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The theme for AIC's 44th Annual Meeting, held jointly with the 42nd Annual CAC-ACCR Conference, in Montreal, Canada, May 13-17, 2016, will be Preparing for Disasters and Confronting the Unexpected in Conservation.Colleagues are invited to submit abstracts that address in a broad-based way the impact of past, present, and future disasters on the protection of cultural property. In addition, papers that address confronting the unexpected in conservation whether it occurs during the treatment of an artifact or during a natural disaster are requested.The topic can be expanded to address immediate reactions, such as the application of crowd-mapping technology to aid response efforts, or longer term developments stemming from disasters, such as the adoption of simple strategies. These strategies might include: Fail to Plan – Plan to Fail, effective risk assessment methodologies, the rapid transformation of damaged artifacts into objects of veneration, or – thanks to social media today – the repercussions of instantaneous visibility of destruction. In addition to situations caused by natural disasters, accidents, terrorist activities, and climate change, even well-intended but misguided interventions can elicit global amusement and/or outrage. The unexpected may include surprises encountered along the way in any treatment and can be expanded to include all stakeholders, even future ones, who are affected by a disaster.  Communities affected can cross geographic boundaries, social and economic populations, cultural and historical perspectives, and inter-disciplinary expertise.The Collection Care Network (CCN) of the American Institute for Conservation seeks abstracts that explore the partnerships crucial to successful emergency management for their session. The CCN promotes collaboration, standards and best practices, training and other projects to advance preventive conservation in institutions of all types and sizes.  Papers may speak to any emergency management phase, be it preparedness, response, recovery, or mitigation. Topics might include collaborations between cultural and emergency managers in training, architectural modifications to prepare museum structures for climate change, modeling sea rise, health and safety issues in remediation of cultural heritage structures, and many other topics. We are especially interested in submissions from colleagues in related professions such as facility administrators, collection managers, security personnel, HVAC and structural engineers, framers, art handlers, librarians, archivists, and others who have collection-wide responsibilities.The review committees will be looking for abstracts related to the general theme, however other topics will be reviewed as well. Please refer to the full Call for Papers on our website for more details. To see the full call for papers, visit www.conservation-us.org/abstracts.For guidelines for developing a workshop and application forms or to submit a proposal for a workshop, visit www.conservation-us.org/workshops.Submission deadline for both papers and workshops is Monday, September 14, 2015. Poster abstract submissions are due Thursday, October 1st. If you have any questions or if you would like to submit an abstract, please contact Ruth Seyler at rseyler@conservation-us.org.Best,Annual Meeting Program Committee.