CFP: 2026 SOUCABL Call for Proposals (Southern University and College Academic Business Librarians Conference) - May 13-14, 2026 - Nashville, Tennessee

Are you an academic librarian with liaison responsibilities in business, finance, or entrepreneurship? In the Southern US? If so, the Southern University and College Academic Business Librarians Conference (SOUCABL) is for you! SOUCABL is a great opportunity to meet other information professionals, develop your regional network of colleagues, share ideas, and brainstorm solutions.

We are now accepting proposals!

https://forms.gle/MvjRNsSAymgSftJD9

Timeline

  *   Proposals are due Friday, January 9, 2026
  *   Proposals confirmed no later than Friday, January 30, 2026

We especially encourage proposal submissions from librarians who work at smaller institutions or for whom providing public and technical services for business, finance, sports management, or entrepreneurship education and programming is only part of their job.

The SOUCABL Conference began in 2019 as a uniquely affordable opportunity for academic business librarians in the U.S. South for professional development, networking and community building. SOUCABL also includes a generous vendor community that fully sponsors the conference, and makes up an integral part of the annual programming. The conference prioritizes participation from the  District of Columbia and 14 Southern states, including Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Missouri, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia.

About the Conference

What: The SOUCABL Conference: Chapter 7 - "Striving & Thriving"

When: Wednesday, May 13  - Thursday, May 14, 2026

Where: Owen Graduate School of Management, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN

Cost: No registration fee.

  *   Breakfast and lunch will be provided in addition
  *   There will be a welcome reception on Wednesday and closing reception on Thursday
  *   Speakers are responsible for covering their own travel and lodging

Pre-Conference Literacy Lab

The preconference will explore strategies for teaching a range of business information literacies—including data, financial, and related competencies—within the context of today’s evolving landscape of resources, technologies and ethical questions. Sessions will emphasize practical approaches for maximizing the impact of available resources, and highlighting creative methods of instruction. We especially encourage workshops that critically examine pedagogical practices through an ethical lens, considering issues such as equity, accessibility, and responsible use of information. The aim is to inspire attendees with fresh ideas,  and equip them with practical tools and reflective frameworks. Tell us how your workshop might help our community to enhance our teaching in meaningful and conscientious ways.

Striving & Thriving: Start Where You Are, Use What You Have, Do What You Can

The theme of the 2026 conference is “Striving & Thriving.” We invite business librarians to share their creative, practical, and impactful approaches to supporting business information needs with the resources at hand or have sourced new funding in new ways. Whether you’ve developed innovative programs, forged strategic partnerships, leveraged technology in new ways, or found small changes that made a big difference, we want to hear your story. Proposals should highlight successes, lessons learned, and strategies for thriving despite today’s shrinking budgets.

Suggested topics may include, but are not limited to the following:

• Have you adapted or repurposed existing tools, collections, or spaces in ways that had a significant impact?
• What partnerships have helped you extend your reach or offer new services?
• Have you used technology creatively or inexpensively to enhance access, engagement, or efficiency?
• What lessons have you learned from experimenting with new approaches, and how have they shaped your current practice?
• How do you measure or demonstrate the impact of your work on a budget?

Formats

• Pre-conference Workshop: 55 minutes including all interactive elements
• Lightning talk: 10 minutes (includes any Q&A), limited to 5 slides maximum

We are open to accepting different formats. Sometimes a lightning talk can be expanded into a workshop, sometimes a workshop can condense into a lightning talk. We are looking for events that provide impact with the quickest return for time invested. We are also open to innovative formats. If you have an idea to develop it into a program, we’d love to hear from you. We are of course happy to consider different modalities for those who have specific requests.

Please contact Twyckoff@fsu.edu for suggestions for the program or proposals.
Please contact hd.mckay@vanderbilt.edu for any questions about travel and hospitality related to the conference.

