Author: Cheryl

Call for Book Chapter Proposals on the History of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions

Call for Book Chapter Proposals on the History of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions

Key Timeline

  • Deadline for Proposals: December 15, 2024
  • August, 2025, IFLA Library History SIG Sponsored Author’s Symposium to workshop and discuss chapter drafts
  • Full chapters will be due in April 2026
  • The book will be published in 2027 by De Gruyter academic publishing

Editors:

  • Steven Witt, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA
  • Peter Lor, University of Pretoria, South Africa
  • Anna Maria Tamaro, University of Parma, Italy
  • Jeffrey Wilhite, Oklahoma University, USA

Inquiries: Steve Witt, Professor, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign swwitt@illinois.edu.

To mark the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions’ (IFLA) centenary, the IFLA Library History SIG seeks proposals for book chapters that investigate IFLA’s history. We seek broad and interdisciplinary perspectives that draw upon established historiographical methods and primary source materials. We encourage and welcome chapters that take regional perspectives while also seeking submissions focused on topics and themes of both information and transnational/global history as they relate to the impact and activities of IFLA on society, culture, and the information professions. Authors are encouraged to adopt analytical and critical, as distinct from annalistic and celebratory, approaches.

IFLA was founded in 1927 during a period marked by intense interest and development in the potential for organized knowledge to advance individuals and societies, accelerate science and technology, develop economies, and promote international peace and cooperation. Efforts in the library and information science field spawned ambitious projects to catalog human knowledge, standardize practices, and promote access to information through the proliferation globally of public libraries and information bureaus. In the ensuing 100 years, IFLA weathered economic depression, world war, the Cold War, regional conflict, and the continuing information revolutions. At the same time, libraries as institutions, cultural touchstones, and places of refuge played an important role in societies, advancing development, spreading literacy, and supporting governance at all levels. Libraries and the LIS professions have also served as cultural symbols that both inspire hope for social change and engender debate about the role of information and books in advancing contested values.  In short, libraries and organizations such as IFLA have helped to shape both individuals and societies throughout the past 100 years.

Submissions

Chapter proposals of no more than 1,000 words exclusive of the cover page and references are welcome.

Please include the following to facilitate the peer review process:

Cover Page that includes:

  • Author’s Name
  • Contact Information
  • Institutional Affiliation
  • Names of additional authors

Proposal with following elements:

  • Chapter Abstract (up to 1000 words) and with following elements:
  • Significance to both the history of IFLA and history of information and libraries
  • Temporal and geographical scope
  • Theme and topics covered (with reference to below organization and themes)
  • Archival and primary source materials to be used to support research
  • Bibliography containing relevant secondary source materials

Authors may submit proposals that are derived from historical research projects that have been completed or that are still in progress.

All proposals will undergo peer review.  Decisions will be communicated after the editorial committee’s review of the proposal and a full timeline and guide for authors will be provided to authors at that time.

Upon acceptance of the proposal, authors will be asked to provide a draft chapter for presentation, review, and comment at an author’s invitational symposium of the IFLA Library History SIG to be held in August of 2025.  Revised and complete chapters will be due for final review in April of 2026 to enable publication of the book in 2027.  Following review, chapters should range from 4,000 to 10,000 words inclusive of titles, abstract, manuscript, and references.  These will be submitted using the Chicago Manual of Style notes and bibliography system.

Although the final book will be published in English, the Library History SIG would like to encourage authors from diverse linguistic backgrounds to submit proposals.  The editors will work with authors who wish to write in a language other than English to facilitate translations.

