Call for Proposals: 91st Annual ABQLA Conference

February 13, 2024

On behalf of the ABQLA Board of Directors, we are pleased to invite you to submit proposals for our 91st annual conference, to be held on May 10th, 2024, at MEM – Centre des mémoires Montréalaises.

The theme of this year’s ABQLA conference is “Can You Hear Me?”

This theme was chosen to encompass ideas of listening, connecting and caring. We are not short on messages from each other and from the past to pay attention to, unearth and platform. The process of making meaning from this proliferation of voices is a political one, shaped by who we think is speaking, making noise, sounding. As librarians and archivists we care for and bring attention to situated knowledge, enacting our privilege to draw attention to particular ideas and ways of speaking, to ensure that particular voices are preserved and lifted up.

We also recognize that there are times when communication and understanding are difficult. Recent reconsiderations of hearing each other might be informed by remote conferencing’s newfound necessity, with longer-standing issues of silenced voices and structural inequalities underpinning one-sided or disrupted conversations. Whom has the library traditionally listened to? Who has it recently tried to care for, and how well is that working?

This year we invite you to submit proposals for presentations and posters that explore how Quebec’s library and information professionals navigate their roles as communicators, as speakers, and as listeners. Whether this takes the form of community relationship building, audio editing, inclusive and universal design, or activism – we can’t wait to hear what you have to say!

Guidelines & Instructions

We would love to hear perspectives from students, public libraries, school libraries, academic libraries, special libraries, archives, non-profit organizations, student support departments/organizations, community groups and more!

Submissions and presentations may be in either French or English. Each session will be 30 minutes long with a 15 minute question period.

We are seeking proposals for:

• Presentations
• Panels (3-5 panelists and one moderator)
• “Lightning Talks” (5-7 minutes)
• Posters
• Workshops
• or, other creative ideas you have – what would you like to see at the conference?

Submissions will be accepted on a rolling basis until March 1st, 2024.

Please complete this form to submit your proposal: Conference Submission Form

If you have any questions, please contact us at: conferenceabqla@gmail.com

(Via Quebec Library Association)