Submit your proposals here: https://forms.gle/MvjRNsSAymgSftJD9

Kind regards,

Kara (in my role as a member of the planning committee)

--

Kara Van Abel, MLIS | Associate Professor | Reference Librarian
Liaison to the Collat School of Business
UAB Libraries | Mervyn H. Sterne Library
UAB | The University of Alabama at Birmingham
kvanabel@uab.edu

CFP: Special Issues on GenAI Tools within Libraries, Archives and Museums - Information Technology and Libraries #ITAL

Guest editors Ellen Schmid and Katy Miller invite you to submit a proposal for an article in an upcoming special issue of Information Technology and Libraries that will explore the integration of Generative AI tools within library, archive, and museum research environments. This special issue will be published in September 2026. We welcome contributions that provide practical insights, case studies, or user research on the development, deployment, and impact of AI-enhanced research tools. Topics of interest include user-focused interfaces, implementation processes, UX assessments, and the influence of GenAI on workflows, data analysis, and research practices. Articles should present first-hand experience with designing, testing, or evaluating AI helpers, and may cover commercial or open-source solutions. 

Submissions of up to 5,000 words will be accepted for a publication target of September 2026. 

Article proposals are due February 1, 2026 and include a 500-word abstract and a brief statement about the author's experience in the field. Authors will be notified of acceptance in late February, with a submission of the first draft of the article (no more than 5,000 words) due May 1, 2026. Articles will go through the same rigorous peer review, copyediting, and proofreading process as any other ITAL article.

This issue will be guest edited by Ellen Schmid and Katy Miller in collaboration with ITAL's Editor (Ken Varnum) and Assistant Editor (Joanna DiPasquale). 

Submit your proposal: https://forms.gle/aSjdjpvoR2QG4By87

Email questions to: 

• Ellen Schmid, Law Librarian and Judicial Communications Manager, Kane County Law Library,  Illinois 16th Judicial Circuit, schmidellen@16thcircuit.illinoiscourts.gov
• Katy Miller, Department Head, Learning Engagement, John C. Hitt Libraries, University of Central Florida, mailto:katie.miller@ucf.edu

CFP: NASIG Annual 2026 - June 2-4, 2026 Madison, Wisconsin

NASIG is soliciting proposals for its 41st Annual Conference, to be held June 2 - 4, 2026, in Madison, Wisconsin. We are currently seeking in-person presentations. Sessions will be one hour in length on topics related to the areas defined in NASIG’s Core Competencies, including, but not limited to:

• Electronic resource life cycle and management
• Collection analysis, assessment, and development
• Licensing and legal framework of library content
• Ethical issues in technical services
• Standards and systems of cataloging and classification, metadata, linked data, and indexing
• Standards, initiatives, and best practices for library content
• Scholarly communication, including copyright, data management, and assessment and impact metrics
• Institutional repositories, publishing, digital preservation, open educational resources, and open access
• Life cycle and workflow of print continuing resources
• Relationship building between libraries, vendors, publishers, standards bodies, and others involved in the information community
• Supervision and management of staff working in areas relevant to NASIG
• Management of projects related to electronic and/or print resources or scholarly communication
• Use of artificial intelligence (AI) in technical services workflows
• Initiatives and best practices in areas included in the core competencies and awareness of trends and ongoing developments in those areas
• Diversity, equity, and inclusion in relation to libraries

Each session should include approximately 30-45 minutes of content, with remaining time allotted for discussion.  

Co-presenters are welcomed, but we ask that you limit submissions to no more than three presenters. Presenters may be asked to combine sessions with other presenters on similar topics.

Proposals are selected by the Program Planning Committee based on their relevance to NASIG member interests.  Please refer to the Proposal Resources page to see the rubric used by the committee to evaluate submissions, as well as other resources for crafting a successful proposal.

Presenters will have the option of publishing a conference report in the NASIG Conference Proceedings.

More information about the conference is available at https://nasig.org/NASIG-Annual-Conference. Accepted presentations will be offered a 50% discount off qualified registration for the conference.

Please submit all proposals using the online form at https://proposalspace.com/calls/d/1903

The submission deadline is December 19, 2025

Questions? Please email nasigppc@gmail.com

Calls for Spotlight Sessions and Great Ideas poster sessions will be forthcoming. Presenters at these shorter sessions do not qualify for discounted registration.

CJ Garcia

NASIG Social Media Coordinator

Call for Posters: MiALA 2026 Annual Conference (Traverse City, Michigan - May 6-8, 2026) - Michigan Academic Library Association

Call for Poster Proposals is Now Open!