Please send all submissions to the following address: IFLALIBHISTSIG@gmail.com with the following subject line: Chapter Proposal

Organization and Themes

The book aims to include both transnational and regional perspectives on IFLA and the history of libraries and the information society over the past 100 years.  The editors plan to organize the volume under the following broad themes:

  • Informational utopia – networks, knowledge organization, and the global rise of libraries
  • Cold War and the dawn of information technology
  • Information for All – access and information justice amidst globalization
  • The future of libraries in an era of ubiquitous information

Within these broad themes, regional perspectives are encouraged from the IFLA Regions:

  • Asia Oceania
  • Europe
  • Latin America and the Caribbean
  • Middle East and North Africa
  • North America
  • Sub-Saharan Africa

In addition, themes and topics to consider with this broader framing include yet are not limited to IFLA’s history as it relates to:

  • Free Access to Information Movement
  • Cultural Heritage
    • Disasters
    • Climate change
    • Committee of the Blue Shield
    • Memory of the World and UNESCO
  • Impact on social, economic, and/or political development
    • Libraries
    • Associations
    • Civil society / governance
  • Post-colonial societies
  • Globalization of information
  • Global political economy of libraries and information
  • Global governance of information and technology
  • Development of public libraries, school libraries, and other library types
  • Public library politics program
  • Relations with international Organizations or associations: League of Nations, UNESCO, WIPO, FID, etc.
  • Relations with foundations and national funding bodies: Carnegie, Bill and Melinda Gates, Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA) etc.
  • IFLA sections, units, and programs
  • Leadership development – related to grants and funding for conference attendance
  • Building strong library associations initiatives
  • IFLA during periods of war and social strife
  • Expansion of IFLA as truly global organization inclusive of global south etc.

During various planning sessions and presentations over the past several years, a number of themes have been identified and suggested for the centenary book.  These have been compiled by Peter Lor, one of the book editors, and are available in “Sources and themes for the historiography of IFLA”.

Contact Information

Steve Witt, PhD
Professor, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Convenor, IFLA, Library History SIG

Contact Email

swwitt@illinois.edu

URL: https://www.ifla.org/news/call-for-book-chapter-proposals-on-the-history-of-the-international-federation-of-library-associations-and-institutions/

Call for Proposals: Critical Pedagogy Symposium: Decentering the West

Introduction 

The 2025 Critical Pedagogy Symposium (CPS), now in its 3rd iteration since 2021, seeks to provide space for library workers and information professionals of all kinds to collaborate in critical pedagogical thought and critical practice. We want to build community, and to imagine new ways of doing our work by naming and dismantling oppressive systems and imagining new worlds. In this biennial symposium, our overarching aim is to collaborate in growing creative, generous, and mutually supportive intersectional and anti-oppressive work within Library and Information Science (LIS) so that we hone a sharp language for interrogating and dismantling inequities of all kinds and for doing justice work together. 

2025 Critical Pedagogy Symposium 

The 2025 Symposium will examine global barriers and their impact on library and archival pedagogy. This year’s Symposium is inspired by the pedagogies and practices of those thinking about colonialism, imperialism, transnationalism, epistemic injustice, and other frameworks for Decentering the West. With this in mind, we have created three broad tracks through which to consider Decentering the West in our critical pedagogy and practice.

Knowledge practices (diasporic, Indigenous, or ancestral): this track focuses on the ways libraries, archives, and their workers are pulling from historical knowledge banks to provide new ways of knowing, learning, and disseminating knowledge. Prompts for this track may include, but are not limited to: 

  • How can traditions, folklore, artifacts, etc. be integrated into information skills programs, our services, and courses in a critical way?
     
  • What are methods for teaching that engage users with ancestral connection?
     
  • How do we decenter Western or Global North perspectives in our instruction, collections, cataloging, and/or archival work? What does it mean to decenter these perspectives? 
     
  • How do we source collections with materials that are not available via mainstream publishers?
     

Community Building (as Critical Pedagogy): this track focuses on the co-creation or re-creation of knowledge with communities both inside and outside the formal library, archives, or institution. Prompts for this track may include, but are not limited to: 

  • How do we work in community with those facing challenges to their communities and materials, ie, censorship, funding, institutional access, etc.? 
     
