Please join us April 12-14, 2023 at the 2023 BC Library Conference!
Conference Theme
Our 2023 conference theme is Windows, Mirrors, & Sliding Glass Doors. This theme of insight, reflection, and transition speaks to the role of libraries and library workers: the work we are striving to do with our communities, in our organizations, and within ourselves.
We were inspired by the article written by Dr. Rudine Sims Bishop in 1990 about the need for diverse children’s literature. Dr. Sims Bishop said:
Books are sometimes windows, offering views of worlds that may be real or imagined, familiar or strange. These windows are also sliding glass doors, and readers have only to walk through in imagination to become part of whatever world has been created or recreated by the author. When lighting conditions are just right, however, a window can also be a mirror. Literature transforms human experience and reflects it back to us, and in that reflection we can see our own lives and experiences as part of the larger human experience.
Dr. Sims Bishop was expanding upon ideas in a piece written by Emily Style in 1988 about the need for curriculum to be both a window and mirror for students, “in order to reflect and reveal most accurately both a multicultural world and the student [themselves].”
People will always need to validate their own experiences and perspectives. Still, in an increasingly polarized society, it’s also critical that we empathize and attempt to see why others might have drastically different takes on reality and aspire to different futures. An essential part of our library work is constructing and maintaining mirrors, windows, and sliding glass doors to support the people we serve and self-reflect on the assumptions and motivations underlying everything we do.
How the 2023 Conference will be different from past Conferences?
This will be BCLA’s first in-person conference since 2019. The 2023 BC Library Conference will take place April 12-14 at the Sheraton Vancouver Airport Hotel in Richmond. In-person sessions, events, and trade show will take place from Wednesday evening through to Friday afternoon.
The conference will offer both in-person and virtual experiences. We are currently reviewing hybrid and virtual options to ensure we are offering the best quality experiences possible with our resources.
We know it is essential to maintain a virtual option and not just go back to what we have done in the past. We heard from you that the virtual option allowed more people to attend and worked better for some learning styles. We also heard from many of you that you are eager to gather in-person again. We look forward to learning from this new experience and refining the conference for future years based on your feedback.
Exhibitor registration is open. If you have questions, please email our Conference Coordinator, Shannon Stumph.
We hope to see you at BC Library Conference on April 12-14, 2023!