Registration opens for 2012 ACRL Spring Virtual Institute

CHICAGO - Registration is now open for the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) 2012 Spring Virtual Institute, Extending Reach, Proving Value: Collaborations Strengthen Communities. Held April 18-19, the 2012 ACRL Spring Virtual Institute will feature a keynote presentation, concurrent live webcasts and asynchronous lightning talks, allowing for convenient scheduling and flexibility. All program sessions will be recorded and made available in the archive.   Registration materials are available online.

The 2012 ACRL Spring Virtual Institute seeks to unite all types of librarians around the mutual cause of reaching out to our constituencies. Whether they support faculty scholarship and student learning, facilitate connectedness and foster literacy in a town, or reach out online, all libraries operate in the context of a community. The institute will examine how libraries are capitalizing on community collaborations.

Keynote speaker John G. Palfrey Jr., Henry N. Ess III professor of law and vice dean for library and information resources at the Harvard Law School, will open the institute with a discussion on the Digital Public Library of America, an innovative and broad example of collaboration among many stakeholders and libraries. The institute also features live, interactive webcasts allowing for real-time interactions. The webcast schedule and program descriptions are online at http://www.ala.org/acrl/springvirtualinstitutewebcasts. Lightning talks are five-eight minute asynchronous narrated presentations.  Lightning talk descriptions are online at http://www.ala.org/acrl/springvirtualinstitutelightningtalks.

Registration materials, along with information on group rates, are online at http://www.ala.org/acrl/springvirtualinstitute. Contact Margot Conahan at mconahan@ala.org or call (312) 280-2522 with questions about the institute.

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ACRL is a division of the American Library Association (ALA), representing more than 12,000 academic and research librarians and interested individuals. ACRL is the only individual membership organization in North America that develops programs, products and services to meet the unique needs of academic and research librarians. Its initiatives enable the higher education community to understand the role that academic libraries play in the teaching, learning and research environments. ACRL is on the Web at http://www.acrl.org/, Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/ala.acrl and Twitter at @ala_acrl.