Tag: international

CfP for INTERFACE Issue 31: Rethinking Materiality in an Age of Digital Presence

Call for Papers for Issue 31 (December 2026)

Submission Deadline: October 31, 2026

Guest Editors:

Paweł Piszczatowski  (University of Warsaw)

Helga Müllneritsch (National Taiwan University)

Rethinking Materiality in an Age of Digital Presence

 “If matter itself is lively, then not only is the difference between subjects and objects minimized, but the status of the shared materiality of all things is elevated. All bodies become more than mere objects, as the thing-powers of resistance and protean agency are brought into sharper relief” (Bennett, Vibrant Matter, 2010, p. 13).

Over the past two decades, the concept of materiality has undergone a profound transformation across the humanities. Approaches such as New Materialism, Posthumanism, and Object-Oriented Ontology have challenged anthropocentric models of thought by emphasizing the vitality, agency, and relationality of both living and non-living matter. Rather than treating objects as passive entities defined solely by human perception and use, these perspectives foreground the active role of material forms in shaping human experience, cultural practices, and historical processes.

Yet questions surrounding materiality are far from new. Throughout history, philosophers, artists, writers, and cultural thinkers have explored the relationship between human beings and the material world. In the late eighteenth century, for instance, the German philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder argued that “sight reveals merely shapes, but touch alone reveals bodies” (Herder, Sculpture, 2002, p. 35), emphasizing tactility and embodiment as fundamental conditions of human experience. His reflections acquire renewed significance in the present moment, when increasing aspects of social interaction, creativity, labour, and intimacy are mediated through digital technologies.

The emergence of artificial intelligence, virtual environments, and digitally mediated relationships raises new questions about the status of the material in contemporary life. While digital technologies may appear to distance human experience from physical presence, they remain deeply embedded in material infrastructures, embodied practices, and affective relations. The rise of AI companions, virtual therapists, and synthetic forms of intimacy challenges established distinctions between human and non-human, physical and virtual, object and subject.

This special issue seeks to explore how materiality has been imagined, experienced, represented, and transformed across different historical periods and cultural contexts. Rather than understanding the digital age as a departure from material existence, we invite contributions that examine how new technologies, philosophical developments, artistic practices, and social transformations reshape our understanding of matter itself. How have concepts of materiality evolved across time? How do objects acquire meaning through their movement, preservation, and transformation? How might digital and technological developments alter, rather than diminish, our relationship with embodied existence?

We welcome interdisciplinary contributions from literary studies, history, philosophy, cultural studies, media studies, anthropology, art history, and related fields. Submissions may address any historical period or theoretical approach within literary and cultural contexts.

Possible topics include, but are not limited to:

Literary, Historical, and Philosophical Foundations

  • Philosophical approaches to being, matter, embodiment, and the material world
  • Historical transformations of concepts of materiality across cultures
  • The global circulation and intercultural adaptation of material concepts and practices
  • Handwriting as a form of embodied expression and the material trace of the self
  • Drawing, sketching, and visual practices as material expressions of thought
  • Material objects and their meanings across time and space
  • Objects as carriers of memory, emotion, and historical experience
  • Matter as palimpsest: accumulated layers of personal and collective histories

 Material Practices, Technology, and Intimacy

  • The movement of material practices across cultures and historical periods
  • Traditional Chinese Medicine in Europe and the transnational circulation of healing practices
  • Material and spiritual connections in practices such as ancestor worship
  • Bodies, prosthetics, and technological extensions
  • Understanding of materiality as a property of discrete objects or emerging through dynamic networks of human, non-human, and technological relations
  • Ethical questions surrounding AI-human interaction
  • Artificial intelligence, emotional attachment, and new forms of intimacy
  • Reshaping of our understanding of embodiment, relationality, and presence through digital objects, virtual environments, and algorithmic systems

 Cultural Representations and Imaginaries

  • Literary representations of artificial consciousness and synthetic emotions
  • Cinematic portrayals of human-machine relationships
  • Science fiction and speculative explorations of synthetic life
  • Representations of human and non-human agency
  • The role of objects and technologies in shaping identity and memory
  • Artistic engagements with virtuality, embodiment, and material presence

INTERFACE also invites papers not related to the Special Topic which will be published in a dedicated General Topic Section.

