Last year, we picked “Librarians At Work” as the Urban Librarians Conference 2020 theme because librarians primarily focuses on patrons, services, and collections, yet spend little time thinking about what we are first: workers in urban library settings. This year’s schedule was crafted to highlight worker-related issues including emotional labor, accessibility, equity, caregiving, physical safety, and more.
Then the pandemic hit, and these same issues are now being pushed to breaking points in all industries and part of a larger national conversation about what the future “normal” should look like for workers. The theme couldn’t be more timely, but we had a new challenge: how to transform an established grassroots, volunteer-run conference into the safest and most reasonable option for our attendees and speakers. We decided to take the conference virtual back in July, and were delighted that many attendees were eager to join us in a new-to-us format. Going virtual offers a unique opportunity to broaden our audience and we are glad to have these voices join us.
Registration is still open and we have a limited number of tickets remaining. We also offered a new solidarity ticket which will cover the ticket price for someone else, and we were blown away by your generosity! We still have some of these registration-waived tickets available: if you or someone you know would like to attend but would be better served reserving your dollars for elsewhere, please apply for one of these tickets today. No need is too small, we value your presence as a part of our conference!