DUE JANUARY 31, 2020

Submissions and instructions are available via this google form: https://forms.gle/cis5C9BzSE6ZiXfC8

The Library of Congress Labs will host ‘Connecting Collections as Data: Transforming Communities, Sharing Knowledge, and Building Networks with International GLAM Labs,’ May 4-6, 2020 in Washington, DC. This event builds on conversations the British Library and the Royal Library of Denmark hosted around the hopes, dreams, and practicalities of fostering digital innovation in traditional heritage organizations with limited resources. The discussion and output from these meetings, which included state and university libraries across European and Gulf regions resulted in a BookSprint project and the open access publication, “Open a GLAM Lab”. The buzz from these events created a community (https://glamlabs.io) of “labbers” and the lab-interested which has grown to 250 participants from 20 countries.

The Library of Congress Labs team will host this emerging community in the United States for the first time to connect with the active and robust digital library, digital scholarship, digital humanities, and collections as data communities active across North America to share knowledge and expand the network. The meeting will be an opportunity for participants to advance an international community of practice and to exchange strategies and methods for advancing the development of innovative services for cultural heritage audiences.

Brief proposals are sought from individuals and groups who are interested in contributing to the program. Submission will be accepted until January 31, 2010 for:
1) 10 minute lighting talks (that may be grouped into themes), or
2) panel proposals that address a single theme with 3 to 4 speakers and a facilitator, or
3) full or half day workshops, datathons, or other hands-on working session.

Submit proposals via the form linked above.

There will be no registration fee for attending the event. Pre-registration via the Library of Congress Eventbrite system will be required, a link will be shared when registration opens in February 2020. A limited amount of honorariums may be available for speakers who need financial support to participate in the event. Due to regulations, honorariums are paid after the event, and support is not guaranteed for all speakers.

Draft Schedule
May 4: Digital Transformation Workshop – facilitated with the Liberating Structures method (maximum 75 people)
May 5: Connecting Collections as Data Conference (maximum 150 people)
—–Five themed sessions consisting of three or four lighting talks followed by a panel discussion (60 mins/panel)—-
May 6: Datathons or other hands on work sessions in breakout rooms (maximum 100 people total)

Note: Morning coffee will be provided but lunch will be on your own. There is a cafeteria adjacent to the meeting room and numerous restaurants in the neighborhood.

Questions about the proposal process or the event can be sent to LC-Labs@loc.gov .

Proposed themes for presentations, panels or workshops:

– User focused digital/data/innovation/lab tools, services and experiences, online and in physical space
– Supporting digital scholarship partnerships, digital and data reference services in a local and international context
– Supporting diverse users and including users in designing digital/data/innovation/lab programs
– Artificial intelligence and GLAMs, including community guidelines, operationalizing workflows, and practices around sharing data
– Expanding user engagement with crowdsourcing volunteers, leveraging expert crowdworkers, and combining crowd/human and machine learning workflows
– Collections as data, collection-readiness, preparing and using data sets
– Digital scholarship project lifecycle in context with community needs around access to tools/technology
– Balancing technical debt, open access, scholarly publishing, and open source software
– Digital transformation and organizational culture
– OR, propose your own theme

The Library of Congress Labs has hosted a Collections as Data themed event, in different formats, since 2016.

Agendas and livestreams from other events in the Collections as Data series are accessible via https://labs.loc.gov/events, summaries are below.

EYEO Code + Libraries Summit (June 3, 2019) was a day-long open summit co-hosted with EYEO Design Festival to explore ways that libraries and the creative coding community can work together to create new forms of collaboration, to empower learners and to strengthen communities in a un-conference format.

Inside Baseball Labs Showcase (July 13, 2018) capped off a week-long user-centered flash build facilitated by JSTOR Labs and in collaboration with the National Museum of African American History and Culture that produced prototype tools, presentations about the process, and a discussion about the history of baseball in the American cultural memory.

Collections as Data: Impact (July 25, 2017)
More relevant, more accessible, more visual, and more useful–these are some benefits of making digital collections available as data and ready for computational analysis. The Library of Congress hosted a day-long event that featured case-studies and impact stories of applying digital methods to analyzing and sharing collections. Presenters shared how using collections as data reactivates the holdings of libraries and other centers of history and art to make deeper connections to the communities they serve.