Papers should be submitted online at http://interface.org.tw/ no later than October 31, 2026; and should include an abstract of no more than 250 words.

All potential authors should consult our website for Author Guidelines (http://interface.org.tw/index.php/if/about/submissions#onlineSubmissions)

Contact Information

Paweł Piszczatowski  (University of Warsaw)

Helga Müllneritsch (National Taiwan University)

Contact Email

hmuellneritsch@ntu.edu.tw

URL

https://interface.org.tw/index.php/if/pages/view/CallforPapers31

CFP: Museums in times of Polarization: Dialogues, Complex Pasts, and the Ethical Construction of Shared Futures

Call for Papers
ICOFOM Annual Symposium 2026
19 November, 26 November, and 3 December 2026
Museums in Times of Polarization: Dialogue, Difficult Pasts, and the Ethical Construction of Shared Futures

The ICOFOM Annual Symposium 2026 will be held entirely online, through three live webinars taking place on 19 November, 26 November, and 3 December 2026.

Within this framework, contributors are invited to address—though are by no means limited to—the following themes, which will be explored across the webinars:

Webinar 1. Museums in a Polarized World

Webinar 2. Negotiating Difficult Pasts: Memory, Representation, and Ethical Responsibility

Webinar 3. Imagining the Museum of Tomorrow

Important Dates

  • Call for Papers opens: 20 July 2026
  • Submission deadline: 30 August 2026
  • Notification of acceptance: Second half of September 2026

Submission Guidelines in brief:

The Organizing Committee invites proposals under two participation formats, depending on the nature and scope of the contribution:

1. Individual or Joint Papers (15-minute presentations)

2. Quick Fire Presentations (5–7 minutes)

Contributions must consist of the full paper, with a maximum length of 12,000 characters, including notes and references, in accordance with the ICOFOM submission guidelines.

Read all submission guidelines and the full Call for Papers before applying here:

Call for papers (English version)

For additional information or enquiries, please contact:
secretary.icofom@icom.museum

CFP: Women and Cartography from the Middle Ages to the 20th century

SYMPOSIUM at Université Le Havre Normandie — 12–13 March 2027

Organisation : Comité Français de Cartographie, Université Le Havre Normandie (Faculty of Humanities & Social Sciences), Identités et Cultures Research Group, Le Havre Heritage Library

In partnership with : Institut universitaire de France, Bibliothèque nationale de France, EPHE (Histara), CNRS (Laboratoire de médiévistique occidentale de Paris)

RATIONALE

This conference sets out to re-examine the place of women in the making, circulation, and reception of cartographic knowledge up to the 20th century, taking into account the various forms their participation took, the documentary biases inherent in the sources, and contemporary methodological issues. It is part of the broader field of the history of women in science and of the study of the gendered construction of knowledge.

An emerging field of research

While historiography has taken an interest in women in science since before the 1970s, and while the history of women and travel has been regularly explored, their role in cartography and their interest in maps only began to be studied around the turn of the 2000s, nearly thirty years later. This pioneering work emerged mainly in the English-speaking world (Shefrin, 1999; Hudson, Ritzlin, 2000; Dando, 2018, 2024; Tyner, 1997; 1999; 2001) and in Italy (Rossi, 2005). Christine Petto’s survey article “Women and Cartography” (2020) opened up more avenues than it closed.

This historiographical lag is even more pronounced in French scholarship. While French research has taken an interest in women cartographers of the 20th century (Robic, 1997, 2009), as well as in the important role they played in research institutions and libraries (Ginsburger, 2015; Ginsburger, Robic, 2017; Antonutti, 2020), studies of their place in the construction of cartographic knowledge before the 20th century remain too rare.

A systemic invisibilisation

As in other scientific fields, several factors combine to render women’s involvement in geography and cartography invisible. Women are difficult to trace in the archives because of their limited legal existence. Conventions of the time denied their competence or consigned them to anonymity out of modesty. Their identity dissolves into initials in place of a full name, or into the designation “widow,” which presents them as mere continuators of their husband’s work.

Women are also excluded from the historiography of authorial recognition in cartography because of a paradoxical requirement: complete mastery of the full range of skills involved in cartographic production (intellectual design, drawing, engraving). Yet almost no geographer possesses such total mastery, since cartographic production is, by its very nature, collaborative work. Thus, when a woman conceives a map intellectually without engraving it herself (the Carte de Tendre by Madeleine de Scudéry), present-day critics attribute authorship to the male engraver (François Chauveau). Conversely, women engravers are confined to the status of mere executants.