  • How do libraries further anti-oppressive work given their relationships with oppressive (corporate, imperialist, etc.) institutions including vendors and parent organizations (universities, municipalities, etc.)?
     
  • What would “successful” community building look like?
     
  • What are examples of community-engaged art and/or service work, and what are the implications of the library’s roles in these often under-resourced projects?  

Information Access (and Global Capitalism): this track focuses on the issues surrounding information access, the commodification of information, and the role of libraries in pedagogy. Prompts for this track may include, but are not limited to: 

  • How have digital inclusion and open access projects been successful in providing access to information, services and technology in different countries or geographic regions?
     
  • How does the conglomeration of publishers and the shift from owning to renting information impact librarianship? 
     
  • How does the proliferation and expansion of generative AI and related AI tools impact access to information? 
     
  • How does the use/collection of Big Data and surveillance impact information access? 
     
  • How do we teach in the classroom in a way that is critical of global capitalism?

Call for Proposals

We invite imaginative thinking with no boundaries that may focus on prefigurative, thought-provoking, and imagined worlds. Proposals may be panels, individual presentations, workshops, peer-review sessions, or facilitated discussions that consider ideas you are working through (and want to discuss), and/or encourage community building. Review the 2023 and 2021 symposium schedules to get a sense of previous offerings.

Submit your proposal! Complete this form by the dates below with the option for a preliminary submission for feedback prior to the final deadline. You may send any questions to criticallibrarysymposium@gmail.com.

Timeline:
Early deadline for feedback on your proposal – December 4th, 2024
Final deadline for proposals – January 15th, 2025
Notification of acceptance – February 15th, 2025
Symposium Date – Week of June 9th – 13th, 2025

We invite proposals from the perspective of reference, instruction, technical services, library administration, leadership, collection development, design, digital scholarship, open education, and archives. Additional areas of interest include work that extends to other parts of the information community, related to outreach, liaison work, research dissemination, scholarly communications, and programming. We are excited to hear from people from countries outside of the West, specifically outside of the United States, to present in English. Proposals will be accepted for presenting during the following times: 7am – 9pm EST (New York); 3pm – 5am in UAE (Abu Dhabi); 7pm – 9am CST (Shanghai).

To submit your proposal, complete this form by March 21st (or Feb 21st for feedback which is encouraged). If there are any questions, email criticallibrarysymposium@gmail.com.

The Critical Pedagogy Symposium is co-sponsored by: Barnard Library, NYU Libraries, Universidad de Puerto Rico, Library Information Library Council of CUNY, Metropolitan Library Council, Association of Library and Information Science Educators Innovate Pedagogies Special Interest Group, The Faculty Resource Network, and growing.

Call for Papers: Minority Identities and Vernacular Visual Culture Interdisciplinary Symposium

CALL FOR PAPER PROPOSALS

Minority Identities and Vernacular Visual Culture. Interdisciplinary symposium
Franke Institute for the Humanities, University of Chicago
May 9-10, 2025

Deadline for proposals: December 10, 2025

Minority groups are often underrepresented in official archives, which has resulted in their continuing marginalization in historiography. Critical archive scholars argue for empowering such groups by developing and investigating archival collections. This symposium intends to expand this approach by demonstrating how the visual practices of underrepresented groups can be studied through underutilized data sources. To this end, the symposium will focus on indigenous, black, and diaspora communities seen through their visual production, with the presumption that the vernacular representations of everyday life can provide substantial insights into evolving minority identities. Therefore, we want to explore the interplay of vernacular visual practices and the transformations of minority identities by posing two broad research questions: What is the role of vernacular visual practice in shaping minority identities? How does looking at identity through vernacular images challenge pervasive representations of minority groups?

