CALC in Cambs
Tuesday 18th April 2023 - The University of Cambridge Student Services Centre
After three years of running online events we're decided to host our first in-person CALC event to coincide with the start of the LILAC conference in Cambridge on Tuesday 18th April 2023.
Booking for CALC in Cambs is now closed.
Note that this is a separate event to our main conference, which will take place online in May.
Date, Times and Venue Information
CALC in Cambs will take place on Tuesday 18th April 2023, 12.30 - 17.00.
The venue for this event is The University of Cambridge Student Services Centre, Bene't Street, New Museums Site, CB2 3PT. The main entrance to the building is located off of Bene't Street.
Details of the building's accessibility information can be found on their AccessAble pages.
A map for the venue can be found on the University of Cambridge map and a video showing how to locate the building.
A multi-faith prayer room is available for all building users and can be found in the reception foyer.
An additional breakout room has been booked and will be set up as a quiet room.
The main event space has an integrated AV system including microphones.
Event Programme
12.30 - 12.45 Event start and attendee registration
12.45 - 13.00 Welcome and housekeeping
13.00 - 13.45 Speaker 1
13.45 - 14.00 Break
14.00 - 14.45 Speaker 2
14.45 - 15.00 Break
15.00 - 15.45 Speaker 3
15.45 - 16.00 Closing remarks
16.00 - 17.00 Networking and social time
19.00 - Optional evening social event (not included in ticket price)
The event programme may be subject change without notice.
Sessions will be presented live and will not be recorded or live-streamed.
Speakers
Naomi Smith
In 2020 Naomi Smith was recognised by IFLA (International Federation of Library Associations) and Goethe Instutute as an #Emerging InternationalVoice for her work and desire to create digital innovation within the Library sector.
Since then she has grown and developed her digital views and is now passionate abot promoting critical approaches to Technology and Critical Digital Justice which take into account Critical Race Theory and other critical approaches which she developed from her Masters in Race and Resistance at the University of Leeds .
Since 2020 Naomi has also gone on to educate different audiences on a range of social justice issues. She is now a qualified subject librarian teaching critical information literacy and critical pedagogy at The University of West London. She additionally uses her growing social media platforms of Twitter and Instagram to highlight critical justice issues to her followers.
She recently organised and hosted the procative #CritLibvsTech webinar which was attended by over 170 people globally.
Helen Rimmer
Helen Rimmer is Head of Library and Archives Service at the University of Westminster having previously held roles at different levels at Royal Holloway, City University, INTO UEA and University of Brighton.
She is passionate about building a kinder world, improving wellbeing, compassionate leadership, and Flexible Working. Helen has a PGCert in the Psychology of Kindness and Wellbeing at Work from the University of Sussex, and is sharing her knowledge through her The Kind Brave Leader project (@thekindbraveleader on Instagram).
She has many years experience in teaching and instruction, including online primarily in roles as a subject librarian.
Dr Rebecca Noone
Rebecca is an artist and SSHRC* Postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Information Studies at UCL. She was previously a Postdoctoral Fellow (2021) at the University of Toronto. In 2020 she completed a SSHRC-funded PhD at the University of Toronto Faculty of Information.
Situated in the areas of feminist media studies and critical information studies, her research focuses on the politics, discourse and practices of location in digital media. Her specializations include:
Critical information studies
Feminist media studies
Critical information literacy
Dritical data studies
Arts-based research methods/research creation.
*Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, Canada
Session Descriptions
Dr Rebecca Noone (she/her) - Location, Location, Location: Google Maps and the Politics of Placemaking.
Theme: Digital Humanities
Digital maps like have become deeply embroiled in our daily life— from finding route directions to checking reviews of restaurants. Popular critiques of digital maps often follow the tune of: ‘they are ruining our sense of direction!’ or ‘no one can read a map anymore!’ Moving away from these lamentations of individual failure, Noone focuses on the politics of placemaking undergirding digital mapping infrastructures with a critical data analysis of Google Maps and its drive to create a universal mapping platform. Looking at two American cities, Oakland, CA and Buffalo, New York, Noone walks through Google Maps methods of mapping (ominously titled Project Ground Truth) to critically evaluate how Google classifies and values spatial information. Through this process, Noone illustrates how Google Maps replicates and amplifies hegemonic geographies which then circulate to other information platforms.