RESEARCH THEMES

Theme 1 – Trajectories and output of women cartographers

The conference will focus on women cartographers by:

  • Tracing individual trajectories, without setting aside the role of widows in the continuity of family workshops, which deserves particular attention. While widows generally ran their late husband’s workshop for only a limited period (Barker, 1997, pp. 90–92), there are several notable exceptions, such as Mary Senex, who ran the workshop for fifteen years after her husband’s death, as did Marie Desmaretz, widow of Duval, Geneviève Hourlier, widow of Antoine de Fer, and Marie Darbisse, widow of Guillaume Delisle, to name just a few examples.
  • Establishing the conditions of access to cartographic practice and the professional and family networks drawn upon.
  • Examining the possible specificities of their output: a preference for certain cartographic forms such as allegorical or thematic maps (Carte de Tendre, the map by Marie Le Masson Le Golft, the work of the astronomer Nicole-Reine Lepaute), or “informal” maps produced in a playful or educational context.

Theme 2 – The “little hands” of cartography

Following the recent work of Françoise Waquet (2015, 2022) on the “little hands” of science, and of Delphine Gardey on women’s clerical work (2001), this conference could be an occasion to bring to light the largely unexplored, invisible work of women: informants, copyists, draughtswomen, engravers, illuminators, secretaries, and workshop hands. This effort has already been made for the first half of the 20th century (Swab, 2025), but it could equally be pursued for earlier periods, since women can sometimes be identified in depictions of workshops.

Theme 3 – Women readers and the reception of maps

The question of women as readers of maps — whether elite women, schoolmistresses, booksellers, schoolgirls, or students — opens up a particularly fertile field of investigation. On what occasions did these women encounter maps? On what media? And through what modes of reading?

This question also raises the issue of education, since reading a map presupposes prior training, and thus invites attention to the full range of women’s educational practices connected with maps. 

Finally, Christine Petto also points to periodicals and advertising aimed at women, as well as playful uses of maps: games, novels, embroidered maps, among other forms of appropriation. As an example, the map of Île de France (present-day Mauritius) included in the novel Paul et Virginie by Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, a major publishing success of the late 18th century with a largely female readership, illustrates this still under-explored dimension of the reception of maps.

By adopting a broad chronological framework, from the Middle Ages to the 20th century, the conference is open to all geographical areas. It is aimed at researchers in history, history of science, art history, literature, geography, and related disciplines.

PRACTICAL INFORMATION

Abstracts of c. 300 words, together with a short biographical note, should be submitted by 30 September 2026 to the following address: lucile.haguet@lehavre.fr

The selection committee will meet in early October and will announce the results of the call for papers no later than the second half of October.

The conference will take place on 12–13 March 2027 at Université Le Havre Normandie. A presentation of the heritage collections of the Le Havre municipal library is also planned.

Selected papers will be considered for publication in an issue of the journal of the Comité français de cartographie, Cartes & Géomatique, during 2028.

WORKS CITED AND SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

Antonutti, Isabelle (ed.). 2020. Figures de bibliothécaires. Villeurbanne: Presses de l’Enssib, series “Papiers.” (see entry for Myriam Foncin)

Baigent, Elizabeth. 2025. “‘Octavia Always Enjoyed a Map’: Octavia Hill, Maps, and Victorian Women Reformers.” The Cartographic Journal 62 (3–4): 190–204. https://doi.org/10.1080/00087041.2025.2627791

Barker, Hannah. 1997. “Women, Work and the Industrial Revolution: Female Involvement in the English Printing Trades, c. 1700–1840.” In Gender in Eighteenth-Century England: Roles, Representations and Responsibilities, ed. Hannah Barker and Elaine Chalus, 81–100. London: Longman.

Costa, Shelley. 2002. “The Ladies’ Diary: Gender, Mathematics, and Civil Society in Early-Eighteenth-Century England.” Osiris, 2nd series, 17: 49–73.

Dando, Christine E. 2018. Women and Cartography in the Progressive Era. London/New York: Routledge, series “Studies in Historical Geography.” New edition in 2024.

Findlen, Paula. 1995. “Translating the New Science: Women and the Circulation of Knowledge in Enlightenment Italy.” Configurations 3: 167–206.

