Call for Proposals: Best Practices Exchange 2011

As a member of the 2011 Best Practices Exchange Program Committee, I am delighted to bring you the following announcement -- and I hope to see you in in the Bluegrass State this fall!

The sixth annual Best Practices Exchange (BPE) will be held at the Hyatt Regency in Lexington, Kentucky, from 20-22 October 2011. The BPE focuses on the management of digital information in state government, and it brings together librarians, archivists, information technology professionals, and other practitioners to discuss their real-world experiences, including best practices and lessons learned.

Following the format of past Best Practices Exchanges, the 2011 Program Committee encourages you, the attendees, to present your projects and experiences, successes, failures and lessons learned. This year's conference has four broad tracks. Each track is enumerated below,
along with a list of themes embraced by each track. We ask that potential speakers be guided, but not limited, by the themes indicated.

Each session will be 90 minutes long with two or more speakers per session. We ask that you keep presentations to 10-15 minutes to allow for discussion and engagement with the audience.

Proposals should include an abstract of 100 words or less, the proposed track (if applicable), and the name, title, email, phone number and organization of each presenter. You may submit a proposal for one speaker, which will then be paired with others by the Program Committee, or a proposal for a full session with multiple speakers (please contact and confirm the other speakers prior to submission.)

For more information about proposals, please see the Presentations page on the BPE 2011 Web site.

1) Access: Online access; should everything be accessible; FOIA/Open Records issues; legal issues with access

2) Sustainability: Budget/funding issues; technology (IT consolidation, lack of IT support); life after the grant; evaluation, statistics, and user feedback.

3) Digital Projects: Lessons learned; what worked and what didn't; solutions; new tools or services

4) Collaboration and Community: Support groups and user communities; shared services; user services; library/archives crossovers

Proposals are due by September 15, 2011. Please send all session proposals to Mark Myers, Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives, at mark.myers[at]ky.gov

The hotel cost will be $139/night and conference registration will be $125. Registration information will be posted to the BPE Web site soon.

Be sure to friend the new BPE Facebook page!