Proving Our Worth Within and Beyond the Academic Community
The Florida Chapter of ACRL (FACRL) is seeking proposals for presentations and poster sessions for the 2024 FACRL Virtual Annual Conference, held online on Friday, October 25, 2024.
In the last few years, academic libraries and librarianship have faced many challenges that required us to defend our professional expertise and how we continue to provide value to the communities we serve. Librarians nationwide continue to overcome these obstacles by using innovative problem-solving approaches. This year's call for proposals encourages librarians and library staff to share their creative projects, plans, strategies, and ideas that demonstrate our professional value to our academic community. What innovative projects have you implemented that showcase your expertise? How do we prevent ourselves from being marginalized and having our expertise questioned? How has your academic integrity and freedom been challenged, and how did you respond? What intangible benefits do you bring to your community that may not be seen or valued? What is our responsibility as a profession in defending libraries, those we represent, and the values we hold?
We welcome submissions from library staff, students, and faculty.
Topics might include but are not limited to:
- Book banning and challenges to our collections.
- Impacts of recent legislation on academic and intellectual freedom.
- Imposter syndrome across campus and between faculty/staff/librarian lines.
- Showing value within our institutions to administration, students, faculty, and other stakeholders.
- Leadership in the face of adversity, both within and beyond the institution.
- Impacts of AI on reference, instruction, collections, and other library services.
- Library services and student success.
- Challenges to diversity, equity, and inclusion programs within libraries.
- Open access and OERs.
- Scholarly communications.
- Adapting reference and instruction to institutional pressures.
- Librarians as advocates/activists.
- Services to our institutions, such as data management, digital collections, and repositories.
Do you have an idea for a timely topic outside this year's theme? Please feel free to submit it for consideration! Don't see a trend of interest but have best practices to share? No problem. Submit your proposal anyway.
Proposals for presentations, posters, and lightning round presentations can be submitted beginning June 24, 2024 using the online submission form. Rolling reviews and decisions will occur as proposals are received. The final deadline to submit is August 2, 2024. Presenters will receive complimentary registration to the virtual conference.
Presentations should be 45 minutes long, including the time provided for questions. Posters will be shared during a virtual poster session at the conference. Lightning round presentations are 5 minutes in length. Please follow this link to the rubric used to score all proposals. Acceptance emails will be sent on or before August 23, 2024.
Presentations of superior quality may be considered for future publication in The Reference Librarian, a major refereed journal published by Taylor and Francis. Consider reviewing the Instructions for Authors to learn about the expectations of content and writing for this peer-reviewed journal, which utilizes APA 7th edition style. Please contact editor Lauri Rebar with any questions. New and established authors are welcome!
Inquiries may be sent to the FACRL Conference Committee Chair, Jason Phillips or the FACRL President, Ana Diamand.