Helen Rimmer (she/her) - Something Intangible - An introduction to the Importance of Emotional Intelligence in Library work.
Theme: Critical Workplaces
Emotional intelligence is the ability to understand, recognize, and manage one's own emotions as well as the emotions of others. This includes being able to identify and manage emotions, being able to motivate oneself and others, and having the ability to recognize and respond to the emotions of others.
In libraries and library work, the ability to recognize and respond to the emotions of others is especially important. This is because libraries and library colleagues serve a wide range of users, many of whom may have vastly different needs and expectations. By being able to recognize and respond to the emotions of others, we can better understand and meet the needs of patrons, and provide a more effective and efficient service.
This session will introduce Emotional Intelligence and an activity that will help library colleagues gain a better understanding of the importance of emotional intelligence in library work, as well as develop strategies for responding to user’s needs.
Naomi Smith (she/her) - The Need for Librarians to Adopt Critical Approaches to Technology
Theme: Critical Technology
This session will highlight the gap in Critical Librarianship scholarship and Library ‘Decolonisation’ initiaitives currently within UK Academic Libraries to critically discus or address the usage, perpespective and ethics of Technology and consequently will call for Library sectoral and scholarly silence about the links between Technology and Inequity to end.
Naomi will detail the inequitable Technological issues she experiences in her job as a subject librarian buying e-resources and will also share her research she undertook for her UCL MA in Library and Information Studies regarding the problematic policy-making and theorisation of technological issues such as ‘digital inequality’ within Academic Librarianship. The session aims to not only draw attention to the inequitable structures that Academic Librarians are trapped in but more importantly, begin to facilitate radical discussion and solutions to the issues that are posed within this session.
Ticket Price and Booking
Tickets for this event are £30. This includes venue access and three speaker sessions. This is an uncatered event but refreshments are included (hot drinks, juice, snacks).
Booking for CALC in Cambs is now closed.
Bursary Places
Bursary places for CALC in Cambs have now been allocated. Thank you to everyone that applied. We will be offering bursary tickets for our main conference in May 2023 in due course.
COVID-19 Information
CALC recognises that all formal guidance on COVID protections has been removed in England and we acknowledge that while the global pandemic continues there are risks associated with attending an indoor event. We also acknowledge that those risks are not evenly distributed and that some attendees may be more at risk and/or anxious than others. In order to make the event more accessible and comfortable for potentially vulnerable attendees, we are putting in place the following additional measures:
CALC in Cambs will be a masked event.
This means we will ask everyone attending to wear a mask when inside the venue during the main part of our event (between 12.30-5pm).
We will provide masks for people, should you forget to bring one.
Speakers may remove their masks whilst presenting. We will ask speakers to take a COVID test before attending, and encourage attendees to do so as well.
We will provide hand sanitiser and encourage attendees to regularly wash their hands according to the NHS guidance.
This excludes our evening social event, which is an optional indoor dinner.
We strongly encourage people who have been recently diagnosed with COVID-19, have recently had direct contact with an individual diagnosed with or suspected to have COVID-19, or are displaying symptoms commonly associated with COVID-19 to stay at home.
We reserve the right to refuse entry to, or ask people to leave the event if they are showing obvious signs of illness, particularly signs of COVID.
We will refund your ticket price if you are unable to attend because of COVID illness.
We will liaise with the venue regarding their approach to COVID, with a specific focus on ventilation/air purification in the event space.
If possible we will be providing the refreshments in an outdoor space and encourage attendees to take their refreshments outside [weather dependent].
If you test positive for COVID following the event, we encourage you to contact us so we can notify other attendees. We will not identify you in this message, it will only communicate that someone at the event had a positive COVID test.
Persistent non-compliance with safety measures at the event without [good reasons] may result in you being asked to leave the event without refund.
If you have any questions or would like to comment on our policy, please email calcconference@gmail.com
Catering Information
Our catering supplier for this event is Origin8, a local company that aims to use locally grown, seasonally appropriate ingredients.
They will be supplying us with the following:
Vegan and gluten free flapjack platter
We will supplement this order with a selection of biscuits plus any requests from attendees.