Gardey, Delphine. 2001. La Dactylographe et l’expéditionnaire. Histoire des employés de bureau, 1890–1930. Paris: Belin, series “Modernités.”

Ginsburger, Nicolas. 2015. “Les premières géographes universitaires en France: enquête sur les débuts d’une féminisation disciplinaire (1913–1928).” Cybergeo: European Journal of Geography.

Ginsburger, Nicolas, and Marie-Claire Robic. 2017. “Portrait en groupe de femmes-géographes. La féminisation du champ disciplinaire au milieu du XXe siècle, entre effets de contexte et de structure (1938–1960).” Annales de géographie, 2017/1.

Hudson, Alice C., and Mary McMichael Ritzlin. 2000. “Preliminary Checklist of Pre-Twentieth-Century Women in Cartography.” Cartographica 37 (3): 3–24.

Longchamps, Denis. 2014. “Political Tourism: Elizabeth Simcoe’s Maps and Views of Canada (1791–1796).” Imago Mundi 66: 213–223.

Pastoureau, Mireille. 1984. Les atlas français, XVIe–XVIIe siècles: répertoire bibliographique et étude. Paris: Bibliothèque nationale, Département des cartes et plans.

Pedley, Mary Sponberg. 1979. “The Subscription List of the 1757 Atlas Universel: A Study in Cartographic Dissemination.” Imago Mundi 31: 66–77.

Petto, Christine M. 2009. “Playing the Feminine Card: Women of the Early Modern Map Trade.” Cartographica 44 (2): 67–81.

Petto, Christine M. 2020. Women and Enlightenment: Women as Producers and Consumers of Maps, 1650–1800. History of Cartography, vol. 4. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Robic, Marie-Claire. 1997. “Exclusion, régression… Du ‘Ladies’ Program’ au ‘sans femme’?” Strates: Matériaux pour la recherche en sciences sociales, n° 9.

Robic, Marie-Claire. 2009. “Beaujeu-Garnier, J.” In International Encyclopedia of Human Geography, ed. Rob Kitchin and Nigel Thrift, 275–276. Elsevier.

Rossi, Luisa. 2005. L’altra mappa. Esploratrici, viaggiatrici, geografe. Reggio Emilia: Diabasis, 351 p.

Shefrin, Jill. 1999. “‘Make it a Pleasure and Not a Task’: Educational Games for Children in Georgian England.” Princeton University Library Chronicle 60: 251–275.

Shevelow, Kathryn. 1989. Women and Print Culture: The Construction of Femininity in the Early Periodical. London: Routledge.

Skedd, Susan. 1997. “Women Teachers and the Expansion of Girls’ Schooling in England, c. 1760–1820.” In Gender in Eighteenth-Century England: Roles, Representations and Responsibilities, ed. Hannah Barker and Elaine Chalus, 101–125. London: Longman.

Swab, Jack. 2025. “Beyond ‘Clerical Cartography’: Gender and the (Re)Production of Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps.” The Cartographic Journal 62 (3–4): 177–189. https://doi.org/10.1080/00087041.2025.2627789

Tyacke, Sarah. 1978. London Map-Sellers, 1660–1720: A Collection of Advertisements for Maps Placed in the London Gazette, 1668–1719, with Biographical Notes on the Map-Sellers. Tring: Map Collector Publications.

Tyner, Judith A. 1997. “The Hidden Cartographers: Women in Mapmaking.” Mercator’s World 2 (6): 46–51.

Tyner, Judith A. 1999. “Millie the Mapper and Beyond: The Role of Women in Cartography since World War II.” Meridian 15: 23–28.

Tyner, Judith A. 2001. “Following the Thread: The Origins and Diffusion of Embroidered Maps.” Mercator’s World 6 (2): 36–41.

Waquet, Françoise. 2015. L’Ordre matériel du savoir. Comment les savants travaillent, XVIe-XXIe siècle. Paris: CNRS Éditions (repr. series “Biblis,” 2022).

Waquet, Françoise. 2022. Dans les coulisses de la science. Techniciens, petites mains et autres travailleurs invisibles. Paris: CNRS Éditions, series “Histoire,” 347 p.

White, Cynthia L. 1970. Women’s Magazines, 1693–1968. London: Michael Joseph.

