(Please excuse cross-postings)
All,
We are seeking speakers for "Leading from Where You Are: Mid-Career Perspectives on Leadership across Academic Arts Librarianship", a panel presentation that is being proposed for the ARLIS/NA Annual Conference to be held virtually from May 12 - 16, 2025. The panel will include up to four panelist speakers and two co-moderators with a total time of 60-90 minutes (including Q+A), and will highlight multiple perspectives on the central topic of mid-career leadership in academic art library contexts. This proposal is a collaboration between representatives from the ARLIS/NA Academic Library Division (ALD), ACRL Arts Executive Committee, and ACRL Arts Research and Publications Committee, in partnership with the ARLIS/NA Affiliate Liaison to the ACRL Arts Section.
The presentation description is as follows:
"As hierarchical systems are being challenged across institutions, including academia and librarianship, many professionals are evaluating what it means to be a leader. Although management may be the first thing that comes to mind when one thinks about leadership in their library, true leadership is not intrinsically bound to formal structures of power and authority. Thus, leading can be found at any level of one's organization, but it is often the mid-career librarian who is best poised to think deeply about what it means to lead and how they want to leverage their early career successes into future opportunities for personal and professional growth. This panel will bring together mid-career arts librarians offering insight and reflection on their leadership journeys. Panelists will specifically engage with the concept of leading from where you are, which emphasizes looking inward to identify skills, knowledge, and abilities that foster innate leadership qualities that some librarians may not have considered they possess. Speakers will also discuss ways to hone leadership skills formally and informally at the institutional, local, and national level.
This session focuses on sustainable leadership within academic arts librarianship, with the intention to de-center traditionally administrative or formalized positions of power as the status quo of library leadership. Attendees of this session will hear from leaders across the visual and performing arts working in academic libraries who represent a wide range of leadership roles and opportunities. Each speaker will offer individual strategies for successful, sustainable leadership while collectively fostering a discussion with attendees about the opportunities and challenges of leading from where you are. Speakers for this session will come from university libraries of varying size and ranking, from different regions and backgrounds, and will speak to issues of leadership regarding gender, race, and other identifiers.
Some questions panelists may address include:
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How can one be a leader who does not reinforce or affirm institutional or hierarchical structures?
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What are different ways of getting involved in formal leadership roles within service groups and professional organizations?
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Why is it important to function as a thought leader in your institution or at a national level?
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Why is it important to pay it forward and lead as a mentor to early career librarians?
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When did you realize you had become a leader and not just an employee or manager?
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How can arts librarians hone their leadership skills and approaches?
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How can informal leadership approaches foster EDI in the workplace or profession?
Panelists will present their thoughts and recommendations on these topics and allow time for questions from the audience to engage in a discussion. Although focused on academic libraries, the advice given by the panelists is anticipated to be broad enough to be applied to several types of libraries."
We are seeking speakers who are mid-career librarians from a variety of academic libraries, whose current roles include responsibilities with visual and/or performing arts constituents or resources. (For purposes of this presentation we define "mid-career" as having between five and fifteen years of post-MLS professional work experience in a librarian role.) Speakers should be able to knowledgeably address at least several of the leadership topics outlined above. As this presentation proposal will focus on "leading from where you are", it is not required for speakers to have formal supervisory duties in their current day to day work. We hope the panel will include speakers representing a range of leadership experiences and roles.
Please note that ARLIS/NA ALD and ACRL Arts Section cannot provide funding for this proposal. If you are chosen to join the panel, you will be responsible for any costs incurred by participating, including but not limited to conference registration.
If you are interested in participating in this panel presentation as a speaker, please fill out our speaker interest form (https://nyu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_3WVsyTfkEjmqfsO) by October 18.
If you have questions about the program, please contact:
Lauren Gavin, Moderator, ARLIS/NA Academic Library Division, gavinl@newschool.edu
Heather Koopmans, Chair, ACRL Arts Section, hrkoopm@ilstu.edu
Best, Heather
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Heather Koopmans
Fine Arts Librarian
Illinois State University
She/Her/Hers
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