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CLIR’s Digital Library Federation (DLF) invites proposals for the in-person 2024 DLF Forum, which will be held in partnership with Michigan State University Libraries and the MSU College of Arts and Letters in East Lansing, Michigan, July 29-31, 2024. Learn more about who we are and who attends the DLF Forum.
Please note: This CFP is for the in-person event only. We will release a separate call later this spring for our virtual event taking place this fall.
The submission deadline is Thursday, February 29 at 11:59pm ET USA.
We invite proposals on all topics related to digital libraries, encompassing case studies, “show and fails,” practical application, methods, projects, ethics, research, and learning in any area, including, but not limited to:
Sessions are invited in the following lengths and formats:
Sessions will be placed in either library classrooms or computer labs with a max capacity of 25-40 attendees. In the submission form, you will have an opportunity to indicate your preference for which type of room you’d like to present in, though we cannot guarantee we will be able to honor your preference.
On-site speaking opportunities, such as lightning talks or roundtables, will be available on a first-come, first-served basis during the event.
Based on community feedback and the work of our Program Committee, we welcome submissions geared toward a practitioner audience that:
All submissions will be peer-reviewed. Reviewers will use this rubric to rate each proposal based on the values listed above. They may also recommend the proposal for a different format. Broader DLF community input will also be solicited through an open community voting process, which will inform the Program Committee’s final decisions.
Please feel free to reach out with any questions: forum@diglib.org.
DLF programs stretch year-round, but we are perhaps best known for our signature event, the annual DLF Forum. The DLF Forum welcomes digital library, archives, and museum practitioners from member institutions and beyond—for whom it serves as a meeting place, marketplace, and congress. As a meeting place, the DLF Forum provides an opportunity for our working groups and community members to conduct their business and present their work. As a marketplace, the Forum provides an opportunity for community members to share experiences and practices with one another and support a broader level of information sharing among professional staff. As a congress, the Forum provides an opportunity for the DLF to continually review and assess its programs and its progress with input from the community at large.
Here, the DLF community celebrates successes, learns from mistakes, sets grassroots agendas, and organizes for action.
For 2024, we are thrilled to partner with member organization Michigan State University (MSU) Libraries and the College of Arts and Letters (CAL) to host DLF Forum’s in-person summer event. We are excited about this partnership because of all the innovative work happening at MSU Libraries and CAL in the areas of digital humanities and digital scholarly publishing, among others.
We encourage proposals from:
All submissions will be peer reviewed. Reviewers will use this rubric to rate each proposal. They may also recommend the proposal for a different format. Broader DLF community input will also be solicited through an open community voting process, which will inform the Program Committee’s final decisions.
Each session type has a maximum number of presenters per submission:
There is no limit to the number of non-presenting authors listed on a proposal.
The DLF Forum and Learn@DLF attendees are a multi-disciplinary cross-sector audience of people who work in the digital library, museum, archives, and cultural heritage fields, from librarians, project managers, curators, technologists, and developers to administrators and service providers. The Forum welcomes practitioners from academic, art and cultural heritage, and non-profit organizations, government agencies, and more. They come from all over the country and world and represent all levels of professional experience. Forum attendees are inquisitive, engaged, and action-oriented with a focus on learning new skills and solving problems together.
Looking for co-presenters on a particular topic? Try using our 2024 DLF Forum Unofficial Program Sessions and Connections spreadsheet for connecting with other prospective presenters. Note that the Program Committee and CLIR+DLF Staff do not monitor the document and it is not part of the official submission process.
Based on community feedback and the work of our Program Committee, we welcome submissions geared toward a practitioner audience that:
We strongly encourage prospective presenters to review our Resources for Forum Presenters page, rubric, and past DLF Forum programs (from 2023 and 2022) to understand what makes a successful DLF Forum proposal. Strong proposals will demonstrate how presenters intend to design their proposed sessions to be interactive, inclusive, and action-oriented and will also outline clear learning objectives.
We especially welcome proposals from individuals who bring diverse professional and life experiences to the conference, including those from underrepresented or historically excluded racial, ethnic, or religious backgrounds, immigrants, veterans, those with disabilities, and people of all sexual orientations or gender identities. As we have done in the past, the Program Committee will prioritize submissions from individuals who identify as Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC), individuals working at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), Tribal Colleges and Universities (TCUs), and other libraries, archives, museums, and organizations that center BIPOC to promote inclusivity to the greatest extent possible. Self-identification options will be provided in the proposal submission form but are not required.