Contact Information

Lucile Haguet, librarian at the Bibliothèque municipale du Havre, lucile.haguet@lehavre.fr

Catherine Hofmann, map curator at the Bibliothèque nationale de France, catherine.hofmann@bnf.fr

Contact Email

catherine.hofmann@bnf.fr

URL

https://cartogallica.hypotheses.org

CFP: 2026 Research Symposium: Books and Silence, 26–27 November

The Centre for the Book is pleased to announce that the theme of this year’s symposium is “Books and Silence.” Find more information at https://blogs.otago.ac.nz/cfb/2026-research-symposium-books-and-silence-26-27-november/ 

In today’s hurried world, noise is everywhere.  Do you want the chance to have silence to contemplate, reflect, and escape, with your best friend: the book? It is time to pen your paper on “Books and Silence.”

“Books and Silence” might suggest an exploration of deep reading, the value of uninterrupted contemplation in environments of disruption and hyper-connection, or the political or cultural implications of censorship.  The theme can cover everything from the quiet sanctuary of traditional libraries to the amplification of marginalized voices.  Presentations might consider:

The literary and psychological experience of books and reading

  • Exploring the lost art of uninterrupted reading and how stepping away from digital distractions restores cognitive focus.
  • Questioning how audio books do or do not fit within such a paradigm of reading.
  • Analysing how authors utilize ‘silence’—what characters leave unsaid or what is omitted from the narrative—to build suspense, express complex grief, and reveal hidden truths.
  • Focusing on silent (wordless or visual) picture books and how they transcend language and cultural barriers to spark communication.

The cultural and social roles of books and libraries

  • The examination of the traditional no-talk ‘shoosh’ library to the modern hub of books and bean bags and social spaces. The changing nature of these sanctuaries.
  • Censorship and anti-censorship: the silencing or amplification of ideas and thoughts; the fight against book bans and the suppression of marginalized or controversial ideas.

The philosophy of books and how readers interact with them

  • Combatting noise, anxiety and constant over-stimulation of the wired life, with mindfulness and quiet engagement with words and ideas.
  • The value of physical books and un-networked experience
  • How the physical, deliberate silence around reading cultivates an active resistance against machine culture – social, institutional, political, commercial and ideological.

We would welcome interdisciplinary contributions from e.g., Music, Psychology, Theology, Education, or other disciplines.

Suggestions for panels are also welcome.

Deadline

Please send through your abstract of 250 words by 1 September 2026, by email to: books@otago.ac.nz

Date: November 26-27

Plenary address (speaker TBA), Thursday 26 Nov. – Dunningham Suite, City Library Dunedin

All day symposium: Friday 27 November – University of Otago (Arts Building, Burns 2 lecture theatre)

Selection of the papers for the Symposium programme will start after 1 September, and authors will be informed of their successful inclusion mid-September.

The conference will be free to attend, though registration will be required to ensure adequate catering for afternoon tea.  The Friday conference presentations will be recorded and made available afterward for viewing by those who register for access, but there will be no livestream or interactive connections on the day of the symposium.

Please contact any of us if you have any further queries:

CFP: TRANSPOSITIONES, Vol. 6, No. 2 (2027) Call for Papers: Earth / Sediment / Trace: Geologies, Material Memories, and the More-than-Living World

TRANSPOSITIONES

Journal for Transdisciplinary and Intermedial Culture Studies /
Zeitschrift für transdisziplinäre und intermediale Kulturforschung
ISSN 2749-4128 (print), 2749-4136 (online)

Vol. 6, No. 2 (2027)

Call for Papers

Thematic focus of the issue:

Earth / Sediment / Trace: Geologies, Material Memories, and the More-than-Living World

Across the environmental humanities, increasing attention has been devoted to the geological dimensions of culture and the cultural dimensions of the Earth. Geohumanities, critical mineral studies, energy humanities, environmental justice scholarship, and related fields have opened new perspectives on extraction, sedimentation, toxicity, waste, material memory, and deep time. At a moment marked by accelerating ecological transformations and growing awareness of the material infrastructures that sustain contemporary life, geological matter has emerged as a crucial site for rethinking history, memory, environment, and cultural imagination. Rather than treating the Earth as a passive backdrop to human activity, recent scholarship has approached rocks, minerals, soils, fossils, sediments, and other material formations as archives of planetary processes, environmental change, cultural memory, and political conflict. Questions of resource extraction, environmental justice, and slow violence increasingly intersect with inquiries into deep temporalities, material traces, sacred landscapes, and the long afterlives of human and more-than-human actions.

