The International Society for Medievalist Librarians is soliciting participants for two roundtables to be held during next year’s International Congress on Medieval Studies in Kalamazoo, Michigan (May 9-11, 2024). If your academic background includes any study of the Middle Ages, please consider participating! Questions can be directed to the contact person for the individual panels.
“Medievalist Librarians in Technical Services” (A Roundtable)
Contact: Allie McCormack (allie.mccormack@utah.edu)
Format: Hybrid – participants can choose either virtual or in-person attendance
Library technical services – including collection development, cataloging, and processing – is not well understood by the public. However, teaching, research, and other services offered by libraries would not be possible without this behind-the-scenes work. Presenters will shine a light on technical services roles, explain the skills needed for success in these positions, and share how their medievalist backgrounds influence their work.
“The Global Middle Ages in the Library: Building and Using Diverse Medieval Studies Collections” (A Roundtable)
Contact: Anna Siebach-Larsen (annasiebachlarsen@rochester.edu)
Format: In-person
The last few years have seen long-overdue discussions about the representation of a diverse and global Middle Ages in our classroom and research. However, missing from these conversations is the role of library collections in shaping and supporting this approach to scholarship and pedagogy. Moreover, this vital aspect of librarianship is often unseen or misunderstood by the public. This panel invites librarians and curators to discuss the challenges and opportunities of developing diverse collections in premodern studies, taking into consideration issues of staffing, funding, expertise, provenance, open access, and classroom integration. Presentations will be followed by discussion and collective brain-storming.
Please share widely with anyone else who may be interested! All panelists must submit proposals through the conference portal: icms.confex.com/icms/2024/cfp.cgi.
——————————
Allison McCormack
Original Cataloger for Special Collections
University of Utah
——————————