Collections as Data: Stewardship and Use Models to Enhance Access (Sept 27, 2016)
The rise of accessible digital collections coupled with the development of tools for processing and analyzing data has enabled researchers to create new models of scholarship and inquiry. The National Digital Initiatives team invited leaders and experts from organizations that are collecting, preserving and providing researcher access to digital collections as data to share best practices and lessons learned. This event will also highlight new collaborative initiatives at the Library of Congress that seek to enhance researcher engagement and the use of digital collections as data.

CALL FOR PROPOSALS
2020 National Humanities Conference
Indianapolis, Indiana
Thursday, November 5, 2020 – Sunday, November 8, 2020

Deadline for submitting proposals: February 21, 2020

The Federation of State Humanities Councils and the National Humanities Alliance are excited to announce the 2020 National Humanities Conference, which will be held in Indianapolis. This annual conference brings together representatives from colleges, universities, state humanities councils, cultural institutions, and other community-based organizations to explore approaches to deepening the public’s engagement with the humanities.

Indianapolis is nicknamed the “Crossroads of America” because of its historic location along the old National Road and current site where four major interstates intersect. The conference convenes days after a presidential election, which like all national elections, is a crossroads, offering the opportunity to reflect on how we have arrived at this point and where we are heading. In this spirit, we invite proposals that explore the generative, exciting possibilities of public humanities work that happens at the crossroads.

Crossroads as decision points. When and how can the humanities and humanities practitioners help communities wrestle with tough choices? What difficult decisions face our own institutions—and how do we decide which way to go? Where have we taken risks, even if we failed—and what did we learn? When we’ve found our organizations at a difficult crossroads, how did we navigate rocky terrain and what happened as a result of our choices?

Crossroads as freedom. There’s a rich tradition of expression that associates crossroads with freedom—a place where multiple opportunities open up in front of you.  How can the humanities help communities discuss, even reimagine the meaning of freedom for all? In an increasingly partisan landscape, where should the humanities and humanities practitioners enter such conversations that may have unequal power dynamics?

Crossroads as uncertainty. In many cultures around the world, the crossroads is a liminal, uncertain space that is outside of normal time and space. A place that is neither here nor there, the crossroads and its uncertainty can be part of a process of becoming something new. Are there times in our own practice where we experience uncertainty and disorientation? Are there times when our programs create uncertainty and disorientation among their participants? What, if anything, is generative about doing humanities work where uncertainty is foregrounded?

Crossroads as intersections. When we reframe the crossroads as an intersection, some connotations fall away and others emerge. Interesting, good, complex work happens at the intersection of ideas, disciplines or methods. Are there outstanding models of interdisciplinary public humanities projects we can learn from? Where have unusual partnerships yielded new, urgent, meaningful public humanities work? We’re particularly interested in sessions that help us learn about public humanities initiatives or programs that address the following intersections: STEM/humanities, race/class/gender, arts/humanities, urban/rural, public/private.

We hope these questions are broad enough to spark session proposals that reflect the full range of work humanities organizations, practitioners, and scholars do: create and deliver public programs, form community partnerships, educate students, communicate with and convene publics, advocate for funding, cultivate donors, make grants, and build audiences.

In the spirit of the crossroads—places of coming together and exchange—we especially encourage session proposals that bring together humanities practitioners (state humanities council staff, museum workers, podcast producers, community historians, etc.) and scholars/academics. See examples from the 2019 conference here.

DEADLINE FOR SUBMITTING PROPOSALS: February 21st, 2020

Formats

We invite proposals that model best practices in the public humanities. In other words, session leaders design lively, even fun ways of presenting information and participants are engaged as co-creators of knowledge. To that end, we encourage:

• Sessions that model public humanities program design: dynamic, inclusive, and, where possible, participatory or hands-on.
• Presentations that are concise and employ accessible language. We encourage moderators to ensure that presentations conform to predetermined limits: at least half of each session should involve audience participation.
• Actionable takeaways that others can apply to their own practice or organization.
• Sessions built around a problem, tension, or challenge in our work, with time for reflection and solutions-oriented discussion.

Indiana Humanities, the host council, is committed to creating an indelible experience that makes the most of our host city. If you have ideas or questions about opportunities to take your session off site or to identify local practitioners in order to strengthen your proposal and deepen learning and exchange, please contact Leah Nahmias, director of programs at Indiana Humanities (317-616-9804 / lnahmias@indianahumanities.org). Please note in your proposal if you need more than the standard 75-minute block of time for your session.

