Call for Proposals: Empirical Librarians Conference, May 18-19, 2027, Hybrid (online and Richmond, VA)
Are you a library worker who does original research or one who supports researchers?
Join us for the 10th Empirical Librarians Conference on Tuesday, May 18, and Wednesday, May 19, 2027, a hybrid gathering of in-person and online attendees focusing on the unique place of original research and researchers in the larger information ecosystem, staged at the Virginia Commonwealth University campus in Richmond, VA. We welcome presenters and teams presenting online, onsite in Richmond, or in a mixed format (onsite and online) at this conference!
We seek proposals for concurrent sessions, either as presentations, panels, or lightning talks, from librarians, library professionals, and LIS students on our two conference topic tracks:
- Supporting patrons’ scholarly activity – Presentations that showcase how to understand and support the unique needs of researchers or patrons engaged in research (for publication)
- Methods in library research – Presentations that highlight or describe methodological features of library research. Findings may be shared, but primary focus should be methodology, with particular focus on why certain choices were made, lessons learned, and how attendees could apply these methods in their own settings
Please submit proposal abstracts and information on this form. Proposals will be anonymized and peer reviewed. If you have never attended EmpLibs before, you may want to review last year’s accepted abstracts for an idea of the topics and abstract style.
The review criteria for abstracts are:
- Is it about either supporting researchers or doing research?
- Abstracts must be about one of these two topics, or they will not be accepted.
- Is the abstract written clearly?
- Does the proposal include clear elements that support its potential to interest EmpLibs participants, appropriate to the length of the time slot?
- Does the proposal describe useful insights or takeaways?
- Overall, does this seem like it would contribute to a good program?
The deadline to submit proposals is Monday, December 7th, 2026.
Presenters will be expected to register as attendees. Registration will open in January 2027. Registration will cost $50.00 for either virtual or onsite attendees, and presenters are expected to register. Presenters without conference funding (including all student presenters) can waive the registration fee.
EmpLibs does not accept presentations that have been presented elsewhere. However, we encourage presenters who have presented or will present at other conferences to propose at EmpLibs a deep-dive into the techniques or methods, lessons learned, and practical insights into how to create researcher-focused programs or conduct research.
We look forward to seeing you at the 10th Empirical Librarians conference!
– EmpLibs Conference Committee chair Nina Exner (nexner@vcu.edu)