I am pleased and honored to announce that I have been asked to serve as one of two keynote speakers at the 2015 Canadian Association of Professional Academic Librarians’ annual meeting, to be held in Ottawa, ON May 31-June 2, 2015.
The call for papers for this exciting event, whose timely theme is “Academic Librarianship and Critical Practice,” is now available, and I encourage all those interested in the topic and themes represented to consider applying.
From the call:
Practice: Critical practice asks us to consider the role of critical reflection in shaping our approaches to day-to-day professional practice. What do such concrete applications look like? How, for instance, do you apply feminist perspectives to your collections work? What does your library instruction session look like when designed through a critical pedagogy lens? What, more broadly, is the value of such applications of critical reflection?
Theory: Critical practice also points to the practice of critical theory itself – the interrogation of the limits of particular assumptions in academic librarianship and/or the investigation of LIS problems using theoretical frameworks from other disciplines. How, for instance, might postcolonial theory allow us to think more critically about intellectual freedom? What can political economy perspectives tell us about research practice in LIS?
Professional and civic engagement: Critical practice refers to critical exploration of our goals and struggles as a profession, as well their connection to other political goals such as the empowerment of students, faculty, and other members of the community, or the struggle to define universities as public space and research as public good.
Interest piqued? Please check out the complete call for participation, located here. See you in Ottawa in May!