Power Up Conference - Last Call for Proposals

And now a word from our colleague, Meredith Lowe, Continuing Education Services at The Information School at UW-Madison:


Do you have ideas to share about management and leadership in Youth Services? The University of Wisconsin-Madison Information School is pleased to offer the second Power Up Conference to share your exciting ideas! The conference will take place in Madison, Wisconsin on March 28-29, 2019. The program committee will be accepting proposals until August 3, 2018.

Topics may include, but are not limited to: strategic planning, collaborations, ethics, leadership pathways, advocacy, mentorship, managing change, work/life balance, staff motivation, and innovation. Youth services librarians and staff from public libraries, schools, after-school programs, museums, etc. are invited to attend – we had 142 attendees from 20 states at the 2017 conference! More about the conference, including information about past conferences, is here

Our opening keynote address speaker is Andrew Medlar, former ALSC President and current director of BookOps, serving the New York Public Library and Brooklyn Public Library. Our closing keynote will be presented by Dr. Sarah Park Dahlen, Associate Professor of Library and Information Science at St. Catherine University in St. Paul, MN.

Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity Statement
The Program Committee encourages a diversity of presenters representing a variety of personal and professional backgrounds, perspectives, and voices. We encourage submissions from anyone who is interested in presenting, including students, new professionals, first-time presenters, and representatives of allied professions.

Proposal Evaluation
The committee will evaluate all of the submissions as individual entries, and how they fit within the balance of conference content as a whole. The Program Committee will evaluate all proposals submitted by the deadline using the following criteria:
• Clarity and completeness of the proposal, particularly having well-developed content and sufficient speakers to address all relevant aspects of the topic;
• Originality and relevance of the proposed topic;
• Uniqueness of content in relation to other conference presentations;
• A range of speaker experiences and representations
How to submit a proposal


Please submit a 200-250 word description of your proposed session to Meredith Lowe, by August 3, 2018. Sessions at the conference will be one hour. Please include an additional sentence or two about how this proposal aligns with our diversity, inclusion and equity statement outlined above. Note that the proposal will not be the finalized description for the conference program; the committee will contact selected proposal submitters for a final draft.

Panel presentations are accepted. All selected proposals will receive one complimentary conference registration ($300 value), which may be divided however the presenters of that session choose.