welcome 
  9:15      Keynote Speech: “Enduring Records and Shifting Shores”
10:15      Coffee Break and Vendors 
10:30      Workshop: Archives for Coastal Adaptation 
12:00      Lunch and Hagley Collection Highlights: Industry’s Impact on Environment
  1:30      Panel Discussion
  2:30      Break and Vendors 
  2:45      Poster Session and Vendors 
  3:00      Optional Winterthur House Tour (Advance registration required. Max 25.) 
  3:45      Conclusion 

** Attendees must exit the Soda House by 4:30 p.m. and depart the Hagley property by 5:00 p.m. as the property gates will close and lock promptly at 5:00 p.m. 

Keynote Presentation:  “Enduring Records and Shifting Shores”
Climate change is profoundly reshaping the mid-Atlantic region’s coastlines, bringing with it both significant challenges and unique opportunities for archives to capture and preserve the human and environmental experience of these transformations. This keynote will explore how communities, infrastructure, and the landscape of our coastal regions are being impacted by phenomena such as sea-level rise, increased storm frequency, repetitive flooding, and heavy precipitation events. Drawing on lessons from other disciplines about documenting shifting communities, we will consider what archival records might reflect these changes and the consequences if crucial documentation of displaced communities is lost.

Eira Tansey, founder of Memory Rising, is an archivist, researcher, and consultant based in her hometown of Cincinnati/the Ohio River watershed. Memory Rising provides research, consulting, and archival services with expertise in climate change, environmental and labor movements, and Ohio Valley regional history. Eira’s research on archives and climate change has been profiled by Yale Climate Connections, VICE, and Pacific Standard, and has been honored by the Society of American Archivists.

Workshop:  Archives for Coastal Adaptation
In this workshop led by Eira Tansey, participants will take a deeper dive into how climate change is reshaping coastlines in the MARAC region, and current federal, state, and municipal policies about coastline adaptation. Archives are an important underappreciated resource in climate adaptation, providing vital records for legal protections and post-disaster recovery, cultural and community continuity, and processing climate-related emotions. Participants will leave the workshop equipped with an understanding of how their professional skills and institutional collections can contribute to climate adaptation.

Hagley Collection Highlights: Industry’s Impact on Environment
Hagley Museum and Library collects, preserves, and interprets the unfolding history of American enterprise. During the lunch break, enjoy a pop-up exhibition curated by Head of Reference Services Angela Schad and explore the changing roles that business, technology, and industrial design have had in shaping the built environment and in defining how humans interact with the natural world. Schad will be on hand for interpretation and discussion.

Panel Discussion: 

Moderator: Mark Coulbourne, Head of Preservation, University of Maryland Libraries

Panelist Biographies
Ben Goldman, University Archivist, Eberly Family Special Collections Library, Penn State University Libraries

Erika Gorder, Rutgers University Libraries
Erika Gorder is University Archivist at Rutgers University (and previously Associate University Archivist since 1998.) She earned her master’s degree in history and archival studies at New York University and MLIS degree from Rutgers University. Ms. Gorder has worked as an archivist at Rutgers Institute of Jazz Studies and the New Jersey Historical Society and taught graduate courses as a co-adjutant at the Rutgers School of Communication and Information.

Amanda C. Burdan, Ph.D., Senior Curator, Brandywine Museum of Art

Optional Tour: Winterthur House Tour at Winterthur Museum, Gardens & Library
Take a guided tour of Winterthur’s house and learn untold stories about the du Pont family, the many people who shaped it, and the history of the objects displayed in its rooms.  

Once the country home of the family of Henry Francis du Pont, Winterthur has been shaped through the vision of H.F. du Pont into the premier museum of American decorative arts. Winterthur now boasts a collection of over 90,000 objects made or used in America since 1640 displayed throughout a 175-room house, a 60-acre garden designed by H.F. du Pont himself, and over a thousand acres of protected meadows and woodlands. The estate is also home to a research library dedicated to the study of American decorative arts and material culture, a comprehensive art conservation department, and two graduate programs in association with the University of Delaware. (cost: $5, max 25 participants)

Lunch:  

Choice of a boxed sandwich or salad lunch is included in registration. There are several options to accommodate a wide variety of dietary needs. Please indicate your dietary needs on the registration form so that MARAC can consider them regarding all food service during the event.

Directions and Parking: VERY IMPORTANT GPS INFORMATION

Hotel

MARAC has reserved room blocks at two nearby hotels. Please note that both hotels are honoring their rates just for the night of Sunday, 26 October 2025. Each hotel is approximately 5 miles (between 12-14 minutes travel time) from the symposium venue, Hagley Soda House. Each hotel has a different cut-off date to receive the MARAC Symposium rate.

Days Inn by Wyndham Wilmington/Brandywine 5209 Concord Pike, Wilmington, DE, 19803
$78 per night, $8.58 tax and fees, $86.50 total
Reservation cut-off 12 October 2025

Reservations can be made by using this reservation link or by calling (302) 478-0300, please identify as attendee of the MARAC Symposium to assure the special group rate.

Doubletree by Hilton - Wilmington, Delaware 4727 Concord Pike, Wilmington, DE 19803
$139 per night, $15.29 tax and fees, $154.29 total
Reservation cut-off 26 September 2025

Reservations can be made by using this reservation link  or by calling (302) 478-6000, please identify as attendee of the MARAC Symposium (Code CDT90P) to assure the special group rate.

Financial Assistance 

The application period has closed. 

Questions? Contact Jodi Boyle, MARAC Scholarship Committee Chair, at [email protected]. 

Cancellations and Refunds

If you must cancel your registration for the Symposium, your written request must be received on or before October 17, 2025 to receive your refund minus a $5 administrative fee. Please submit requests to Sara Predmore at [email protected]. No refunds will be issued after October 17, 2025.

Americans with Disabilities Act

MARAC is committed to an inclusive Symposium. Please indicate your requests on the Symposium registration form and inform the hotel for assistance when making a reservation.

Vendors and Sponsors

Exhibit day will be Monday, October 27th.  Vendors may register online at Fall 2025 Vendor Registration. For more information, contact the MARAC Vendor Coordinator, Nick Zmijewski, at [email protected].

Code of Conduct

MARAC is committed to providing a harassment-free environment for its members and others who participate in its conferences, events, and meetings. All attendees are required to comply with our code of conduct.

Contact the Meeting Planners

Email the meeting planners at [email protected].