2015 International Conference of Editors of Diplomatic Documents

Last Updated: April 22, 2015

Conference objective: Strengthen our work in publishing official diplomatic documentation—as individual programs, and as a community—by building collaboration, and by sharing ideas and management approaches.

All conference sessions will be conducted in the George Marshall Conference Center, U.S. Department of State (2201 C Street, NW, Washington, DC, Google Maps).

Join the conversation: Follow @ICEDD_org on Twitter, and use conference hash tag #icedd2015.

Tuesday, April 14, 2015

• 5:30-7:30 p.m. – Opening reception at the Embassy of Canada (501 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington, DC, Google Maps).

Wednesday, April 15, 2015

• 8:30 – Arrival and security processing; coffee and refreshments

• 9:00-9:15 – Welcome and administrative announcements

• 9:15-9:45 – Keynote Address: Assistant Secretary of State Doug Frantz

• 9:45-10:30 – Program updates

All in attendance are encouraged to discuss significant achievements, issues, or initiatives undertaken since the 2013 conference in Geneva.

• 10:45-12:00 – Multinational Publications: The Voice of Experience

Multinational volumes are of extraordinarily high value, but the requirement for international coordination inevitably leads to complexities. This panel offers the opportunity for programs which have succeeded in such projects to outline their experience, as a means of encouraging other programs to undertake comparable projects. Presenters will include:

• Dr. Marc Dierikx, Huygens Institute for the History of the Netherlands, chair
• Dr. Susana Muñoz, Centre Virtuel de la Connaissance sur l’Europe (CVCE), Luxembourg [Slides: 6.2 MB .pptx]
• David Geyer, Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State

• 12:00-1:15 – Lunch

• 1:30-3:00 – Roundtable: Program Management

Four programs with varying scales and institutional affiliations outline their structures, resulting issues, and management approaches to accomplish their mission in the given institutional environment. Presenters will include:

• Dr. Michael Kennedy, Executive Director, Documents on Irish Foreign Policy, chair [Slides: 7 MB .pptx]
• Dr. Ilse Dorothee Pautsch, Senior Editor, Institute fuer Zeitgeschichte, Germany [Slides: 113 KB .pdf]
• Dr. Adam Howard, General Editor, Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State [Slides: 82 KB .pdf]
• Dr. Marc Dierikx, Huygens Institute for the History of the Netherlands [Slides: 244 KB .ppt]

• 3:15-4:00 – Plenary discussion: Beyond Documentary Editions…

This session is designed to provide an informal general discussion of activities of our programs outside of documentary editions—examples including policy support, institutional history, education and outreach, and occasional papers, among others. As with other elements of the conference, the objective is to share ideas and management insights in these areas of our overall responsibilities.

• 6:00-8:00 – Official dinner at DACOR Bacon House (1801 F Street, NW, Washington, DC, Google Maps)

• Speaker: Dr. Tom Zeiler, University of Colorado

Thursday, April 16, 2015

• 8:30 – Arrival and security processing; coffee and refreshments

• 9:00-9:15 – Welcome and administrative announcements

• 9:30-10:30 – Workshop sessions I

• Historical Advisory Committees: Uses and Structures

• Dr. Joshua Botts, Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State
• Piotr Długołęcki, Polish Diplomatic Documents, Polish Institute of International Affairs, Poland [Slides: 228 KB PowerPoint]

• Visual Representation of Textual Relationships [Slides: Prezi]

• Dr. Thomas Faith, Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State
• Dr. Joseph Wicentowski, Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State

• 10:45-11:45 – Workshop sessions II

• Do’s and Don’t’s and Definitely Not’s: Learning from Twitter, 2013-2015 [Slides: 18.4 MB .pptx]

• Dr. Michael Kennedy, Documents on Irish Foreign Policy, Royal Irish Academy, Ireland
• Dr. Kate O’Malley, Documents on Irish Foreign Policy, Royal Irish Academy, Irelans

• Structures and Processes for Declassifying Sensitive Material [Slides: 1.1 MB .pptx]

• Dr. Carl Ashley, Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State
• Peter Nyren

• The Challenges of Born-Digital Records

• Dr. Seth Center, Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State

• 12:00-1:45 – Lunch and tour of the Diplomatic Reception Rooms; conference photo

• 2:00-2:45 – Workshop reports and discussion

• 3:00-4:15 – Roundtable: Digital Horizons

Many of our programs are working to address both the opportunities and the issues associated with digital technologies, ranging from social media, to web presence, to digital publication, to digital production processes. This panel will provide an opportunity for four programs to present their initiatives and management approaches, as a basis for general discussion.  Presenters will include:

• Dr. Sacha Zala, Director, Diplomatic Documents of Switzerland, chair
• Marianne Backes, Centre Virtuel de la Connaissance sur l’Europe (CVCE), Luxembourg
• Louise Fischer, Senior Editor, Documents on the Foreign Policy of Israel [Slides: 4.6 MB .pptx]
• Dr. Joseph Wicentowski, Digital Advisor, Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State

• 4:30-5:00 – ICEDD General Assembly

• Evening free

Friday, April 17, 2015

• 9:00 – Arrival and security processing, coffee and refreshments

• 10:00-11:30 – Scholarly papers: “Charting Our Past: The Evolution of the Foreign Policy Documentary Edition”

• Dr. Greg Donaghy (Canada), chair
• Dr. Matthew Jordan (Australia), “Forty Years of Documents on Australian Foreign Policy, 1974-2014” [Paper: 47 KB .docx]
• Dr. William McAllister (USA), “‘A Quarry for Brickbats:’ The Anglo-American Documentary Traditions in Comparative Perspective, 1910-1980” [Paper: 41 KB .docx]
• Dr. Sacha Zala (Switzerland), “Documentary Battles: Propaganda, Censorship, and Editorial Professionalization”
• Georgios Polydorakis (Greece), “Opening Closed Doors: Early Greek Diplomatic Documentation, 1880-1920” [Paper: 101 KB .doc, Slides: 7.6 MB .ppt]

• 11:45-12:45 – Lunch

• 1:00-3:00 – Depart from the Marshall Center for walking tour of the National Mall monument area

• 3:15 – Depart for National Archives; Informal tour and visitation

• 5:15 – Return to the Office of the Historian

• 5:30-7:30 – Closing reception, hosted by the Office of the Historian

Guests will be escorted to the Office from the security entry point at 23rd and E Street, NW, Washington DC (Google Maps).