FOR AMICAL MEMBERS - a reminder that proposals are due 31 January 2012 - see guidelines below:
Call for proposals
AMICAL’s annual conference is the one opportunity each year for you to meet with colleagues from the other American international universities, learn from them, share your own work, and hear from some of the best thinkers in library and information services. This year’s conference bears the theme: “The value of library and information services - Sharing data and assessing impact,” and helping frame our discussions around that theme will be our invited keynote speakers:
- Lisa Hinchliffe - Coordinator for Information Literacy Services and Instruction, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and past President, Association of College and Research Libraries
- Malcolm Brown - Director, EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative, and former Director of Academic Computing at Dartmouth College
The program will bring focus to other topics of particular interest to AMICAL members as well, including a full-day workshop on institutional repositories with Abby Clobridge (Clobridge Consulting). The draft program, which will evolve according to your input and the proposals received, shows the general shape we’re expecting the conference to take. The success of an AMICAL conference depends on your participation, and we welcome proposals from all AMICAL members forpresentations to be included.
Presentation proposals
If you have an idea for a presentation related to the conference theme, or on a topic that would be of likely interest to AMICAL members, please send the following to Jeff Gima (jgima@aup.edu) no later than 31 January 2012:
- your name, job title, institution, email and telephone number
- a presentation title
- a one-paragraph abstract of the presentation
- your preferred format for the presentation (see below for presentation formats)
Presentation formats accepted for this year’s conference:
- Lightning talks (10 minutes): short, focused presentations structured around 20 slides, each shown for 30 seconds
- Presentations (20 minutes)
- Panel presentations (1 hour max): short presentations and/or discussion by several participants centered on a common theme
- Workshops (1 to 2 hours max): hands on, participatory session focused on helping participants build practical skills on a given topic
- Technology showcase - demonstrate or present an interesting technology-based project you’ve implemented at your institution, related to libraries, information services, teaching, learning, etc.
Some of the possible topics that have been suggested so far include:
- Measuring and demonstrating value - successful methods at AMICAL institutions
- Designing Effective Learning Spaces
- Effective blended learning environments
- Assessing the use of campus information systems (Library, Registration, Course Management, Portals)
- Benchmarking options for libraries, IT services, and institutions
- Evidence-based practice in libraries and learning technologies
- Assessment of specific programs (information literacy, digital collections and repositories, collections and collection management, etc.)
- Usability of online information services
- Assessment of/with OCLC tools (e.g. Resource Sharing, Collection Analysis, etc.)
- Discovery tools: How well do they respond to libraries’ and users’ needs?
However, any topic of clear interest to AMICAL members is potentially acceptable.
Travel support for attendance will be available for those whose presentation proposals have been accepted by the Program Committee, but this will depend in part upon receiving your proposal by 31 January. Further information about travel support for AMICAL members generally is available on the conference website.
Note that we are also looking for suggestions for Interest group (roundtable) discussion topics, and facilitators forthose topics — especially if you have a particular interest and/or expertise in the area. Please send this and any other feedback on the conference program to us as early as possible.