The deadline for the Call for Papers for the upcoming LibrarIN International Conference on Innovation and Value Co-Creation for a New Generation of Libraries, taking place at the historic University of Alcalá, on May 22-23, 2025, has been extended! Submit your abstracts by the 3rd of March 2025. Guidance on this as well as conference topics are outlined in detail below.
We invite researchers, practitioners, policymakers, and library professionals to explore how libraries can address the societal challenges of the 21st century through innovation, co-creation, and collaboration.
For more information about the LibrarIN International Conference 2025, please visit here the official conference website.
In today’s world, libraries are evolving to address some of the most pressing societal challenges. No longer limited to their traditional roles centered on books and readership, a new generation of libraries is emerging as dynamic hubs of community engagement, identity building, and societal well-being. These modern libraries foster citizen participation, meet the needs of vulnerable populations, preserve cultural heritage, and contribute to sustainable development and growth at local, regional, and national levels.
Libraries have the potential to act as catalysts for service innovation, tackling 21st-century European challenges such as aging populations, migration, and social inclusion. By offering high-quality, forward-thinking services, libraries are becoming vital players in addressing societal demands. Technology plays a pivotal role in this transformation, leveraging digital advancements and innovative tools like artificial intelligence to deliver impactful solutions.
The foundation of innovation in libraries lies in a new paradigm of service provision. This paradigm prioritizes:
- Co-creation and active user engagement.
- Multi-agent collaboration, bringing together diverse stakeholders.
- Technological and organizational transformations, complementing each other to create synergy.
- An open innovation culture that fosters collaborative skills, advanced managerial models, and robust policy support.
Researchers, practitioners, publishers, authors, and policymakers have a unique opportunity to collaborate and transform libraries into engines of economic, social, cultural, and public value creation. Through joint efforts, this new generation of libraries can unlock their immense potential to shape a brighter future.
The upcoming international conference builds on the groundbreaking work of the Horizon Europe project LibrarIN, focusing on value co-creation and social innovation in libraries. Together, let’s reimagine libraries as key players in addressing societal challenges and creating lasting impact.
Topics of the Conference
- Innovation and co-creation in libraries: theoretical frameworks and practice experiences.
- Digital transformation, technological advances, and artificial intelligence for libraries.
- Preservation of cultural heritage for libraries.
- Relationships between public-private-third sector innovation networks and libraries.
- Living labs in libraries, service design and user engagement.
- Social inclusion and services to vulnerable communities.
- Entrepreneurship and support for entrepreneurs.
- Particularities of innovation in public, municipal, academic and national libraries.
- New managerial models and tools for libraries.
- Service quality, monitoring, and evaluation.
- Challenges for publishers, authors and AIthors, students, library staff.
- Library impacts in culture, urban and regional growth, and socioeconomic transformations.
- Innovation and co-creation metrics in libraries.
- Policies for promoting innovation in libraries.
Target audience of the conference
- RESEARCHERS in different academic disciplines and fields: library and information sciences, innovation, services, management, business, economics, geography, engineering and computer science, social sciences and humanities.
- LIBRARY PRACTITIONERS (special track for sharing case stories), managers and service providers.
- POLICYMAKERS in charge of libraries, culture, education and innovation policies.
- PUBLISHERS AND USERS: authors, AIthors, communities of readers and library users.
Research tracks
- TRACK 1: TECHNOLOGIES, digital transformation, and artificial intelligence in libraries.
- TRACK 2: NEW LIBRARY SERVICES, service innovation and innovation ecosystems in libraries.
- TRACK 3: VALUE CO-CREATION, living labs, service design, and user engagement.
- TRACK 4: SOCIAL INCLUSION, networks and entrepreneurship.
- TRACK 5: SERVICE QUALITY and service management in libraries.
- TRACK 6: METRICS, measuring transformations and collaboration in libraries.
- TRACK 7: LIBRARY IMPACTS in culture, cities and regions and socio-economic transformations.
Practitioners tracks
- TRACK 8: CASE STORIES on transformations and collaborations in libraries
- TRACK 9: CHALLENGES for policymakers, library staff, publishers, authors, AIthors, students…
Submission for presenting a paper or a case story
- To Research Tracks. This international conference does not require full papers. Instead, participants are asked to submit a 1-2 pages abstract that includes Author(s), Title, and Abstract detailing rationale, goal, methodology, and expected outcomes.
- To Practitioners Tracks. Papers are not required. Participants are invited to submit a concise summary (half a page to one page) of their case story, which should include: Author(s), Title and Summary.
The submission deadline is March 3rd, 2025 (extended deadline). To submit an abstract, please visit the conference website here.
Language
English
Attendees
This international conference is also open to attendees who do not have a paper or case story to present.
