Deadline: February 8, 2008

The conference organizing committee invites proposals for papers on any topic related to the theme of Disappearing Disciplinary Borders in the Social Science Library. Conference papers will be peer reviewed for acceptance and become eligible for the Social Science Section's proposed IFLA monograph on the subject.

Paper topics may include, but are not limited to, the following:

• How can libraries foster and support research communities that focus on interdisciplinary research and teaching among colleagues locally and internationally?
• How do libraries respond to emerging disciplines: at what point do they become emerging disciplines and when are they simply passing fads?
• How are changing models of librarianship, such as the "field" or “embedded” librarian, changing the scholarly landscape?
• What resources are available to support the librarian's work in interdisciplinary and multi-disciplinary fields?
• What strategies are available to promote this type of librarianship?
• What resources are being developed to assist the interdisciplinary scholar?
• How are new library services such as support for electronic publishing and archiving affecting interdisciplinary scholarship?
• How can collection development strategies support interdisciplinary collections?
• How can catalogers and indexers use classification systems to provide better access to works of interdisciplinary importance?
• Social networking and digital difference, how can the librarian facilitate communication?
• How are virtual spaces being used to foster collaboration?
• How can we help better educate our "global" students?
• What are the changing roles of data and datasets?

Final papers should be no more than 5,000 words in length. Presentations for the conference should be approximately 20 minutes in length, with an additional 10 minutes available for discussion of the presentation.

Submission of Proposals

Please submit an abstract of no more than 1,000 words in electronic format - preferably via e-mail. Proposals sent as e-mail attachments must be in either a generally available word-processing file format such as Word, or in RTF format. Include the following information:

1. Name of Presenter/s
2. Institutional Affiliation
3. Mailing address
4. E-mail address
5. Phone and/or fax information
6. Title of Paper
7. Abstract of Paper (maximum 1,000 words)
8. Brief biographical statement (maximum 150 words)

English is the official language of the conference.

Submit to:

Steve Witt
Chair, Social Sciences Section
swwitt@uiuc.edu
FAX: 1.217.265.7519
Center for Global Studies
302 E. John, Suite 1705
Champaign, IL 61820
USA