The countdown has begun….. No, not to Brexit, not to Christmas and not to the new Star Wars movie, but towards LILAC 2020.
LILAC is an annual conference covering all aspects of information literacy and is a firm favourite in the calendar of information professionals. The conference is brimming with new ideas, innovative teaching techniques, inspiring speakers and exciting social events.
Manchester Metropolitan University will be hosting next year’s conference, which will take place on 6-8 April 2020. So put it in your calendar right now!
Of course there is no conference without your hard work: your research, your teaching experiences and your workshops, so to this end now is the time to consider what information literacy work you would like to share with the community. What have you and your colleagues been doing where you are, that deserves sharing? The information literacy community want to hear about all of the good work that is going on so this is great opportunity to shout about what you do.
Once you have identified what you want to share, take a look at the types of presentation that are available at the conference to be sure that you choose the best presentation approach for your work. There are a range of presentation types this year including the micro teach, which is a chance to receive feedback and is similar to a peer observation.
At this point, it is worth looking at previous years’ presentations and abstracts, with two purposes in mind:
- to look at how the abstracts are written – this can help in how you approach writing your abstract
- to see how you can make your abstract original and not duplicate what has been presented before
It is also helpful to understand what our reviewers are looking for when they read your proposal: as well as originality, they are looking for details on what and how you will present – are you describing something or analysing something, how have you found out what you are presenting, and what key messages can delegates take away from your session? Try writing your proposal up as an abstract and ask colleagues to give you some feedback before finalizing the content of your draft.
Once you have written your proposal, submitting is easy. Register on the LILAC website and then submit your proposal online. The call for presentations will open at the beginning of October and will remain open until 13 November 2019.
We look forward to seeing your proposals. 🙂
Sam Aston – LILAC Deputy Chair & Programme Manager, LILAC Committee