Call for Proposals, Second Reminder, VRA Atlanta 2010 Proposal deadline July 3, 2009 PLEASE FORWARD TO COLLEAGUES OR OTHER LISTS AS APPROPRIATE The Visual Resources Association's 28th Annual Conference will be held in Atlanta, GA from Wednesday March 17th through Saturday March 20th at the Westin Peachtree Plaza, Atlanta: http://www.starwoodhotels.com/westin/property/overview/index.html?propertyID=1023 (http://tinyurl.com/ovd96 ) We are now soliciting proposals for the 2010 program sessions, workshops, papers and special interest groups. http://vraweb.org/conferences/2010Atlanta/proposal.php A *Session* is a 90 minute moderated session with 3 or 4 speakers at 20 minutes each followed by a facilitated brief question and answer period.
A *Special Interest Group* is a 60 to 90-minute informal facilitated group discussion on topics related to a specific community within VRA. A *Workshop* is a 3 to 4 hour workshop to develop skills and experience in the field of Visual Resources, preferably with hands-on activities. General areas of interest include, but are not limited to: digital photography; digital imaging and presentation technologies; strategic planning; cataloging and metadata (including non-western, non-art, and special topics cataloging); trend forecasting for the visual resources profession; copyright and fair use; user instruction; and professional status issues. Attendees at the VRA Conference range from students and new professionals to seasoned mid and late career VR curators. Proposals from and directed to all attendees are welcome. We are always looking for ways to round out our programming, make it fresh and unique for our attendees, and therefore encourage submissions in VR-related areas not listed above and from new constituencies. In our post-conference survey we found that our members are particularly interested in the following themes & topics. Overall these topics reflect a concern with managing change balanced with continuity in the future of our profession and the collections we manage. ? Joint library & visual resources concerns ? Intellectual property issues, particularly in an international context & as they involve contemporary art; also differences in perspective on copy photography between libraries & VR collections ? Image & cataloging commons / resource sharing - the nuts & bolts ? Tips for younger professionals managing older staffers with emphasis on user training for new technology tools ? New technologies (encore! encore!) ? Marketing & selling visual resources collections & services ? User instruction to various constituencies - faculty, students, campus/institution-wide ? Time management, particularly in relation to job cuts & increased workloads ? Planning for retirement ? Reconfiguring & equipping the former slide library for the digital environment ? Leadership & mentoring ? Deposition of analog materials no longer in use The quality of conference content depends upon YOUR ideas and contributions. The VRA Executive Board will be looking for complete, concise and articulate submissions with full lists of presenters. Moderators may put out calls for speakers within a proposed topic before submitting their completed topics to the Executive Board. Specificity regarding audio-visual needs including live internet connectivity is required. If there is an area of concern or interest that you feel has not been addressed in previous programs, do consider submitting a proposal. Questions about the proposal process and the various presentation formats included in the VRA conference program can be directed to me at hraatz at artsmia.org. Again--the proposal deadline is July 3, 2009 (that's only 1-1/2 weeks away!). Sincerely, Heidi S. Raatz Vice President for Conference Program Heidi S. Raatz | Visual Resources Librarian Minneapolis Institute of Arts 2400 Third Avenue South Minneapolis, MN 55404 (612) 870-3196 | (612) 870-3029 - permissions | hraatz at artsmia.org | permissions at artsmia.org | www.artsmia.org ( http://www.artsmia.org/ )
