SOUCABL Conference 4: “Expanding Visions”

Two years and some change from our last meeting (in-person) things have changed and we are feeling the effects.

Are you an academic librarian with liaison responsibilities in business, finance, economics, or entrepreneurship? In the Southern US? If so, the Southern University and College Academic Business Librarians Conference (SOUCABL) is for you!  SOUCABL is a great opportunity to meet other information professionals, develop your regional network of colleagues, share ideas, and brainstorm solutions.

The Program Committee is now accepting proposals on topics related to business librarianship in a variety of presentation formats. We especially encourage proposal submissions from librarians who work at smaller institutions or for whom providing public and technical services for business, finance, sports management, or entrepreneurship education and programming is only part of their job. Priority will be given to participants from the District of Columbia and 14 states, including Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Missouri, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia.

SOUCABL is looking for presentations, panel presentations, and digital posters covering how libraries have changed and will change as we come out of COVID. Topics of interest include Outreach/Instruction changes (in-person/asynchronous), Stakeholder partnerships (faculty, career/writing center), Collection Development/Budgeting (abundancy/cuts, expansion of library electronic resources into curriculum), Experiential Project Support, AACSB Accreditation, Partnering with Vendors (interacting with vendors -using training, experts, reports, or extra/expanded research support).

Call for Proposals, due Friday, December 9, 2022.

Here is the preliminary timeline:

The evening before the conference: Evening networking reception and heavy snacks

7-8:30 registration, breakfast, chit chat, networking

8:30-9 Opening

9-10 Keynote and Q&A

10-10:15 Break

10:15-11 Presentation 1

11-11:45 Presentation 2

12-1:30 Lunch    Digital Posters

1:30-2:30 Vendor Dance (quick shuffle through our vendors)

2:30-3:15 Presentation 3

3:15-4 Lightning Rounds

4-4:30 Close – Call to Arms

5-7 After Conference Meetup

When:                 Thursday, March 9, 2023 (8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.)

Where:                Miller Learning Center

48 Baxter Street

The University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602

Topics

Previous SOUCABL Conferences focused on successes and failures during “the before time.” Our last meeting was about working under less-than-ideal circumstances in unprecedented times.

This year’s conference, “Expanding Visions,” is looking at where librarians stand after COVID and where they go from here. What have you tried this past year? What’s planned? As academic business librarians, where do we go from here?

Conference presentations often center around success stories and those instances when everything goes exactly to plan. While success stories are great, we want to encourage the sharing of failures and the lessons learned from them. It is often our failures that teach us the most powerful lessons. What issues are you dealing with? What strategies are you using to combat limited resources & staffing? What worked? What didn’t work? We want to hear everything.

Suggested topics may include, but are not limited to:

• Instruction (synchronous/asynchronous) and Hybridization
• Effective Outreach (to students, faculty, campus partners, community members, etc.)
• Stakeholder partnerships (vendor, faculty, university, local community, etc.)
• Research strategies & resources for WFH/Hybrid/RTO strategies
• Shifting collection development and budgets for both physical & electronic resources
• Experiential learning support
• Vendor partnerships and support of students/faculty

Formats

Select a format for your proposal.

• Presentation or a Panel Presentation: 20-30 minutes, followed by 10-15 minutes of Q&A.
• Poster (concurrent): An opportunity to share your recent, “expanded vision” of library experiences and/or future aspirations related to business librarianship. If you would like a template, consider using the ones found here: https://osf.io/ef53g or https://www.socialsciencespace.com/2018/05/4-steps-to-designing-an-award-winning-poster/.
• Lightning Round Presentation: 5–7-minute presentation with no questions, just you talking through no more than 20 slides. We ask for a 100-word overview and primary points bulleted with your full contact info (should fit on the front of a 3x5 card)
• Be open to shifting your proposal to a different form of demonstration. Sometimes a poster can be expanded into a presentation or panel discussion, sometimes a presentation can condense into a poster. We are looking for events that provide impact with the quickest return for time invested. Please contact Program Committee for suggestions for the program.

Proposals

Proposals will be accepted through Friday, December 9, 2022. Program Committee will follow up by Friday, December 16, 2022. The Conference is on March 9^th, 2023.

Questions

Contact Trip Wyckoff (twyckoff@fsu.edu) with the Program Committee with any questions.