Vernacular visual culture—commonplace, ordinary, or everyday images that people make and use—provides a rich set of material for the study of the culture of underrepresented groups. Yet, too often these materials are overlooked. As noted by Patricia Zimmerman, in the context of home movies, in popular imaginary, these images “are often defined by negation: noncommercial, nonprofessional, unnecessary.” Vernacular images were historically often considered subordinate; however, they constitute an essential corpus of sources produced “from below” by the community members. Our initial inquiry shows these marginal media forms can reveal depreciated or repressed histories that have failed to gain mainstream representation. One of the symposium’s key goals is to recognize the possibilities these sources offer in the context of writing “history from below.”

The symposium aims to map the uses and meanings of vernacular visual practices in relation to minority identities, with a particular focus on indigenous, black, and diaspora communities. We invite scholars working on different media and genres to address the question of the role and meaning of vernacular visual culture with minorities’ identities.

The symposium will be held in person only at The Franke Institute for the  Humanities, University of Chicago, May 9-10, 2025. Participation in the symposium is free (there is no registration fee). We can support a limited number of presenters with up to $500 in travel expenses and two nights in a hotel close to the venue.

We request that proposals be received no later than Tuesday, December 10, 2024, at 11:59 pm (AoE). If you are interested in presenting, please email Agata Zborowska (azborowska@uchicago.edu) with the following details: 

  • paper title,
  • abstract of 300-500 words,
  • short bio of 200-300 words,
  • information on whether you want/need to apply for funding for travel/accommodation costs.

Accepted presenters are asked to submit their draft paper (3000-6000 words) at least two weeks before the symposium date. 

The symposium organizers

Agata Zborowska, University of Chicago, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, and University of Warsaw

Eleonory Gilburd, Department of History, University of Chicago

Allyson Nadia Field, Department of Cinema and Media Studies, University of Chicago

Contact Email

azborowska@uchicago.edu

URL: https://www.not-so-ordinary.us/symposium2025

Call for Book Chapter Proposals in the Lived Experiences of Librarians

Researchers Holm, Marcano, and Guimaraes welcome chapter proposals on topics related to the lived experiences of library professionals working within dysfunctional organizations. We have outlined several suggested chapter topics; however, we also welcome proposals for topics that we have not identified.

Working Title: Inhospitable: the lived experiences of librarians

Publisher:

This book will be published by Routledge and included within the book series Critical Issues in Library and Information Sciences and Services (series editor: Spencer Acadia, PhD, MA, MLS).

Book editors:

  1. Christina E. Holm, MLIS (ORCID 0000-0001-5263-7837)
  2. Nashieli Marcano, PhD, MSLIS (ORCID 0000-0002-1808-8165)
  3. Ana B. Guimaraes, MSLIS (ORCID 0000-0002-4096-7318)

Book overview:

Inhospitable will present the lived experiences of librarians from the Américas in evocative, vulnerable, and intimate accounts of the inhospitable norms and developments within librarianship in the globalized 21st century. Employing research rigor in presenting these personal encounters, Inhospitable will help readers critically examine librarianship in the field and promote solidarity among library workers. Through inclusive and embodied qualitative research methods and theoretical lenses, this book will present a shared and holistic understanding of dysfunctional library structures.

To be considered for inclusion within the book, chapter proposals must rely upon lived experience research methodologies, focus on a topic related to dysfunctional library organizations within the Américas, and contain an impact statement. Recognizing their backgrounds and agencial voices, the editors request submissions written primarily in English but welcome authors to include Spanish, Portuguese, French, and Indigenous language quotations or colloquial expressions.

Suggested topic areas:

The editors welcome submissions from all individuals who have worked within libraries or are pursuing entry into the profession.

  • Burnout
  • Critical librarianship
  • Cultivating positive norms
  • Demoralization and moral injury
  • Deprofessionalization
  • Developing agency
  • Dysfunctional library structures
  • Librarians navigating sociopolitical conflicts
  • Redignification and personal recovery
  • Role conflict
  • Vocational awe
  • Worker solidarity
  • Other topics that the applicant feels are relevant to this book

Proposal submission:

If you are interested in submitting a proposal or in learning more about this project please go to our website: https://www.spenceracadia.com/critical-lis-book-chapters

All proposals are due by January 10, 2025

Questions?