Session Proposals

EXPERIENTIAL HUMANITIES PROGRAM: These sessions engage conference attendees in actual humanities programming, modeled on successful programs carried out throughout the year. Sessions that draw on the city or the surrounding area and/or convey a sense of place are especially encouraged. Examples from the 2019 program can be found here.

FACILITATED DISCUSSION: One or two facilitators drive a conversation on a topic with a group of conference attendees. Conversations can broach themes of common interest, common challenges or points of tension within the humanities community. Topics for facilitated discussion should appeal to a wide range of conference participants in order to bring diverse voices into the conversation.

INTERVIEW: These sessions feature free-form dialogue between a humanities professional and an interviewer.

WORKSHOP: A hands-on session that teaches a particular skill set associated with program development, communications, collaboration, assessment, development/fundraising, cultivating new audiences or any other aspect of humanities programming.

ROUNDTABLE: Roundtables consist of a group of experts discussing a topic in front of an audience, rather than each presenting discrete remarks. A moderator leads the discussion and poses questions, but all participants speak equally about the topics. These sessions are limited to four discussants and one moderator.

PANEL: This traditional format includes a moderator and no more than three presenters. Presentations are timed so that at least half the session consists of moderator questions and discussion with the audience.

WORKING GROUPS: Working groups are seminar-like conversations of at least eight people that explore, in-depth, a subject of shared interest. Working groups will be accepted even if they do not have eight participants, but additional participants will need to be recruited after the session is accepted. The working group convenes for a session at the conference, but also converses before the conference and develops a product after. Each working group will have a facilitator, responsible for organizing the pre- and post-conference exchanges and facilitating the conversation at the conference itself. Working groups can open up for audience observers or confine participation to the members of the working group.

Individual Proposals

We invite proposals for individual flash presentations (5 minutes) that relate to one of the key crossroads themes outlined above: 1) decision point 2) freedom 3) uncertainty 4) intersection. The program committee will curate lightning round sessions of similarly themed presentations.

To submit a proposal:

Please submit session proposals via the online form here. Please submit proposals for individual flash presentations via the online form here. The deadline for proposal submission is Friday, February 21st, 2019.  For questions regarding the online submission form, please contact events@statehumanities.org.

The Federation of State Humanities Councils

The Federation of State Humanities Councils, founded in 1977, is the membership association of 56 state and territorial councils. Through its conferences, collaborative projects, information services, and communications to members, legislators and others on issues of public interest, the Federation supports the state humanities councils and creates greater awareness of the humanities in public and private life.

State humanities councils are independent, nonprofit organizations that support grassroots humanities programs and community-based activities in each state and US territory. Created by Congress in the early 1970s, councils receive an annual Congressional appropriation through the National Endowment for the Humanities, which for most councils is supplemented by state and private funding. Councils are run by small staffs and governed by volunteer boards drawn from academia and the public.

The National Humanities Alliance

The National Humanities Alliance (NHA) is a nationwide coalition of organizations advocating for the humanities on campuses, in communities, and on Capitol Hill. Founded in 1981, NHA is supported by over 200 member organizations, including: colleges, universities, libraries, museums, cultural organizations, state humanities councils, and scholarly, professional, and higher education associations. It is the only organization that brings together the US humanities community as a whole.

Call for proposals for a Symposium on Emergency Planning in Libraries and Archives, held in New Orleans, LA, Friday, July 10, 2020.

We invite you to share your knowledge, expertise, and experiences at a symposium on emergency planning in Libraries and Archives hosted by the Loyola University New Orleans College of Law Library & the Cardozo Law Library. Proposals are welcome on any part of the emergency and disaster planning process, from policy creation to implementation. Libraries and archives have always been vulnerable to weather events that can strike at any time and in multiple forms such as fires, earthquakes, hurricanes, or pest and mold infestations. The ascending effects of global warming have the potential to increase these devastating occurrences and perhaps others unforeseen in the years to come.

This program strives to bring professionals together from all types of institutions and organizations to discuss these threats, how to prepare for them, and share lessons learned.

The program committee invites submissions for 45 or 60 minute sessions on any aspect of emergency or disaster planning including, but not limited to:

• Policy creation.

• Policy implementation.

• After the disaster: lessons learned.

• Tips and tricks for disaster clean up.

• Community outreach for personal emergency preparedness.

When submitting proposals please have ready a session title, program abstract up to 250 words, names and contact information for all presenters, the type of session format being  proposed (panel discussion, lecture, lightning talks, open forum, etc), and any A/V needs.

