By Andrew Zipkin, Vice President for Intersociety Relations
The recently overhauled SAS website (socarchsci.org/) has several new additions intended to extend functionality and give members and non-members more reasons to visit. Not least of these is the new calendar feature. Historically, the quarterly hard-copy SAS Bulletin featured a meetings calendar that was an important source of information about upcoming conferences and workshops for the archaeological science community (e.g., see the last few pages of this Bulletin issue from 1995 - socarchsci.org/bulletin/SAS1801.pdf). However, as information increasingly came to be disseminated via email lists and eventually social media, the importance of the quarterly Bulletin calendar declined. In recent years, I revived the events calendar as a biannual post to the SAS Blog (socarchsci.blogspot.com/) and as a continuously updated parallel feature of the SAS Facebook Page (facebook.com/SocArchSci/events/). The blog was combined with the SAS Bulletin in 2019 and under Editor Carmen Ting's leadership the Bulletin has moved to a more dynamic publication model with content posting to the blog as soon as ready, before being summarized in a quarterly digest emailed to Society members. However, this is still not the most efficient way to share information about upcoming events relevant to our members and our non-member audience on social media.
During the revamping of the SAS website in 2019-2020, the Executive Board decided to incorporate a Google Calendar module (socarchsci.org/affiliations/calendar.html). This allows any board member to add events as soon as they have the opportunity. Google Calendar users have the option to copy individual events to their personal calendar or add the whole SAS calendar so that new events appear automatically as they are added by the SAS board. We will still post some SAS and relevant non-SAS events to our Facebook and LinkedIn pages, but our website calendar will feature the most comprehensive coverage of upcoming international conferences, workshops, seminars, and networking opportunities, without requiring social media use to view them (for those of us who need a break). Information about each event will be added to the calendar from the event organizer's website or social media page. However, unless we are notified of a change by the organizer later, that information will not be updated once posted so be sure to check with the host directly for the most current details.
Anyone involved in planning or promoting events potentially relevant to an archaeological science audience is encouraged to reach out to the SAS General Secretary, the VP for Digital Media, or the VP for Intersociety Relations about adding your event to our calendar. The more specific the information that you provide us, the better we will be able to determine if your event makes sense for our audience. Lastly, if you're interested in deeper SAS involvement with your event, please review our co-sponsorship guidelines document (socarchsci.org/images/docs/Guidelines_event_sponsorship.pdf).
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