The Michigan Academic Library Association (MiALA) invites you and your colleagues to submit poster proposals for the annual conference to be held May 6-8, 2026, at the Park Place Hotel & Conference Center in Traverse City, MI. Participation from librarians, library staff, LIS students, and administrators from all types of academic libraries is encouraged, so please share this announcement. We welcome posters on any topic related to work in academic libraries, particularly if they have a connection to the conference theme, Finding Our True North: Creating Connections to Light Our Way.

Poster proposals should include a description of no more than 300 words. They will be evaluated on impact on academic libraries and higher education, originality and creativity, and clarity. If you submit a presentation proposal that is not accepted, we encourage you to reframe your topic for consideration as a poster.

Prior to submitting your proposal, please review the Poster Session Guidelines page.

Please submit your poster proposal using the online form here by February 16, 2026.

The primary contact listed on each proposal will receive a message indicating receipt of the proposal when it is submitted, and a decision on proposals by the end of February.

Questions about poster proposals can be sent to Lauren Vogt, LaurenVogt@ferris.edu. Questions about the conference in general can be sent to conference@miala.org.

Presentation opportunity! Seeking technology "geeks" for a virtual forum - RUSA Emerging Technology Section (Virtual event in March 2026)

RUSA Emerging Technology Section:

https://www.ala.org/rusa/sections/ets

The RUSA Emerging Technology Programming committee is organizing a "Speed Geeking" discussion surrounding accessibility, emerging technology, and libraries at a virtual event in March. "Speed geeking," is similar to the concept of "speed dating," in that participants rotate around to different presenters at timed intervals. The presenters ("geeks") would have a very short presentation and Q&A session (~5 minute presentation,~5 minute Q&A, for 10 minutes total) with multiple rotating groups.

If you have a topic at the intersection of emerging technologies and accessibility in a library setting, and you'd be interested in speaking in a virtual forum setting along with other "geeks," please consider replying privately to me (rachelmenzel@creighton.edu), ideally by the end of the year.

Thank you for your consideration, and I hope you have a pleasant holiday season!

Rachel
RACHEL MENZEL, MLIS
STEM Reference and Instruction Librarian
Research and Instruction Department | University Libraries
she | her | hers
rachelmenzel@creighton.edu

CFP: 2026 Acquisitions Institute at Timberline Lodge (May 17-20, 2026 - On Mt. Hood Oregon)

Call for Proposals: 2026 Acquisitions Institute at Timberline Lodge

Proposals due December 30, 2025

2026 Acquisitions Institute at Timberline Lodge
Sunday, May 17 - Wednesday, May 20, 2026
Timberline Lodge
One hour east of Portland, Oregon on the slope of Mt. Hood
www.acquisitionsinstitute.org

Greetings!

We’re excited to announce the call for proposals for AITL 2026: our small, informal, and stimulating gathering in a convivial and glorious Pacific Northwest setting, focused on the methods and innovation of building and managing library collections.

What is The Acquisitions Institute?

• Since 2000, the pre-eminent conference located in Western North America on acquisitions and collection development, held at Timberline Lodge.
• A three-day conference focusing on the methods and innovation of building and managing library collections.
• A small (capped at 80 attendees), informal and stimulating gathering in a convivial and glorious Pacific Northwest setting.

What topics are we looking for?
The planning committee is seeking submissions on all aspects of library acquisitions and collection management. Presenters are encouraged to engage the audience in discussion, whether the presentation leans more toward the practical "here's what we did" sessions or toward the more abstract "here's what we think" sessions. The committee may also seek to achieve balance in the program by bringing individual proposals together to form panels, or by recommending that a proposal be converted to a table talk. We invite you to indicate whether or not you'd be interested in these opportunities on the submission proposal form.