The proposal deadline is midnight, Friday January 31, 2020.

Proposals can be submitted here.

A google spreadsheet is available for those seeking collaborators here .

If you have questions, please contact the organizers:

• Christine George christine.george@yu.edu

• Heather Kushnerick hkushnerick@stcl.edu

• Michele Pope mpope@loyno.edu

 

DEADLINE EXTENDED

Radio Survivor is pleased to share an announcement from the Radio Preservation Task Force (RPTF) of the Library of Congress about a call for papers for its forthcoming conference, “A Century of Broadcasting: Preservation and Renewal.” The event will be held October 22-24, 2020 at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. Presentation proposals are due by December 15, 2019. Read on for the full details from the RPTF:

A Century of Broadcasting: Preservation and Renewal

Conference Dates: Oct 22-24, 2020

Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

Proposal Deadline: Dec. 15, 2019

Call for Papers

The Radio Preservation Task Force (RPTF) of the Library of Congress invites applications for papers, panels, moderated discussions and workshops for a conference marking the centenary of broadcasting in the United States.

We seek presentations by archivists, radio and television historians, artists, information scientists, journalists, sound studies scholars, broadcasters and others highlighting how preservation can help us complicate and rethink our understandings of the history of mass media at community, local, national and international levels. We particularly welcome participants who put archival resources to work today to enrich radio, television, podcasting, music, literature, journalism, public history, installation art and other creative practices.

The conference will take place Oct. 22nd to 24th, 2020, at the Library of Congress on Capitol Hill, in Washington D.C. Registration is free for all presenters, moderators and respondents.

Celebrating One Hundred Years of Broadcasting

In the United States, the radio industry began primarily as a form of wireless telegraphy used for point-to-point communication. After World War I, government licensing began for stations that were changing the medium by airing point-to-mass broadcast transmissions of music and voice. From the celebrated Election Day broadcasts of Westinghouse station KDKA on November 2, 1920 to similar services offered by hundreds of other stations from coast to coast, the industry paradigm shifted. The broadcasting model endures to the present, characterizing media systems from large commercial networks to public broadcasting, satellite radio and online streaming services, and RSS-based podcasting.

This conference marks the centenary of that paradigm shift and investigates radio’s century of constant renewal and rebirth over the course of the intervening century, during which various radio and radio-like practices have been invented and reinvented, forgotten and remembered, in settings across the United States. We want to highlight a century dotted with “new” sound practices in this restless medium, from the first non-English programs to the first broadcasts aimed at communities of color, from the first international shortwave transmissions to the first true crime podcasts, the first educational shows to the first radio-based art. Our conference underscores the role of preservation in documenting (and even driving) the process of renewing radio from generation to generation and from community to community.

Renewing Radio Heritage

This meeting also takes place at a moment in which media history is itself changing, thanks to a renaissance in radio and television preservation, which has created an archive that is more diverse and richer than ever before, conveying a sharper sense of how broadcast media helped Americans articulate understanding of nation, region, class, gender, race, sexuality and ability. That is thanks in part to the work of the Radio Preservation Task Force, which for five years has been pursuing projects and partnerships to change the very archive itself in a way that necessitates fresh thinking about many firsts—and seconds, and thirds— in conventional national and international narratives of radio history.

Created in 2014 in fulfillment of a radio preservation mandate in the Library of Congress’s National Recording Preservation Plan, the RPTF is charged with fostering collaborations between researchers and archivists to facilitate work on radio preservation, developing an online inventory of extant collections, promoting preservation of endangered radio collections, encouraging use of radio and sound archives in educational settings, and cultivating academic study of archival radio materials. It currently boasts a network of hundreds of scholars and archivists who share materials, fundraising, and best practices. The RPTF has also constructed a national database aggregating information on over 2,500 radio collections from coast to coast, and has encouraged and overseen several special issues and anthologies on radio history and preservation. It is currently developing pedagogical guides for classroom use and resources to assist with preservation of endangered radio materials. To advance its goals, the RPTF partners with over 40 local, national, and international academic, archiving, and media organizations. A full list of partner institutions is available on our conference site.

