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New York Archives Week 2026

Each October, the Archivists Round Table of Metropolitan New York, Inc. (ART), in collaboration with hundreds of organizations from the archives community across New York State, hosts New York Archives Week (NYAW). This weeklong celebration features a variety of special events throughout the New York City metropolitan area, highlighting the rich array of archival materials available in the region.

This year, New York Archives Week will take place from Wednesday, October 21 through Wednesday, October 28.

Important Dates and Deadlines

  • Deadline for Zines: Wednesday September 30th. See below for details.

  • Deadline for New York Archives Week Award Nominations: Monday, October 5th, 2026. Submit here!

  • Deadline for Community Events: Friday, October 9th. Submit here!

  • New York Archives Week Symposium and Awards Ceremony: Friday, October 23rd (Registration will open soon!)

New York Archives Week Symposium and Awards Ceremony 2026

Event poster for New York Archives Week 2026’s “Envisioning Metropolis” symposium and awards ceremony, scheduled for Friday, October 23rd, 2026.

The Archivists Round Table of Metropolitan New York, Inc. (A.R.T.) is excited to announce that the 2026 New York Archives Week Symposium and Awards Ceremony will take place on Friday, October 23rd at the American Museum of Natural History.

This year’s theme, “Envisioning Metropolis: The Future of New York City’s Past Today,” will shape a full day of programming, conversations, and critical reflections on how archives can prepare for the future, and how we might imagine that future together.

Registration and full program details will be announced soon.

For questions, please contact the Director of Education, Herbert Durán, at education@nycarchivists.org.

New York Archives Week Awards

Each year, the Archivists Round Table of Metropolitan New York, Inc. (A.R.T.) presents awards during New York Archives Week to celebrate distinguished work and lasting achievements in our profession. This year, we're introducing a new set of award categories. We invite members to submit nominations recognizing colleagues, archival organizations, and innovative projects for the following awards:


AWARD FOR ARCHIVAL ACHIEVEMENT: Recognizes an individual or archival program that has made an outstanding contribution to the archival profession, or a notable achievement of value to the archives community, its patrons, or constituents.

COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT AWARD: Recognizes an individual, organization, or program that has meaningfully connected archives with communities, particularly through outreach, collaboration, participatory archives, or efforts to make collections more accessible.

DIGITAL ARCHIVES & INNOVATION AWARD: Recognizes innovative use of digital technologies, digitization, digital preservation, metadata, or other emerging approaches to improve archival access, preservation, or discovery.

EMERGING PROFESSIONAL AWARD: Recognizes an early-career archivist or information professional who has demonstrated exceptional promise, leadership, or contribution to the profession.

ART VOLUNTEER OF THE YEAR: Recognizes an individual who has made a remarkable contribution to the Archivists Round Table.


Submission Guidelines:

  • Nominees must be A.R.T. members or operate within the New York metropolitan area.

  • Explain why this individual or organization deserves to be recognized with this award.

  • Provide links that illustrate or highlight the work and contributions of your nominee, if applicable.


Please note: Self-nominations and nominations of others are welcome. You will be asked to provide contact info for the nominee if you are nominating someone else. All nominators will remain anonymous.

DEADLINE: Please send nominations through this Google Form by Monday, October 5th, 2026 at 11:59 PM (EST).

Awards will be presented at this year's New York Archives Week Symposium, taking place on Friday, October 23rd, 2026, at the American Museum of Natural History. While attendance is not required to accept your award, it is highly encouraged.

Please send any questions regarding the New York Archives Week Awards, or New York Archives Week in general, to A.R.T. President Stephanie Neel at president@nycarchivists.org.


Submit a Community Event

Archivists and institutions throughout the city are invited to submit virtual and in-person events, collection tours, and community conversations to be featured on the A.R.T. Archives Week calendar via this submission form. Complete event details, including date, time, and location, must be provided at the time of submission. 

Please Note: All events listed on the New York Archives Week calendar must be free and open to the public.

The deadline for event submissions is Friday, October 9, 2026

Submit your events via this Google Form: https://forms.gle/gP8LurP5Q4JrR57R7

Want to host a program but don’t have any ideas? Here are a few ideas inspired by events institutions have hosted in the past:

  • Hold an open house or show-and-tell, highlighting unusual, new, or favorite materials from your collections.

  • Mount a small exhibition or display using materials from your repository.