This issue invites contributions that explore how literature, art, media, philosophy, religion, and cultural practices engage with geological matter, deep time, sedimented histories, and the material conditions of planetary life. We especially welcome work that investigates the cultural significance of rocks, minerals, fossils, soil, waste, ruins, and other forms of more-than-living matter, while also addressing questions of environmental justice, resource extraction, toxicity, and slow violence. We welcome analyses of literary, philosophical, historical, and cultural texts from a wide range of regions and traditions, including comparative and transnational perspectives. Topics may include:

• geohumanities and geological imagination;

• earth, stone, sediment, dust, and soil;

• lithic ecologies and critical mineral studies;

• deep time, planetary temporalities, and environmental history;

• extractivism, mining, resource conflicts, and energy humanities;

• environmental justice and slow violence;

• toxic landscapes and contaminated environments;

• waste, ruins, landfills, and material afterlives;

• fossils, paleontology, and material histories of life;

• material memory, archives, traces, and sedimented histories;

• sacred geographies, holy mountains, stones, and pilgrimage landscapes;

• archaeology, antiquarianism, and the materialities of the past;

• textual strata, sedimented knowledge, and epistemic layers;

• geological trauma, memory, and post-catastrophic landscapes;

• petrofiction, climate fiction, and environmental storytelling;

• artistic and literary engagements with earth materials;

• relations between living and non-living matter;

• fungi, decomposition, and processes of material transformation;

• posthumanist, new materialist, and decolonial approaches to geology and the earth.

Proposals comprising a 250-word abstract in English or German and a brief biographical note should be sent to: transpositiones@uw.edu.pl by October 20, 2026.

A final decision regarding abstract acceptance will be made by October 31.

Deadline for submitting completed manuscripts: February 28, 2027.

The issue is expected to be published in the autumn of 2027.

CFP: ICOM SECURITY Annual Conference 2026

IC Security in collaboration with ICOM Ukraine, ICOM Germany, the West Ukrainian Museums Association and UNESCO Hub Lviv
November, 25th -28th 2026
Lviv, Ukraine

Scope and Topic

Cultural heritage in war is not merely collateral damage, but often a deliberate target aimed at erasing cultural identity, collective memory, and the sovereignty of an independent nation. The devastating statistics on cultural heritage losses in Ukraine as a consequence of the Russian full-scale invasion, as of 1 July 2026, there are 540 cultural sites that have been verified as damaged1. These include 155 religious sites, 281 buildings of historical and/or artistic interest, 43 museums, 33 monuments, 22 libraries, 5 archaeological sites, 1 archive, and arts education institutions—places that profoundly shape Ukrainian identity and memory. Clearly, this is a genocidal war against Ukrainian identity and nationhood. There is also a tremendous loss of human capital in the sector.

The expert network of ICOM IC Security is serving as a unique platform for professional exchanges on risk management and security challenges in war, countering military threats and discussing a renewed framework of responsibility for cultural heritage.

This IC SECURITY conference invites museum and security professionals and researchers from ICOM and beyond, to explore how museums can respond in a mutual exchange with Ukrainian colleagues to the following challenges:

  • Museum security aspects in conflict and war
  • Specific challenges of illicit traffic in conflict and war
  • Cyber security for museums
  • Challenges in “psychological” or “social” security for museums
  • The “human factor” in times of crisis for museum security

The conference shall have a working character with both Keynotes and PechaKucha presentations and facilitated and moderated discussions, and will be protocolled and recorded for later electronic publication.

Read the full Call for Papers.

CFP: Back to Basics: ICOM COMMS + ICOMON Annual Conference

Master the fundamentals.
Unlock the tools.

When 2 – 4 December 2026
Where Heureka, Vantaa, Finland

The conference theme acknowledges a pivotal moment for the museum sector. Tools that were once available only to large, well-resourced institutions are now within reach of small and medium-sized museums everywhere.

Yet this democratization of technology creates a paradox: the more powerful the tools, the more essential it becomes to master the fundamentals. Strategy before software. Story before algorithm. Human connection before digital spectacle.

