Dear Colleagues,

The Access 2021 Conference Program Committee invites proposals for participation in the upcoming Access Conference, which will take place virtually the week of October 18-22, 2021.

Start your submission now. Deadline for submissions is July 30th 2021. 

Access is Canada’s premier annual library technology conference bringing librarians, technicians, developers, programmers, and managers from all library sectors together to discuss unique and interesting library processes and technologies. There will be plenty of opportunities to share ideas and learn from each other!

This single-stream conference features exciting keynotes, presentations, lightning talks, a hackathon, and opportunities to socialize and network.

We are seeking proposals for:

• 20-minute sessions (15 min + 5 min for questions)

• These could be demos, theory, practice, case studies, original research, etc. We welcome innovative approaches!

• Proposals will be peer-reviewed.

• 60-minute multi-speaker sessions (45 min + 15 min for questions)

• These should be self-organized. We encourage sessions demonstrating perspectives from multiple organizations.

• Proposals will be peer-reviewed.

• 5-minute lightning talks

• On any subject that is conference-related.

• Proposals will not be peer-reviewed.

• Workshops & Hackfest

• Interested in running a workshop or hackfest session during the conference? Let us know what you would like to do and how we can help make it happen. 

• Something else in mind? 

• We welcome submissions that take an innovative approach to conferencing online. If you have an idea for a presentation that is not a traditional webinar-style talk - especially something that inspires interaction and active engagement - we encourage you to submit! 

Theme: The Slow and The Furious

What a long, strange, slow (but also frenetic?) year it has been. Access returns online for 2021 and we invite proposals on any topic relevant to library technologies and their associated processes. Need some ideas? Check out the programs on our past conference websites.

This year we especially welcome proposals sharing your experiences over the last 18 months as we begin to return to a “new normal”. It’s been a long haul and we’d like to hold space to reflect on issues that arose at our institutions, things people tried that worked (or didn’t!), questions that are still to be answered, and thoughts about moving forward.  

Ready to submit?

Create an account and submit your proposal

Submission deadline is July 30th 2021.

Speakers will be notified of their acceptance decision by September 20th 2021.

Volunteer to be a peer reviewer

Whether you are submitting a proposal this year or not, we are seeking volunteers for our double-blind peer review process. As a peer reviewer, you will be responsible for reading and completing a reviewer form for two to three 250 word proposals (typically takes less than 30 min each). Ideally, we are looking for a variety of people from multiple disciplines - Access veterans and new community members welcome! You do not need to be attending the conference and you can be a peer reviewer if you have submitted a proposal (you will not receive your own submission to review). 

Peer reviewing activity will take place between August 2nd and 20th.

Sign-up to be a peer reviewer

Questions? Contact us at [log in to unmask]

The Access 2021 organizers are committed to making this an inclusive and safe event for everyone  – please review our Code of Conduct.

On behalf of the Access Conference Planning Committee,