Oklahoma Chapter - ACRL

The OK-ACRL 2025 Annual Conference is only a week away! Register by midnight, November 16 to receive lunch on the day of the conference. We will have a potato bar with a variety of toppings, iced tea, and chocolate or carrot cake for dessert.

2025 Annual Conference Register Now! View the brief schedule below.Registration includes continental breakfast, lunch, and afternoon snacks. Detailed program will be posted soon. Theme: Unlocking Libraries: Exp…

Registration is still open for the 2025 OK-ACRL Annual Conference, to be held at OCCC Keith Leftwich Memorial Library on Friday, November 21. View the schedule and register online at https://www.okacrl.org/conference

Our keynote speaker for this year's conference is Suzette Chang, Founder & CEO of Thick Descriptions, an organization invested in science empowerment and cultural intelligence for all. As a practicing anthropologist, Suzette weaves archeology, biology, cultural understandings, and language to explain everyday experiences. Her talk is titled "Accessing and Leveraging AI within Academic Spaces from the Lens of Cultural Anthropology."

Are you afraid/uncomfortable/indifferent about AI? You are not alone. As of September 2025, over 50% of Americans are more concerned than excited regarding the growing usage of AI within our daily lives. We need to talk about it and thoughtfully embrace AI because it is here to stay. Suzette will assist attendees to peel back the layers of their AI pauses. She will take a deeper dive into the anthropology of AI, the languages and cultural understandings linked to this form of technology, address opportunities and responsibilities, and foster resiliency within our network of academic librarians. Attendees will be exposed to generative AI and ways to create and maintain frameworks regarding this ever-growing and shifting technology. Be prepared to laugh and learn!

Registration is now open for the 2025 Annual Conference, Unlocking Libraries: Expanding Access and Opportunity for All. Register online at https://forms.gle/JFMhRrTRKgWeWp74A

The conference will be held at OCCC Keith Leftwich Memorial Library on Friday, November 21. A full schedule will be released soon but we are tentatively planning for 9:00am – 3:30pm. You may register yourself and/or additional participants from your organization. Registration includes continental breakfast, lunch, and afternoon snacks.

The OK-ACRL Board is still accepting proposals for the 2025 conference "Unlocking Libraries: Expanding Access & Opportunity for All" to be held in person at OCCC Keith Leftwich Memorial Library on Friday, November 21.

Both full sessions (30-45 min) and lightning talks (7-10 min) are being accepted until Friday, September 26 using the 2025 Proposal Submission form: https://forms.gle/QxJiJwd6Wtb74dXj7

We want to hear from library workers, students, faculty, and others across the academic library community in Oklahoma and the surrounding areas. We welcome talks from first-time speakers, long-time librarians, new practitioners, and everyone in between. We also encourage talks from underrepresented groups within the Oklahoma library community. Our goal is to expose attendees to a variety of practices and perspectives.

If you have any questions about conference proposals, please contact OK-ACRL President Amanda Schilling at [email protected].

Registration information and conference details will be available soon on the OK-ACRL website at http://okacrl.org/conference

The OK-ACRL Board invites proposals for full session and lightning presentations for the 2025 Annual Conference: “Unlocking Libraries: Expanding Access & Opportunity for All.”

Proposals must be submitted by Friday, September 26 using the 2025 Proposal Submission form: https://forms.gle/QxJiJwd6Wtb74dXj7

We hope you will join us for this year’s conference on Friday, November 21, 2025, at OCCC Keith Leftwich Memorial Library in Oklahoma City. Our keynote speaker will be Suzette Chang, Founder & CEO of Thick Descriptions.

Presentations on the conference theme (Unlocking Libraries: Expanding Access & Opportunity for All) could cover topics such as:
- Initiatives focused on increasing access to library collections
- Instruction and reference practices to support underserved students
- Reimagining library spaces to be more welcoming
- How to cultivate a supportive work environment for staff
- Developing or expanding an inclusive online presence for all
- Using library data to identify underserved populations
- Open access, open educational resources, open data, etc.