Please email: inhospitablelibraries@gmail.com

Call for Applicants: Archives in Context Podcast Producer

Are you curious, energetic, and passionate about archives? Are you interested in story telling? Want to learn about podcasting? The Archives in Context team (an SAA Working Group) is seeking an additional producer, who will help us share stories of “archives and the people behind them”. We are embarking on our 9th season with new hosts and new stories to tell. 

To learn more and to apply, please go to www2.archivists.org/news/2024/….

We look forward to hearing from you,

Mary Caldera,

Archives in Context

Coordinator

New Special Issue: Humanities Research

Humanities Research: Volume XX, Number 1, 2024
(open access)

I. Articles

II. Research in other forms: Reports, reflections, reviews, interviews, etc.

New Issue: Collections

Collections, 20 no. 4, December 2024
(subcription)

Articles

How to Curate and Digitize Bryozoa: Experiences at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History
Daniel L. Geiger, Vanessa Delnavaz, Alexandria N. Gour, and Van Henderson

Where to Start: Creating a Roadmap for Collection Storage Planning Through a Collaborative Values-Based Approach: A National Endowment for the Humanities Sustaining Cultural Heritage Collections project at The New York Public Library
Rebecca Fifield

Why Digital Preservation Should Be Treated as Public Policy
Wellington da Silva

The Nazi’s Mummy: The Afterlife of a Woman from Taltal
Avigail Rotbain

Can We Accept Today That the Museum Continues to Convey Colonial Ideology? An Analysis of Two Fundamental European Instruments to Decolonize Museums
Alice Duarte

Preserving Library Collections in South Asia: Techniques, Policies, and Capacity Building Programs in University Libraries
Tajamul Ahmad Bhat, Zahid Ashraf Wani, Umer Yousuf Parray, Shahid Rashid, Shahid Maqbool Mir, and Aamirul Haq

Case Studies

Ver en Español: A Pilot Project to Investigate Translation Methods for Archival Exhibits and Finding Aids
Julie Judkins, Jaimi K. Parker, and Maia Gibbons

A Tiny Box, Big Dreams: The Lamasco Microgallery as a Nontraditional Venue for Art & Community Engagement
Tory Schendel-Vyvoda

New Issue: Archival Science

Archival Science 24, no. 4, December 2024
Special Issue: Provenance
Issue Editors: Jeannette A. Bastian, Stanley H. Griffin, James Lowry
(partial open access)

Dedication and introduction to the provenance special issue
Jeannette A. BastianStanley H. GriffinJames Lowry

The archive as home: ruminations on domestic notions of provenance
Ciaran B. Trace

Provenance and theatre archives
Francesca Marini

Misplaced archives, statehood and provenance out of place: the case of two personal records from the peripheries
Ana Grondona, Juan Ignacio Trovero, Celeste Viedma

Provenance through storytelling: application of Indigenous relationality toward arrangement and description
Vina Begay, Kelley M. Klor

Touches across time: queer as provenance
Elliot Freeman

Custody, provenance and meaning in the context of state intelligence records: the case of las carpetas in Puerto Rico
Joel A. Blanco-Rivera

“Nothing much was lost”: exploring feminist process as records creation
Jessica M. Lapp

The voices of images: photographs and collective provenance
Iyra S. Buenrostro-Cabbab

Whose provenance? Plurality of provenance and the redistribution of archival authority
Jesse Boiteau

Transformative provenance: memory work in the Palestinian diaspora
Tamara N. Rayan

Kindred contexts: archives, archaeology, and the concept of provenance
Bethany G. Anderson

A recontextualization of provenance: Records in Contexts and the principle of provenance
Anouk Stephano

