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Submit Your Proposal for POCinLIS Summit!

Posted February 14, 2025

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Submit Your Proposal for POCinLIS Summit!

The People of Color in Library & Information Science (POCinLIS) Summit will take place online via Zoom on Friday, July 25, 2025.

“May You Live in Interesting Times”

The theme May You Live in Interesting Times invites submissions that recognize and address the troubling, fraught, and often discordant times that we find ourselves in. As people of color moving through uncertain times, both in our field and the larger information landscape, we are not only being challenged as workers and individuals, but those called upon to actively resist intersecting oppressions. This year, the online summit aims to be a supportive and vital counterspace for reflection, exploration, commiseration, and experimentation among trusted colleagues. We ask you to be brave and share how you are grappling with the present, past, and future of these “interesting times”.

The POCinLIS Summit is a space for collaborative conversations that explore our passions and interests. We welcome submissions that are unique, challenging, and unorthodox in other LIS spaces. Information students and information workers of all kinds are invited to submit proposals. 

Suggested Topics [but not limited to]:

  • Yes, you have Artificial Intelligence (AI) challenges and… ?
    • Overcoming AI fears through understanding
    • Challenging AI as solutions to all
    • Using AI to support your work (Case Study, Workshop, etc.)
    • Teaching AI ethics for different audiences from students to staff
  • Information working in an age of change
    • Managing budget with challenges
    • Low effort, big impact
    • Rethinking management and supervisory structures
    • Creating a workplace we want to work in/workplace challenges
    • Finding joy and interest in new work or new positions
  • Confronting professional and workplace challenges on a personal level
    • Balancing remote, in-person, or hybrid (or all of the above) work
    • Coping with anxiety and burnout 
    • Reclaiming time
    • Managing stress
    • Fighting oppressive structures and people
  • Censorship and Facing Levels of Pushback
  • We are all a work in progress
    • Doing our bestest when the world is the worstest 
    • Resistance to being in an endless marathon
    • Creating joy in dark, unsure spaces
    • New projects and programs to share

Session Formats and Lengths:

  • 60-minute session including Q&A
  • 30-minute session including Q&A
  • 10-minute lightning talks

Session Submission Types: 

  • Lessons Learned: Share success and/or failures on recent projects (example)
  • Works in Progress: Share your up-and-coming work. Ask questions about research and projects in development (example)
  • Skill Workshops: Teach a concept, new method, or anything LIS-related to your peers (example)
    • Writing and publishing for new authors.
    • Presenting and facilitating in the classroom.
  • Learning Labs: Use the space as a laboratory to test ideas, concepts, and pedagogy with your inspired peers (example)
    • Create course materials or testing materials.
    • Practice lesson plans or active learning activities.
    • Experiment with a new teaching tool or app.
  • Lightning Talks: 10-minute poster or presentations on the topic of your choice. Great way to share new ideas (example) 
  • Alternative types of presentations (example)

Our Mission

The mission of POCinLIS Summit is to create a productive and brave space for people of color, especially women and marginalized identities, working in the information sector. Information workers will have the opportunity to explore their work in LIS as POC and their intersecting identities as POC+ and information workers. This summit invites participants to challenge and interrogate their roles and actions as information workers. This summit aims to collectively establish rules of engagement and discourse, acknowledging that dominant narratives may be disrupted. This space is created to support the research of POC librarians and create a network of POC information workers for future collaboration and self-care. 

Need Help with Your Proposal? 

Attend a POCinLIS Summit Drop-in Session! We can help with abstracts, outcomes, or just brainstorming a topic to present. Sessions are run by Aisha Conner-Gaten and Jennifer Masunaga:

Stay Updated

Want the latest updates on the POC in LIS Summit? Join our Google Group:​​[email protected]! Messages sent will only involve the Summit and you can unsubscribe at any time. Directions on joining a Google Group here.

Registration for the summit will open in May 2025. Have Questions? Email [email protected].

This conference is funded by the William H. Hannon Library at Loyola Marymount University and Statewide California Electronic Library Consortium (SCELC).

Opportunities for Current Students Opportunities for Students of Color