Learn what the AAI was up to at the SAAs in 2025.
Did you miss us at the 2025 Society for American Archaeology meeting (SAAs) in Denver? No worries! In this article, we recap all the cool things that the Alexandria Archive Institute (AAI), Open Context, and the Digital Index of North American Archaeology (DINAA) got up to at our booth and around the meetings.
At the DINAA / Open Context booth, we had materials and staff representing the main programs of the AAI. This included postcards for the Data Literacy Program (DLP) and the FAIR + CARE Heritage Network, stickers for Open Context and DINAA, as well as other cool materials, like zine printed versions of the Digital Data Story It’s All in the Wrist (Bones) and QR codes for digital access to our resources.
After setting up the booth on Thursday, we spent the day getting our bearings. This involved a lot of catching up with new and old colleagues that stopped by to say hi. We also encouraged attendees to come to the DLP paper on Friday (given by Paulina), stop by the DINAA poster on Saturday (presented by Josh Wells of Indiana University South Bend), and join our Networking Archaeological Data and Communities (NADAC) forum on Sunday.
Here’s the AAI, OC, and DLP crew at the booth.
We also chatted with visitors about data publishing with Open Context, discussed DINAA as a great resource and “big(ger) data” project published on Open Context, and explained how the DLP uses those open archaeological publications to create free educational resources that people can use and reuse. Enough summarizing though, here’s what some of the AAI community thought about the 2025 meetings:
Josh
It was a heartening time to see archaeological data sharing and shared management becoming a cultural value in our community, and the interest in the DINAA poster on creating topical meta-analyses as part of that value. The idea behind DINAA was always to bridge metadata and create linkages between related archaeological projects, collections, publications, and of course datasets, using the concept of the archaeological site as the focus. Today, the supports are in turmoil and jeopardy for management of so much of the organizations and infrastructure which safeguard these irreplaceable resources (libraries, repositories, curational facilities, heritage offices, laboratories, public data servers, etc.). It is more important than ever that we take responsibility to create a real stock of what archaeologists have produced, for all of our publics today and tomorrow.
Sarah and Eric
We’re grateful for the chance to reconnect with the community, especially under the dire new circumstances that we all face. With the abrupt termination of many Federal grants (now including three to the AAI) many of our colleagues face costly disruptions that threaten programs and livelihoods. We also dearly missed many colleagues in the public sector who have been fired without cause or justification despite their dedication to public service. So while all these developments cast a shadow on the SAA conference, we felt that it was important to reach out to those who could still attend the meeting. In that sense, it was good to meet with colleagues, share news, and share ideas for strategies to provide mutual support and aid. While the damage and the costs of the past 100 days will be a burden for decades to come, this turmoil highlights how we must double down on our efforts to support each other and our wider communities.
Paulina
It was great to be back at the SAAs and chat with so many people about the DLP and then facilitate a great discussion amongst the NADAC cohort on Sunday. I loved getting to share some stories about our program with a new audience. Folks seemed to resonate with the work of the program and it was great to share our work with new and old colleagues. During our Sunday morning NADAC forum, we had a great time discussing and sharing our visions for The Data Literacy for Archaeologists Practice Guide with some audience members who weren’t part of the main institute. I’m also always humbled by the great work and ideas that the NADAC cohort comes up with. I’m grateful to have had the chance to share space with those amazing scholars.
These were the awesome NADAC cohort members who could join us at the SAAs
If you didn’t make it to Denver, never fear! You can sign up to get digital copies of our DLP materials here or learn more about the FAIR+CARE Cultural Heritage Network here. You can also catch Paulina, of the DLP, in person at the Conference on Public Archaeology in Washington DC August 8-9, 2025. Paulina will be there with a poster, postcards, and even some Open Context stickers to share. Until then, check back soon for more news from the DLP and AAI’s many other programs!
Image Credits: All images in this are used with the permission of the photographer and consent of those visible in the photos.
