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Affiliated Organization News, July 2022

Call for Applications- Dr. George N. Atiyeh Prize 2022

Students who are enrolled in library and information science in ALA Accredited Universities, as well as Middle Eastern universities, are eligible to apply for this award.  
Criteria for the application:

1. Applications should be submitted through email to the George Atiyeh Prize Committee (atiyehprize@mela.us).

2. Applications will include the following:

· Name, E-mail address, Institution name, Location, Name of the program, and Links to website/ Social media (optional).

· Current resume or C.V.

· Personal Statement of a maximum of 800 words that includes the following:

Description of your academic, work-related, or other backgrounds in librarianship.

Statement of your career goals, including a description of your current course of study.

Statement of why you wish to attend these meetings (All documents should be in PDF format).

3. Qualified applicants, will be awarded in the amount of $250; in addition, any registration fees for MELA and MESA will also be paid by MELA.

4. Awardee(s) will be notified by e-mail and by a written letter of their award; in addition, the Committee will send a written letter to the Dean of the program in which the awardee(s) is currently enrolled, announcing the Prize. Each awardee must return a written statement that they agree to:

· Attend MELA and MESA in their entirety (exceptions will be granted only by the Committee). · Allow their names and pictures to be used in any publicity by MELA or any organization that MELA contacts regarding the Prize.

· Write a report immediately after the conference for publication in MELA Notes reporting on their conference experience.

 

5. The Committee will announce the name(s) of the awardee(s) as soon as confirmation of Prize acceptance has been received, and will direct the Secretary/Treasurer to send checks as quickly as possible.

6. Awardee(s) will be recognized at the MELA conference and business meeting. They should also attend most sessions of MELA and some of the panels/sessions of MESA and any other meetings being held during the conference period that relate to libraries, archives, etc. (e.g., RLG, OCLC)

Deadline:

Application for award: 30 August 2022

Announcement of the award: 15 September 2022

Committee Members:

Leili Seifi, (leili.seifi@birjand.ac.ir), Associate Professor, University of Birjand, Birjand, Iran. (Chair)

Aicha Azzaoui, (a-azzaoui@northwestern.edu), Metadata Coordinator, Northwestern University, Evanston IL, USA (Member)

Maurice Hines, (maurichines6@gmail.com), Librarian, American University of Cairo, Egypt. (Member)

Guy Burak, (guy.burak@nyu.edu), Librarian for Middle Eastern, Islamic and Jewish Studies (and Interim Librarian for African Studies), Elmer Holmes Bobst Library, New York University, New York, USA (Member)

Contact Us:

atiyehprize@mela.us

More details on the website:

Call for Papers: Information and Culture

Information & Culture is an academic journal printed three times a year by the University of Texas Press. It publishes original, high-quality, peer-reviewed articles examining the social and cultural influences and impact of information and its associated technologies, broadly construed, on all areas of human endeavor. In keeping with the spirit of information studies, we seek papers emphasizing a human-centered focus that address the role and reciprocal relationship of information and culture, regardless of time and place.
The journal welcomes submissions from an array of relevant theoretical and methodological approaches, including but not limited to historical, sociological, psychological, political and educational research that address the interaction of information and culture.

To learn more about our submission standards or submit an article for publication in Information & Culture, visit our
submissions page.

Interested authors should contact the editor:

Andrew Dillon
School of Information
The University of Texas at Austin

Call for Proposals: LIDA (Libraries & Information Institutions in the Digital Age) Biennial International Conference

Osijek, Croatia, May 24-27, 2023

We welcome submission of papers, panels, workshops and posters that address critical and theoretical examinations of the theme; report current research and evidence-based approaches as well as present innovative approaches from the field, and practitioner applications and perspectives. The LIDA conference is being planned to be fully in-person. If circumstances do not allow an on-ground conference to take place safely, LIDA will move to a virtual conference platform.

