Session Description:
Conferences are seen as a central component to spread knowledge, gather new ideas, and network within the library profession. Despite this, conferences often remain inaccessible to many library staff for a variety reasons, whether due to cost, time, travel distance, personal obligations, etc., thus reinforcing the inequalities that permeate our profession. Panelists who have all planned small-scale grassroots conferences will discuss their various organizing approaches, how those approaches met the needs of their communities, as well as dilemmas and difficulties encountered during planning in order to reconceptualize the status quo and disrupt the power dynamics typically reinforced by large-scale conferences.
