** Deadline extended to 26 November ** RLUK is inviting submissions for its 2019 conference call for papers. RLUK19 will be held at the Wellcome Collection from 20-22 March 2019.

The RLUK Conference brings together library and other professionals from across the UK, Ireland and beyond to discuss the leading issues affecting research libraries.

Reshaping Scholarship reflects RLUK’s commitment to achieve transformations in research, innovation in collections, and cultural change in our institutions.

RLUK19 will explore two essential areas that drive the modern research library: its role in advocating for, and facilitating, open scholarship; and how the library is adapting their offer to serve the dynamically changing needs of collections and their users.

Research libraries are the juncture through which a wide number of conflicting, complex and collective interests are harmonised, arbitrated and realised. As such we may be best placed to examine how innovative thinking and practices are reshaping research and our role in driving this forward, but also to reflect more critically on the ethical, philosophical, political, and practical challenges that surface.

The RLUK19 call for papers welcomes papers (20 minutes) and workshop or other interactive format sessions (1.5hr) on the following themes:

Transformation: how are changes in research practice affecting libraries?

  • What are the implications of open research practices such as open/post-publication peer review, open notebooks?
  • How do research libraries support international research collaboration?
  • What do libraries do about preprints?
  • Should libraries focus on research experience, not research resources?
  • Artificial Intelligence and machine learning
  • Systems infrastructure to enable new models of scholarly communication

Innovation in collections

  • Research value of our collections: innovative strategies and services
  • Digital scholarship and the role of the research library
  • Practices and skills for open collections
  • Measuring the reach and impact of collections
  • The library as a hub for collaboration and creative knowledge production

Cultural change

  • Are libraries neutral spaces?
  • Looking ahead: the research library and researcher in 2030.
  • What does an inclusive library look like?
  • What comes after open scholarship? Strategies for sustainable infrastructure and practices.
  • Reshaping scholarship in a post-Brexit landscape

Speed Presentations

We also are inviting submissions for speed presentations on the theme of ‘Innovation in our libraries’. Speed presentations are fast-paced and highly visual, with speakers restricted to 20 slides at exactly 20 seconds per slide (six minutes and 40 seconds in total). A prize will be awarded to the best presentation, as voted for (discreetly) by the conference audience. See last year’s speed presentations at http://rlukconference.com/rluk18-videos/

Read the full call for papers on the RLUK Conference website.