Call for Presentations – Politics of Libraries VI: Solidarity

December 5, 2023

April and May 2023
Online Speakers Series

Labour organizing has been a longstanding theme since the inception of the Politics of Libraries Conference, with PoL II’s theme being Labour in Libraries. A part of labour organizing is solidarity – solidarity with each other and with unions. More than that, though, solidarity involves building networks of support, mutual aid, and resistance across the GLAM sector.

Politics of Libraries VI (PoL VI) seeks to generate a thoughtful discussion on solidarity between information workers. Our theme of Solidarity mirrors the goal of Dekker and Kandiuk (2014) from In Solidarity: “…to bring about positive changes in our workplaces; to enhance the working lives of librarians; to educate librarians about professional solidarity; and to strip away some of the fear in asserting one’s rights and making one’s voice heard in the workplace.”

We invite practitioners, scholars, activists, students, and other members of the general public interested in library and information work to submit proposals on the topic of solidarity in libraries. Topics of interest are as follows:

• Unionization, collective bargaining, and collective agreements
• Workplace advocacy and workplace activism
• Labour organizing in the GLAM sector
• Professional and paraprofessional relationships and tensions
• Resistance in GLAM services and work
• Academic freedom
• Critique as care
• Capital/capitalism
• Vocational awe
• Gendering of labour in the GLAM sector
• White supremacy, heteronormative patriarchy, and ableism in the GLAM sector

Please submit proposals (not to exceed 400 words) for individual (40-minute presentations) and group/panel contributions using the Presentation Proposal Form by midnight on the 12th of January, 2024.

All submissions will undergo a double-blind peer review process undertaken by the conference organizers. Notification on the status of submissions will be made by February 1, 2024. Presentations will occur on Fridays at 12pm MST time from the 19th of April, 2024 to the 24th of May, 2024. Please indicate any limitations on availability for these dates.

Politics of Libraries is happy to facilitate ongoing access to presentations by either accepting a recorded presentation followed by live discussion or recording of the live presentation to be included in the Politics of Libraries Collection in the University of Alberta’s institutional archive (Educational and Research Archive) under a Creative Commons license.

For information on PoL VI and past Politics of Libraries events please see our website.

(Via Politics of Libraries)