Archival context, provenance, and a tool to capture archival context*
Qing ZouEun G. Park

The power of provenance in the records continuum
Chris Hurley, Sue McKemmish, Narissa Timbery

Digital provenance
Greg Bak

“Somebody has to be crazy about that kid”: Speculating on the transformative recordkeeping potential of the caring corporate parent
Mya Ballin

Locating yourself in the historical record: challenges of provenance and metadata schemas in the library of congress’s digital materials
Kathryn Manis, Patricia Wilde

Documenting Territorialidad: an intercultural approach to the provenance of Mapuche land records
María Montenegro

Call for Book Chapter Proposals: Item Not Found: Accounting for Loss in Libraries, Archives and Other Heritage and Memory Organizations

Call for Book Chapter Proposals forItem Not Found: Accounting for Loss in Libraries, Archives and Other Heritage and Memory Organizations

Editors: Anna Chen, Rebecca Fenning Marschall, Molly McGuire, Nina Schneider, and Emily D. Spunaugle

Loss is inevitable in heritage preservation, and a nuanced understanding of the fundamental role of loss is essential to collections preservation, permanence, and sustainability. Cultural memory and heritage workers, too, face many other kinds of loss within the workplace that impacts their labor, including loss of resources, safety nets, and colleagues. 

The conference organizers of the 2023 online conference, “Item Not Found: Accounting for Loss in Libraries, Archives and Other Heritage and Memory Organizations,” co-hosted by the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library and Oakland University Libraries, seek proposals for additional chapters for an edited collection based on the conference theme. This collection will consider the ongoing reassessment of memory and heritage work and heritage ownership, as it is understood by libraries, archives and related organizations, through an examination of the multiple meanings, complexities, and resonances of loss.

Featuring the voices of practitioners and scholars of libraries, museums, and archives, this volume will grapple with questions including, What is heritage and cultural property, and to whom do they belong? Who owns the past, and what does such ownership mean? How can a sustained interrogation of collection and heritage loss be productively leveraged to reckon with other kinds of loss in the cultural memory and heritage workspace? 

We invite proposals from diverse perspectives on a range of topics including, but not limited to, the following:
-Theft, repatriation, virtual reunification, shared print/collection development
-Endangered archives, postcustodial archival practice
-Approaches to loss in preservation and conservation
-Other related aspects of practice and research

We areespecially interested in receiving proposals in the following areas:

-Deaccessioning, redirections, removals

-Human and resource loss, including loss of institutional knowledge, in and beyond the workplace

-Loss and conservation of collections

We welcome proposals of chapters that will thoughtfully engage with experiences derived from the practice of scholar-practitioners, including librarians, archivists, curators, conservators, scholars, museum professionals, students, and other stakeholders at any point in their careers, from institutions and organizations of all sizes, and including independent researchers.

Timeline for Accepted Proposals:

  • April 2025: Completed first drafts of no more than 6,500 words (references included) due to editors
  • May/June 2025: Editors review chapters
  • June 2025: Editors return feedback to authors
  • September 2025: Authors submit final draft to editors
  • October 2025: Typescript due to publisher.

Please submit proposals (400-word maximum) using the following form: forms.gle/ek3vmf8sCqDjPb4F8

Please submit proposals by December 6. Submitters will be notified by January 6.

New Special Issue: Open Library of Humanities Journal

Cultural Heritage Data for Research: Opening Museum Collections, Project Data and Digital Images for Research, Query and Discovery
(open access)

Guest Editor: Angela Dressen

Implementing Linked Art in a Multi-Modal Database for Cross-Collection Discovery
Robert Sanderson

Exploring Knowledge Graphs for Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts with SPARQL
Toby Burrows

Photo Archives and Linked Open Data. The Added Value
Marilena Daquino

The Dragoman Renaissance Research Project in Library/DH Linked Data Partnerships
Natalie Rothman and Kirsta Stapelfeldt