Sadly, we lost our longstanding LIDA Co-Director and dear friend, Dr. Ross J. Todd from Rutgers University, who passed away on March 30, 2022. We will celebrate Ross's life and research contributions during the LIDA 2023 conference and will invite all attendees to join with us in his remembrance.

We would also like to inform you that earlier that week (May 22-23, 2023) an international conference Digital Transformation and Inclusiveness of the Higher Education Institutions in the Time of Crisis Situations, organized by Erasmus+ project DECriS (https://decris.ffos.hr/), will take place in Osijek. We invite you to consider prolonging your stay in Osijek and take part in both events (at discounted registration rate).

Deadlines:

Submission of proposals (extended abstracts): October 1, 2022.

Notification of acceptance: November 15, 2022.

Submission of full-text manuscripts for review and inclusion in scholarly publication: January 31, 2023 (optional).

 

Conference Co-Directors:

Marie L. Radford, Ph.D., School of Communication & Information, Rutgers Univ., USA

Sanjica Faletar, Ph.D., Dept. of Information Sciences, Univ. of Osijek, Croatia

Drahomira Cupar, Ph.D., Dept. of Information Sciences, Univ. of Zadar, Croatia

 

For more information visit http://lida.ffos.hr/.  Email: lida@unizd.hr

Middle East Librarians Association Annual Conference 2022: Call for Papers

The MELA conference will be held in person (in Denver) and online between November 29 and December 1st, between 9 AM and 5 PM EST. The full program will be available closer to the conference date. Information about the location for the in-person conference and the registration will be shared soon.

Conference Theme: MELA 50th Anniversary: Learning from the Past and Looking Towards the Future

Since 1972, when MELA was officially formed, the Middle East Librarians community has been working systematically to build its community, develop collections, preserve and enhance access to resources, and provide research and teaching support to users in the field. Through these 50 years, and even before, a lot of distinguished librarians paved the road through many ideas for projects and made achievements in MELA's history, which greatly impacted the present and will continue to shape MELA's future.

In 1974, MELA members discussed the main top ideas for cooperative acquisitions and bibliographic control, then in 1979 and later, members looked at using new technologies for related projects and resources such as cataloging computerization and the Middle East Microform Project. In the second millennium, the MELA community utilized the new tools and technologies to preserve and enhance access to the Middle East resources through numerous web archiving, digital humanities, and open access projects.

With social and political changes in the world and in the Middle East, in particular, the MELA community worked together to secure access to resources in the area such as the Committee on Iraq, Endangered Archives, Archiving Arab Spring, and later significant work done on the issues of social and racial justice and the impact of the pandemic.

Over the last 50 years, MELA as an association has grown in various directions including a bigger and stronger community in all subfields of the Middle East librarianship, numerous projects, and affiliations and collaborations with other organizations and associations.

The conference this year will reflect on MELA's accomplishments in the last 50 years and look forward to ways to invest for the future. The Conference will be a chance for the MELA community to celebrate the history of the association, but also to discuss topics that should shape MELA's future.

Presentations about the following topics or related to the general theme of the conference will be considered:

  • The Middle East Librarianship Profession: History and Future in the Contexts of Area Studies Librarianship

  • The Profession and World Issues: Wars and Conflicts, the Pandemic, Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging (DEIB) and More

  • The Digital Transformation in the Middle East: Planning for the Future

  • National and International Collaboration for Middle Eastern Collections and Services

  • Cataloging and Technical Services: Developments and Projects for a Better Discovery

  • Publishing in the Middle East: New Trends, Issues, Solutions, and the Role of Vendors

  • Analytics and Telling Compelling Stories for the Value of Middle Eastern Materials

Submission guidelines:

  • Proposals should be submitted electronically through this online form until August 26.

  • Successful participants will be notified by September 9.

  • Abstracts should be limited to 250-300 words

For any questions or more information, please contact the Conference Committee at mhamed@berkeley.edu.