The third and final Library 2.0 mini-conference for 2020 will be held online on Wednesday, October 14, from 12:00 to 3:00 p.m. US-Pacific Time. This free, online and participatory conference, sponsored by the School of Information at San José State University, is an excellent opportunity to showcase research, work and thinking on sustainability in libraries.

Organized in partnership with Rebekkah Smith Aldrich, executive director of the Mid-Hudson Library System and co-chair of the American Library Association’s Special Task Force on Sustainability, the Library 2.020 conference will explore what libraries are doing today to align their core values with the “Triple Bottom Line” of sustainability —the intersection of environmental stewardship, social equity and economic feasibility—to encourage investment and build support for their libraries in the future.

The conference’s three-hour long format includes an opening keynote panel, concurrent crowd-sourced sessions, and a closing address. Smith Aldrich will moderate the keynote panel featuring the following speakers: Matthew Bollerman, chief executive officer of the Hauppauge Public Library; Adrian Ho, director of Digital Scholarship at the University of Kentucky Libraries; Rebecca T. Miller, group publisher of Library Journal, School Library Journal and The Horn Book; and René Tanner, associate librarian at Arizona State University.

Conference sessions will include topics related to:

• how libraries may provide leadership and serve as a model for sustainable practices through facility stewardship, innovative service design, and outreach and partnership practices;
• how libraries work collaboratively through visionary partnerships to facilitate collective impact work to address existing challenges and opportunities with a focus on community well-being and self-reliance;
• how libraries contribute to future community resilience from disaster preparedness, and response and recovery efforts to work that contributes to creating a culture of respect, understanding, and empathy in the library’s service area.

All library professionals, employers, students, and educators are invited to participate in this web conference, and are welcome to submit a presentation proposal before the deadline of September 14, 2020. Once submitted, presentation proposals will be listed on the Library 2.0 website with the opportunity to view, comment and “like,” giving Library 2.0 members the opportunity to share ideas and make connections before, during and after the conference.

Upon a proposal’s acceptance, a 30-minute presentation time will be scheduled, and access will be granted to a training session that will familiarize presenters with using Blackboard Collaborate. Proposals are being accepted on a first-come, first-served basis, and the number of sessions are limited, so prospective presenters are encouraged to submit their proposals as soon as possible.

All sessions will be recorded, and attendees must register in advance to receive links to the recordings. Attendees are encouraged to use #library2020 and #sustainabilityinlibraries on their social media posts leading up to and during the event. View the call for proposals, speaker biographies, and register to attend at library2.0 or at Eventbrite.

The first of three Library 2.020 mini-conferences, Wholehearted Libraries: Soft Skills for 21st Century Information Professionals, was held on March 10, 2020, and brought librarians, educators and other information professionals together to explore ways to define and expand the understanding of soft skills and nurture a positive mindset in employees, while extending the reach of librarianship into global communities.

The second of three Library 2.020 mini-conferences, Small, Rural, and Independent Libraries, was held on June 17, 2020, and focused on innovation and innovative thinking in rural, independent, tribal, and other small libraries—as well as the many unique challenges that they face.

The Library 2.0 Worldwide Virtual Conference series was co-founded by Dr. Sandra Hirsh, former director of the SJSU School of Information, as a way to facilitate topical discussions among information professionals worldwide. The first conference was held in 2011, and since then, it has evolved from a multi-day annual event to the current format of three, three-hour online, topic-specific mini-conferences a year, each of which typically draws more than 5,000 attendee registrations. Conference sessions from past years are archived on the Library 2.0 network, and many keynote sessions are also published on the Library 2.0 YouTube channel.