Topics we and/or prior year's attendees are interested in include (in no particular order):

• Assessment tools, methods, and projects (e.g., linking collections with learning outcomes; usage studies)
• Collection strategies including new models for selection and managing liaison programs
• Government, special, and academic library perspectives in acquisitions and collection development
• Sustainable models for publishing/pricing
• Effective management of collections with constrained resources
• Vendor and publisher evaluation, including business skills to determine financial viability
• Diversity, inclusion, representation, and social justice in acquisitions and collections
• Negotiation skills and how to use them, including during library-vendor and library-publisher meetings
• Innovative vendor-librarian relationships and/or partnerships
• Staffing, training and development, and recruiting issues, challenges, successes (e.g., onboarding new acquisitions and/or collections staff)
• Using data visualization techniques to tell our stories (e.g., budget, collections, staff successes, etc.)
• Impacts of Open initiatives on acquisitions and collection development
• Data curation, including Big Data, and management and other new roles for subject and technical services librarians
• How Generative AI impacts our work

The DEADLINE for submitting a proposal is December 30, 2025. NOTE: Maximum of three presenters per proposal.

Please use our 2026 proposal submission form.
https://forms.gle/xRKZCEuBi2nK8DUi6
Important Dates

• Fri 12/30/25: Proposals due
• Mon 1/19/26: Review of proposals complete, and presenters notified
• Fri 1/23/26: Presenters confirm commitment to present
• Early February: Registration scheduled to open

 ________________________________________
The 2026 Acquisitions Institute at Timberline Lodge Planning Committee is:

• Arthur Aguilera, University of Colorado, Boulder
• Damon Campbell, University of Oregon
• Selena Chau, University of California, Santa Barbara
• Allyson Rodriguez, EBSCO
• Kasia Stasik, Harrassowitz
• planning@acquisitionsinstitute.org

CFP: March Mini-Con 2026 (ALA Games & Gaming Round Table) - Online March 20, 2026

 

Call for Proposals: March Mini-con 2026

CFP URL: https://games.ala.org/call-for-proposals-march-mini-con-2026/

Call for proposals open: October 20, 2025 – January 12, 2026
Conference Date: March 20, 2026

The Games & Gaming Round Table (GameRT) of the American Library Association is looking for presenters for its 2026 one day mini conference to be held on March 20th, 2026. The conference will be virtual and free (presenters will join a Streamlabs session that will be livestreamed and recorded on GameRT’s Twitch and YouTube channels).

This year’s theme is Gaming Outside the Box.

We are interested in presentations along two main tracks:

1) how libraries work with non-traditional games, like lawn and playground games, low/no-resource games, solo RPGs, and journaling games, or games distributed in formats that are difficult to collect, like digital games or crowdsourced projects

2) innovative and experimental approaches to games in libraries.

Experimenting with new kinds of games or games programming? We want to hear about it! Proposals should explicitly state their relevance to libraries, but presenters don’t need to be a librarian or GameRT member to present.

Submission Details

To submit a session proposal, please complete this form by January 12, 2026.

Accepted presenters will be notified by February 20, 2026.

Slides and handouts will be due on March 13, 2026.

Presenters will be asked to give a fifteen-minute presentation, with a group question-and-answer session after.

Examples of possible presentation topics (if one of these titles speaks to you, please use it!):

• Honey, They Embiggened the Chess Board?!
• A Good Stick: Using Lawn Games for Library Outreach
• Red Rover Red Rover, Send the Librarians Over: The Role We Play in Social Emotional Learning

Submissions will be evaluated based on the following criteria:

• Connection to library and community
• Topic fits the needs and interests of GameRT and its audience
• Relevance to theme
• Relevance and quality of citations
• Wow/cool/cozy/fun/unique/X factor

Questions?

Questions may be addressed to the GameRT Program Planning Committee via e-mail at gamert@ala.org with “March Mini Con” in the subject line.

You can view previous webinars and virtual conferences on GameRT’s Twitch and YouTube channels.

Submit or Nominate an Online Learning Object for FOLO!

(Thank you for your patience with cross-posting as we try to spread the message far and wide!)

The ACRL Instruction Section Featured Online Learning Objects (FOLO) Committee aims to feature several excellent learning objects each year. 

 

We invite you to submit or nominate a learning object for review by January 11, 2026 to be considered for feature during the 2026 cycle.

 

Learning objects (LOs) may include online modules/tutorials, videos, podcasts, or other relevant media created or substantially updated within the past five years. Please see the linked form for additional submission/nomination and scoring criteria.

 

Reach out to Committee Co-Chairs, Renae Watson and Aimee Gee, with any questions.

 

We look forward to showcasing your excellent work!

- ACRL IS FOLO Committee