Mark your calendars! The Alberta Association of Academic Libraries (AAAL) Spring 2022 Meeting will take place Thursday, May 12, 2022, hosted virtually. The Spring 2022 Meeting will begin at 9:00 am and conclude in the afternoon; a meeting link and further information will be forthcoming.

The theme for AAAL’s Spring meeting is Care Work: Practices and Ethics of Care in Academic Libraries. Caretaking or care work is a fundamental, but historically unacknowledged, part of academic library work, whether in preserving physical and digital collections, providing service to library users, or managing staff. While the COVID-19 pandemic and related shifts have brought the care-based dimensions of libraries to the fore, libraries are also increasingly asked to take on the kinds of work typically performed by explicitly care-based professions. More broadly, there has been an ongoing shift of the burden of care from the social to the individual, ranging from the rhetoric of self-care to how the collective risks of a global pandemic are mitigated.

We invite proposals that consider what a care-based perspective might offer for academic libraries. What new challenges or pitfalls might a view of library work as care introduce? What examples of practices of care can you share with the AAAL community?

Proposals can be for either a:

• 5 minute lightning talk that is a quick overview of your ideas, experience, and programs/services,

​OR

• 20 to 30 minute presentation that can include ideas, experiences, original research, engaging discussion questions or activities.

Submit your proposal by Sunday, April 10. Successful presenters will be contacted within the following week.

Do you require financial support to attend or present at the meeting? We encourage you to apply now for an AAAL Professional Development Award, whose scope has extended to be inclusive of technological peripheral support. PD Award applications are due April 15, 2022.

Wondering how we’ll select sessions? Take a look at our Rubric for Selecting AAAL Sessions and use it as a guide for your proposal.

We look forward to hearing from you!

The AAAL Workshop Committee:
Kelley Wadson, Carla Lewis, Kevin Tanner, Alexandra Alisauskas, Jorden Habib