Preference will be given to proposals that relate to the conference theme, but proposals for all academic and research library related topics are welcome.

If you have any questions about conference proposals, please contact OK-ACRL President Amanda Schilling at [email protected].

Registration information and conference details will be available soon on the OK-ACRL website at https://www.okacrl.org/conference

Save the date for OK-ACRL's 2025 Annual Conference on Friday, November 21st at OCCC Keith Leftwich Memorial Library.

This year's theme is "Unlocking Libraries: Expanding Access & Opportunity for All," and our keynote speaker will be Suzette Chang, Founder & CEO of Thick Descriptions.

Be on the lookout for a call for proposals soon!

It is not too late to register for OK-ACRL 2024!

*Please use this form to register for the free virtual pre-conference on 10/28:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdPmTOOz68bzBVGbv84FfZuOqb3Rqb7wJoQbjQsWsD1bq6qRw/viewform

*Please use this form to register for the annual conference on 11/8:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScBt7kNoCUG2tSo_rX-5-C9pISALNGvFEXf1XVJjSkZEc4Xtg/viewform

Join us for the free, virtual, *pre-conference creativity panel and lightning talk session*, on Monday, October 28 from 1:00-3:00 p.m. via Zoom. At 1:00 p.m. we will be joined by five librarians in a creativity panel who will share ways they have pursued creativity with video creation, makerspaces, gamification, emerging technology, and exhibits. During the second hour, three librarians will share lightning talks about their creative efforts in the areas of monitoring library traffic during the pandemic, open access research, and new ways of connecting with first generation students.

This year’s conference theme is “Success Stories: Courageous & Creative Solutions for Academic Librarians” and will be held in person at Tulsa Community College’s Northeast campus on Friday, November 8. Our keynote speaker will be Janet Brennan Croft, Associate University Librarian for Content Discovery at the University of Northern Iowa. You may register yourself and/or additional participants from your organization. Registration includes continental breakfast, your conference registration, lunch, and afternoon snacks.

Introducing the 2024 OK-ACRL Keynote Speaker, Janet Brennan Croft!

Janet Brennan Croft is an Associate University Librarian at the University of Northern Iowa and previously worked at the University of Oklahoma. She is the author of War in the Works of J.R.R. Tolkien (recently reissued in paperback in April 2024) and has also written on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Orphan Black, J.K. Rowling, Terry Pratchett, Lois McMaster Bujold, and other authors, TV shows, and movies. She is the editor or co-editor of many collections of literary essays, most recently Loremasters and Libraries in Fantasy and Science Fiction with Jason Fisher. She edits the refereed scholarly journal Mythlore and is associate editor of Slayage.

We’re so excited to have Janet Brennan Croft join us for the conference! Don't forget to register at okacrl.org!

Registration is now open for the 2024 OK-ACRL Conference and Virtual Pre-Conference!

*Register for the annual conference:
https://bit.ly/okacrl2024

*Register for the virtual pre-conference:
https://bit.ly/okacrl2024webinar

This year’s conference theme is “Success Stories: Courageous & Creative Solutions for Academic Librarians” and will be held in person at Tulsa Community College’s Northeast campus on Friday, November 8. Our keynote speaker will be Janet Brennan Croft, Associate University Librarian for Content Discovery at the University of Northern Iowa. You may register yourself and/or additional participants from your organization. Registration includes continental breakfast, your conference registration, lunch, and afternoon snacks.

In addition to this year’s in-person conference, we are excited to also announce a free, virtual, *pre-conference creativity panel and lightning talk session*, on Monday, October 28 from 1:00-3:00 p.m. via Zoom. At 1:00 p.m. we will be joined by five librarians in a creativity panel who will share ways they have pursued creativity with video creation, makerspaces, gamification, emerging technology, and exhibits. During the second hour, three librarians will share lightning talks about their creative efforts in the areas of monitoring library traffic during the pandemic, open access research, and new ways of connecting with first generation students.