Suggested Themes

This conference will focus on preservation’s historic and ongoing role in documenting and shaping new research from policy studies to sound studies, and new media practices from journalism to art. To that end, we seek panels, presentations and workshops whose ambit could include, but is not limited to:

• Highlighting a specific archive based on historic recordings that challenge assumptions about mass media history, the invention or reinvention of formats, or show outreach to new audiences.
• Offering best practices based on experience in preservation, from digitization and metadata to fair reuse, either on air or in arts settings.
• Exploring techniques for researching, processing or reusing the changing radio archive, such as how to use specialized methods from machine learning to deep listening.
• Examining communities whose stories have been lost but can now come to light as a result of the RPTF’s various initiatives and caucuses, especially communities of color, native communities, women’s radio history, LGBTQ histories, as well as among differently abled communities.
• Examining how preservation can highlight radio’s historic and ongoing role in activism, especially at the regional, local and community level.
• Looking at international histories of radio, and at preservation practices outside the United States, particularly in Latin America and Europe, from which U.S. archivists might learn.
• Focusing on long-arc narratives of radio history—the history of crime reporting, for instance, or civil rights radio—that stretch across the entirety of the “broadcast century” and whose history isn’t limited to one “tier” of radio, but rather can be studied in contexts from large networks to local radio and podcasts, and everywhere in between.
• Studying how preservation methods might be adapted for emerging forms of radio beyond traditional broadcasting platforms, particularly podcasting, as well as the study of broadcast platform elements themselves, from radio tower systems to RSS.
• Focusing on preserving recordings from arts and freeform stations, as well as exploring how the materials that RPTF projects have uncovered can be reused in contemporary art, journalism and research in the new golden era of podcasting and sound art more broadly.
• Providing practical advice for independent archivists, particularly when it comes to public history outreach, identifying possible funding and grant writing.

To Participate

Proposal options include papers, pre-constituted panels, moderated discussions, and workshops. To submit a proposal, email abstracts and other materials specified below in a single document to radiotaskforce@gmail.com by December 15, 2019. For questions, please contact neil.verma@northwestern.edu.

Papers. Individual archivists, scholars or artists are invited to submit an abstract for a paper of about 20 to 30 minutes in length on our conference themes. Successful applications will be organized into panels by the steering committee. Applications should include: A brief biography; contact information for the applicant including any institutional affiliation; a 400-word abstract with a title; and five keywords.

Pre-constituted Panels. Pre-constituted panels should have 3-4 participants, plus a moderator and/or respondent. These panels will be based on the presentation of papers, with each speaker given 20 to 30 minutes to speak. Applications should include: A brief biography for each applicant; contact information for each applicant including any institutional affiliations; a 400-word abstract with a title for each paper; five keywords for each paper; a 400-word abstract explaining the goal and ambit of the panel.

Moderated Discussions. These events will differ from pre-constituted panels in that they do not require formal prepared remarks and will instead focus on discussion and exchange. Groups of 4-6 participants may apply, with each participant expected to speak for 5-10 minutes about a current project, archival recording, or issue. Applications should include: A brief biography for each applicant; contact information for each applicant including any institutional affiliations; a 400-word abstract explaining the goal and ambit of the panel; five keywords for the panel as a whole.

Workshops. For workshops on specific issues (e.g., digitization, grant writing, analysis tools, recording workshops), a single presenter or team leads discussion and has an open forum to field questions. Applications should include: A brief biography for the workshop leader(s); contact information including any institutional affiliations; a 400-word abstract explaining the goal and ambit of the workshop including any technical equipment that would be needed.

The Library of Congress RPTF Conference Steering Committee

RPTF 2020 Conference Chair:

Neil Verma, Northwestern University

NRPB Chair:

Christopher Sterling, George Washington University

Library of Congress:

Steve Leggett (NRPB)

Cary O’Dell (NRPB)

RPTF Director:

Josh Shepperd, Catholic University and Penn State University

RPTF Assistant Director:

Shawn VanCour, University of California, Los Angeles

Conference Committee Members:

Matt Barton, Library of Congress

Claudia Calhoun, Fairfield University

Inés Casillas, University of California, Santa Barbara

Susan Douglas, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

Christine Ehrick, University of Louisville

Anna Friz, University of California, Santa Cruz

Kathryn Fuller-Seeley, University of Texas, Austin

Michele Hilmes, University of Wisconsin, Madison

Bob Horton, Smithsonian National Museum of American History

Tom McEnaney, University of California, Berkeley

Julie-Beth Napolin, The New School

Stephanie Sapienza, University of Maryland

Jacob Smith, Northwestern University

Michael Socolow, University of Maine

Dave Walker, Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage