The Symposium
Tracie D. Hall founded and convened the Black Information Futures Symposium at the University of Washington Information School, incubated by CALMA (Center for Advances in Libraries, Museums, and Archives). February 21–23, 2026, Seattle.
The symposium brought together archivists, librarians, technologists, educators, memory keepers, scholars, artists, and activists working on Black information futures. The first sessions were for presenters and contributors to work through ideas together. Then the symposium opened to the public — keynotes, panels, conversations about building systems that center Black epistemologies, protect Black data, preserve Black memory, and create infrastructure for Black knowledge.
The questions driving the gathering: Where is this field going? What does it need to survive? Who gets to build it?
The Archive
This archive documents what happened — presentations, reflections, who showed up and what they're building. It's also a record of the longer history. Black people have been doing information work for generations. This symposium is one moment in that story.
The archive grows. More gatherings, more practitioners, more documentation of the work.
The Lineage
Black information work is older than this symposium. Older than the field that now names it.
HBCU librarians building collections. Community archivists preserving what mattered locally. Educators developing curricula that told the truth of who we are. Technologists creating tools for our use, not our surveillance. Memory workers keeping records institutions ignored.
Some of this work happened in Black-led institutions. Some happened in public libraries, universities, government agencies. Some happened in living rooms and church basements. All of it required knowledge, skill, and infrastructure — formal or improvised.
The Lineage section documents the people doing this work across generations.