  • Give a talk about a collection, project, or research topic connected to your holdings.

  • Host a panel or conversation with archivists, historians, artists, researchers, and/or community members.

  • Screen a film or other audiovisual materials from your collections, followed by a discussion.

  • Highlight a recent acquisition, processing project, or digitization project and share what you’ve discovered.


Whether you’re planning a large public program or a smaller event, we’d love to have you participate!

CONTRIBUTE A ZINE TO OUR ZINE TABLE

Following the success of last year’s zine table, the Archivists Round Table of Metropolitan New York (A.R.T.) is once again seeking archives-related zines to share at this year’s A.R.T. Symposium and Awards Ceremony (location and date to be announced soon).


Whether your zine is artistic, informative, personal, humorous, or somewhere in between, we want to showcase the creativity and talents of zine makers within our profession.


How to Share Your Zine

  • Attending in person? Bring 10–15 copies with you and drop them off at the registration table when you check in.

  • Not attending or unable to bring physical copies? Send a PDF of your zine to communications@nycarchivists.org with the subject line “ART Symposium 2026 Zine Table” by Wednesday, September 30. We’ll print and fold a small run of your zine for the table.

  • Not attending and/or prefer to send physical copies? You can mail a few copies to our P.O. Box (address below). Please email communications@nycarchivists.org once they’re in the mail to let us know they’re on their way.

Archivists Round Table of Metropolitan New York (ART)

P.O. 663

New York, NY 10159

For questions, please contact Director of Communications Nicole Font at communications@nycarchivists.org. 


Please note: All zines will be freely distributed to Symposium attendees. Sales will not be facilitated at this time. Zine artists who sell their work are welcome to share links to their websites or sales platforms so that we can include them in a list of participating zine artists that will be shared following the Symposium and Awards Ceremony.



New York Archives Week Events

  • Tour of The Metropolitan Opera House and Archives

    • Saturday, October 10, 2026
    • 9:50 AM
    • The Metropolitan Opera House, 30 Lincoln Center Plaza, New York, NY 10023
    • 0
    Join waitlist

    Black-and-white photograph of a woman feeding a group of white geese beside a large tree.

    Image courtesy of The Metropolitan Opera Archives. Geraldine Farrar as the Goosegirl in Humperdinck's Königskinder, 1910. 


    Title: Tour of The Metropolitan Opera House and Archives
    Date & Time: Saturday, October 10, 2026, at 9:50 AM - 12:00 PM (tour begins promptly at 10:00 AM)

    Capacity: 30

    Duration: 2 hours

    Admission: Free! Open to A.R.T. Members & Non-Members
    Location: The Metropolitan Opera House, 30 Lincoln Center Plaza, New York, NY 10023


    Join us October 10, 2026 for an exclusive tour of the Metropolitan Opera’s fabulous archival costume exhibit, Behind the Seams: Costuming at the Metropolitan Opera, as well as a tour of the Metropolitan Opera’s archives, lead by acting director John Tomasicchio. A storied New York institution, the Metropolitan Opera’s history goes back to the gilded age, pivotally so, and its archives contains photographs, programs, correspondence, board minutes, props, set model, costumes, and more dating from the mid-1800s to present day.


    This is an in-person event limited to 30 A.R.T. Members & Non-Members. Registration is non-transferable. Please note that you MUST reserve a ticket in advance online in order to attend this event. In the occasion that the event is sold out, we highly recommend joining the waitlist. An ART staff member will reach out to you if a spot becomes available. Unless you've been given permission, please do not show up at the event without registering.


    ABOUT 

    The Metropolitan Opera is a vibrant home for the most creative and talented singers, conductors, composers, musicians, stage directors, designers, visual artists, choreographers, and dancers from around the world. The Metropolitan Opera Archives contain a vast collection of documents, photographs, artwork, costumes, and memorabilia reaching back to the company's opening season in 1883.


    Meeting Location:

    Please meet staff member John Tomasicchio at security, just inside the Metropolitan Opera Stage Door Entrance located within Lincoln Center’s parking garage. You can enter the garage from Amsterdam and 64th St (the door will be located just a bit inside and to the right) OR from 65th street glass tunnel entrance between the Newhouse Theater and Lincoln Center Film/Paradiso Café (go through into the garage and then across the street to the right)


    Accessibility Note: Elevators available upon request. However, there are two parts where a small 3 step staircase up is unavoidable.