The conference advocates a strategic return to core principles — clear communication, collaboration, purposeful audience engagement, sound marketing and PR fundamentals, and institutional storytelling — as the foundation for making high-tech tools truly effective.

For the 1st time, ICOM COMMS and ICOMON will be together, welcoming attendees who will learn how to transform their museum’s online and offline presence by focusing on essential fundamentals of institutional change, storytelling, engagement, and fundraising. Also, ICOM Exhibitions will join us to host and moderate a session.  You just can’t miss it!

Share your story. Shape the conversation.

Call for proposals is open until July 31 2026

We invite all museum professionals — in communications, management, education, and exhibitions — to submit proposals. Whether you lead a national institution or a local community museum, your experience matters.

Papers
Articles
Presentations
Workshops

Special program tracks

Yes, we can: how we overcame the “Not Possible” mindset. Discuss how digital tools have removed historical obstacles related to budgets, staffing, and specialized technical skills in small-to-medium museums.

And we are all together: Unlock High-Impact Audience Engagement in Museum Projects. There is room for great projects that listen to colleagues’ needs and apply fundamental principles to deliver high-quality, professional results.

Follow the money: where are the investments heading? The main challenge for museum directors, which constrains most museum initiatives regardless of their merit, is revenue generation.

CFP: LIDA Biennial International Conference

Conference Themes: Artificial Intelligence and Ethical Institutional Response Emotion and Creativity

Šibenik, Croatia, 19-21 May 2027

Web site: http://lida.ffos.hr/ Email: lida@unizd.hr

Libraries and Information Institutions in the Digital Age (LIDA) conference addresses the changing and challenging environment for libraries and information systems and services in the digital world. LIDA is an international biennial conference that brings together researchers, educators, students, practitioners, and developers from around the world in a forum for sharing ideas, discussions, and learning taking place in Croatia.

The LIDA 2027 conference will be held in Šibenik, a historic town included in the UNESCO World Cultural Heritage List and one of the oldest Croatian self-governing cities on the Adriatic coast.

The LIDA 2027 conference explores questions prompted by the major transformations of memory institutions in the age of artificial intelligence with two inter-related themes: “Artificial Intelligence and Ethical Institutional Response” and “Emotion and Creativity.” In the age of artificial intelligence, technological, philosophical, and humanistic values are becoming intertwined. This presents new opportunities and challenges for memory institutions while encouraging a deeper understanding of the role of emotion and creativity in designing spaces for reflection on, and even counter-response to, artificial intelligence.

Submission of extended abstracts for papers, posters, workshops, panels, other innovative/alternative types of contribution: 10 October 2026 (Notification of acceptance: 1 December 2026)

Read the full call for papers.

CFP: Digitise. Transform. Inspire. 2026 Conference (Prague)

Submission Deadline: 1 August 2026

The DTI Annual Conference is an international meeting place for professionals driving the digital transformation of archives. Jointly organised by DTI, ICARUS, and the National Archives of the Czech Republic, it provides a forum for exchanging experiences, exploring emerging technologies, and showcasing practical approaches that are shaping the next generation of archival practice.

We invite archivists, digital preservation specialists, technologists, researchers, and innovators to share practical experiences, proven approaches, and transformative ideas that are shaping the digital transformation of archives.

We are particularly interested in contributions that demonstrate real-world impact, address concrete challenges, and offer lessons that others can apply in their own institutions and projects.

Whether you have developed a new workflow, transformed access to collections, built innovative partnerships, or discovered an inspiring way of working with archival documents, we invite you to share your experience and inspire the community.

Read the full call for papers.

Recent issue: Arbido : revue professionnelle pour archivistes, bibliothécaires et documentalistes

Arbido : revue professionnelle pour archivistes, bibliothécaires et documentalistes
Arbido : professional journal for archivists, librarians, and information specialists

Editorial

Rölli Daniela
Zwischen Outsourcing und selbst machen: Web- und Social-Media-Archivierung im Stadtarchiv Bern

Smirnova Tatiana
The memory of the Fête des Vignerons and the challenges of its archiving in the age of digital platforms

Cannelli Beatrice
Navigating legal concerns in social media archiving

Marquet Andreas
Werkstattbericht zum Stand der Social Media-Archivierung im Archiv der sozialen Democracy

Forget Camille
Collecting social media data in Luxembourg: a collaborative approach

Signori Barbara
The Swiss Web Archive