2025 Annual CSLA Conference

2025 Annual Conference

January 30 - February 2, 2025

San Jose Signia Hotel, San Jose, CA

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Call for Proposals

The California School Library Association (CSLA) seeks presentation proposals for the CSLA annual conference from January 30-February 2, 2025 at the San Jose Signia Hotel.

The first deadline for proposal submissions is midnight, August 30.

We invite a broad mix of speakers and diverse ideas to support breakout sessions, workshops, and panel discussions that will help CSLA members gain expertise in school leadership and school library effectiveness. Concurrent Sessions and/or workshops should be designed for an audience of California educators, administrators, teacher librarians, and/or classified school library staff.

How to Submit a Proposal

Submit a proposal for a Lightning Session, Concurrent Session, Innovation Showcase, or Workshop:

Please submit proposals via this Google Form. If submitting multiple proposals, please fill out a separate form for each session or workshop.

All sessions are to be free of commercial influence.
Workshops are two hours long.
Concurrent sessions are one hour long.
Lightning sessions are 25 minutes long, with two sessions conducted back-to-back.

Submit a Proposal

Preview Proposal Form

About the Innovation Showcase

The Innovation Showcase session is one hour long and showcases best practices, innovative ideas, and adaptive projects and practices.

Presenters are provided one 6-foot-long table to display information, samples, and how-tos about an innovative program, event, lesson, or activities to inspire other library educators. Each room will have four to six tables and attendees can roam through rooms to glean information and ask questions.

Small program presentations should offer visuals in handouts, laptop presentations, or samples. While attendees will engage and explore with “ideas” that spark further interest, presenters should generally be able to explain their table in 2-3 minutes to groups who visit.

For the Innovation Showcase, consider using a tri-fold presentation board as no posters are allowed to be hung up on walls.

The Finer Details

All session titles should be 10 words or less and communicate clearly the content of the program.

Spell out abbreviations or acronyms for institutions, school names, job titles, or cities.

Complete the concurrent session proposal process all at once. Editing or updating will not be possible after submitting. It may be helpful to prepare information in a separate document, and then copy the details into the proposal form. This document includes the questions for this year’s submission form.

Proposals will be evaluated based on their potential interest to conference attendees (i.e., educators, teacher librarians, classified library staff, retirees), connection to our theme and focus, and contribution to the body of knowledge associated with school libraries.

First proposal deadline is 11:59 pm on August 30, 2024.

Additional proposals will be accepted after this date until space and availability of additional speakers cannot be accommodated. Primary presenters will be notified of the status of their proposal(s) by the end of September 2024, and for as long as proposals are still being accepted thereafter. If your proposal is selected, you and any co-presenters must register for the 2025 Annual Conference. (Please see Review Acceptance information.)

Presenter Compensation

Questions?

If you have additional questions about the conference proposal submission process, please contact:

Ashlee Nishiya, profdev@csla.net

Rene Hohls, president_rene@csla.net

Stay tuned for more details!

Exhibitors

Are you interested in exhibiting at the 2025 CSLA Conference? Visit Conference Exhibitors for details and application information.

Tips for Justifying your Attendance

Saves school money in times of challenging budgets.

Provides time saving, money saving, and innovative ideas for librarians, library staff, teachers, and students to use.

Learn from experienced teacher librarians and classified library personnel.

Exhibits offer the chance to review products that would fit the needs of your school. Offers the chance to network with vendors.

See demonstrations of new products and new product lines.

Conference provides an opportunity to hear experts in Young Adult and Children's literature.

Become a more effective teacher librarian or classified library staff member:

Provides ideas, strategies, and technology to serve your users.

Learn many of the cloud-based tools and social networks that students enjoy and teachers need to know.

Grow your personal learning network by meeting people from around the state.

Increase your value to the school by having the tools to teach Digital Literacy, Internet Safety, Cyber Safety for students, the Common Core State Standards, Model California School Library Standards, Copyright & Creativity, and more.

Learn how to advocate for your library program:

Hear from our advocates in Sacramento as they share legislation that affects school library programs.

Learn about strategies to showcase your unique skills, becoming indispensable to your school and district.

Gain confidence in your ability to advocate for your student's library programs.

Finally, when you return to your school, share with your principal and staff what you learned from sessions, workshops, vendors, informal meetings, and special events.