    Directions to the Met Opera:

    The Metropolitan Opera is located on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City, between West 62nd and 65th Streets and Columbus and Amsterdam Avenues.

    By subway: Take the No. 1 train to 66th Street (Lincoln Center) Station.. 

    By bus: Take the M5, M7, M10, M11, M20, M66, M104 or BxM2 lines.. 

    Parking: The Lincoln Center “park and lock” parking garage is located underneath Lincoln Center. It is open to the public 24 hours a day.

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    Please note that by registering and attending this event/webinar, you automatically grant your consent to be photographed and/ or video-recorded and to the release, publication, or reproduction of any and all recorded media of your appearance, voice, and name for any purpose whatsoever in perpetuity in connection with the Archivists Round Table of Metropolitan New York, Inc. and its initiatives, including, by way of example only, use on websites, in social media, news, newsletters, Metropolitan Archivist, and advertising.

    Show details

  • A.R.T. Presents: A Screening of METROPOLIS

    • Wednesday, October 21, 2026
    • 6:30 PM
    • Various/Artists, 19 Essex Street (between Canal and Hester Streets)
    • 0
    Join waitlist

    Vintage Metropolis film poster showing dark-clad figures approaching a monumental machine in an industrial interior, beneath the large red title “METROPOLIS.”

    Image courtesy of Garret Linn at Various/Artists


    Title: A.R.T. Presents: A Screening of METROPOLIS

    Date & Time: Wednesday, October 21st, 2026, at 6:30PM

    Duration: 2.5 hours

    Capacity: 40

    Admission: Free! (open to A.R.T. Members & Non-Members)

    Location: Various/Artists, 19 Essex Street (between Canal and Hester Streets)


    Join Archivists Round Table for the start of 2026 New York Archives Week with a screening of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis at Various/Artists Gallery on the Lower East Side.

    The theme of this year’s Archives Week Symposium is Envisioning Metropolis: The Future of New York City’s Past Today. When it premiered in 1927, Metropolis faced widespread criticism, and studio executives demanded the film go through rigorous rounds of editing. Much of the film’s original cut was lost – until 2008, when the original version was discovered by Paula Felix-Didier in the archives of the Museo del Cine, in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

    We are honored to precede this screening of the restored film with a pre-recorded introduction from Felix-Didier, interviewed by A.R.T.’s Director of Outreach, Linda Smith.

    Introductory remarks and Felix-Didier’s introduction will begin around 6:30PM, and the screening of Metropolis will start around 7PM. The film is approximately 2 hours. Snacks and refreshments will be provided. You are welcome to move about the gallery space throughout the screening.

    Special thanks to Various/Artists and gallery director Garret Linn for hosting this special screening.


    This is an in-person event limited to 40 attendees. Registration is non-transferable. Please note that you MUST reserve a ticket in advance online in order to attend this event. 

    In the occasion that the event is sold out, we highly recommend joining the waitlist. An ART staff member will reach out to you if a spot becomes available. Unless you've been given permission, please do not show up at the event without registering.


    How to find Various/Artists

    Various/Artists is an art gallery located at 19 Essex Street (between Canal and Hester Streets) on the Lower East Side. The closest subway stations are the East Broadway F stop and the Grand Street B/D stop. The Canal Street N/Q/J/6 station is about a 10 minute walk. The M9 bus station stops at Essex and Canal Street, across from Seward Park. The M15 bus runs down Allen Street, a couple of blocks to the west of Essex.

    There are Citibike docks and parking garages nearby Various/Artists as well.


    About

    Various/Artists produces handmade records, prints, publications and other editions by artists working across a wide range of media. Since 2024, Various/Artists has operated a storefront project space at 19 Essex St. in New York City featuring monthly exhibitions and programs by comrades and collaborators.

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    Please note that by registering and attending this event/webinar, you automatically grant your consent to be photographed and/ or video-recorded and to the release, publication, or reproduction of any and all recorded media of your appearance, voice, and name for any purpose whatsoever in perpetuity in connection with the Archivists Round Table of Metropolitan New York, Inc. and its initiatives, including, by way of example only, use on websites, in social media, news, newsletters, Metropolitan Archivist, and advertising.



    Show details

If you have any questions about New York Archives Week, please contact A.R.T. President Stephanie Neel at president@nycarchivists.org.

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