Margaret Hedstrom will deliver a keynote address at the plenary session of the annual iConference, hosted virtually by Renmin University School of Information Resource Management.

Hedstrom’s address, “Collaboration Around Curation,” will identify commonalities and differences in the conceptualizations and practices of curation across the fields of research and teaching in iSchools. 

“The term curation has become overused and abused, so much so that its ubiquity has made it meaningless,” Hedstrom commented. “Curation has a long history of practice in archives, museums and libraries. In the last decade, curation has emerged as a challenge in many other areas under the iSchool umbrella, such as data science, web analytics, and moderation on social media platforms. This address will identify areas where research that cuts across these fields could be mutually beneficial.” 

Hedstrom is the Robert M. Warner Collegiate Professor of Information at the University of Michigan School of Information (UMSI), where she teaches in the areas of archives, collective memory, and digital curation. She was the interim director of the UM Graduate Certificate Program in Museum Studies, is a fellow of the Society of American Archivists and recipient of a Distinguished Scholarly Achievement Award from the University of Michigan for her work with archives and cultural heritage preservation in South Africa.

UMSI @ iConference 2021

March 25

Keynote address, 9-10:30 a.m. EDT
“Collaboration Around Curation”
Margaret Hedstrom

March 30

Virtual interactive session, 3-5:30 p.m. EDT
“Critical Futures: exploring the place and practice of critical informatics training in iSchools”
Britt Paris (Rutgers University); Daniel Green (University of Maryland); Roderic Crooks (University of of California–Irvine); Megan Threats (Rutgers University); Irene Pasquetto (UMSI); Stacy Wood (University of California–Los Angeles); Pierre, Jennifer Pierre (Google)

The iConference is an annual gathering of a broad spectrum of scholars and researchers from around the world who share a common concern about critical information issues in contemporary society. The iConference series was established in 2005 by the iSchools organization, a worldwide association of Information Schools dedicated to advancing the information field, and preparing students to meet the information challenges of the 21st Century. Each annual iConference is hosted by a different iSchools member-institution

- Jessica Webster, UMSI PR Specialist