Call for Proposals–2017 ACRL/NY Symposium: The Mission (Deadline May 5)

Illinois Association of College & Research Libraries Forum (IACRL)

April 22, 2017

(via Linda Miles–Hostos Community College, The City University of New York)

The Greater New York Metropolitan Area Chapter of ACRL is soliciting presentation proposals for its December 1 Symposium. The theme of this year’s Symposium is the academic library mission within the twenty-first century information environment.

The planning committee is accepting proposals for 20-minute presentations on the following three topics.

1) Ways in which librarians at institutions with limited acquisitions capacity can contribute to the preservation, accessibility and discoverability of research-valuable information.

  • How do librarians at smaller institutions participate in inter-institutional efforts to build and maintain rich shared collections? How do they advocate on behalf of students and faculty to ensure that materials required for teaching, learning and research remain accessible?

2) Benefits and challenges of academic libraries’ collaboration with their commercial partners

  • What are the roles of libraries and vendors within the academic information ecosystem? How do we reconcile the interests of profit-driven commercial entities with the academic mission of college and research libraries?  Proposals that address the status quo or delineate aspirational ideals will be welcomed. We are especially interested in frameworks that define how academic libraries’ functions are or should be distinct from those of our commercial partners.

3) Ways in which academic libraries have worked to ensure the preservation, accessibility and discoverability of endangered research-valuable content.

  • How have libraries and librarians from all kinds of academic institutions taken responsibility for the preservation and accessibility of endangered research-valuable content? Proposals may also address specific gaps where our profession is failing to fulfill our mission regarding such content.

Categories of endangered research-valuable material include (but are not limited to) the following.

  • materials in danger of disappearing because they are inconvenient for or hostile to a political regime or agenda;
  • genres of materials historically seen as not of research value and so outside the traditional purview of academic and research libraries; and
  • materials in non-traditional formats that are seldom collected by academic and research libraries

Proposal submissions should be 250-500 words in length and should be received by Friday, May 5. Notifications of acceptance will be sent out in late May or early June. Abstracts for presentations should be submitted using this form.

Questions about the submission process or about the Symposium in general should be sent to acrlnysymposiumchair@gmail.com.

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