Best Practices Exchange (BPE) 2011

Best Practices Exchange (BPE) 2011:  “Distilling Digital Collections”

We are seeking proposals for sessions to be presented at the 6th annual
Best Practices Exchange (BPE), which will be held in Lexington, KY,
at the Hyatt Regency hotel, October 20-22, 2011. The BPE is a
conference that focuses on the management of digital information in
state government, and it brings together practitioners to discuss their
real-world experiences, including best practices and lessons learned.

Following the format of past Best Practices Exchanges we encourage you, the attendees, to present your projects and experiences, successes, failures and lessons learned. This year's conference has four broad tracks. Each track is enumerated below,
along with a list of themes embraced by each track. We ask that potential speakers be guided, but not limited, by the themes indicated. 

Each session will be 90 minutes long with two or more speakers per session.  We ask that you keep presentations to 10-15 minutes to allow for discussion and engagement with the audience.  Proposals should include an abstract of 100 words or less, the proposed track (if applicable), and the name, title, email, phone number and organization of each presenter.  You may submit a proposal for one speaker, which will then be paired with others by the program committee; or a proposal for a full session with multiple speakers (please contact and confirm the other speakers prior to submission.)  For more information about proposals, please see the “Presentations” page on the website at:  http://www.bpexchange.org/2011/?page_id=16

1) Access:  Online access; should everything be accessible; FOIA/Open Records issues; legal issues with access

2)Sustainability:  Budget/funding issues; technology (IT consolidation, lack of IT support); life after the grant; evaluation, statistics, and user feedback.

3) Digital Projects:  Lessons learned; what worked and what didn’t; solutions; new tools or services

4) Collaboration and Community: Support groups and user communities; shared  services; user services; library/archives crossovers

Proposals are due by September 15, 2011.  Please send all session proposals to Mark Myers, Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives, atmark.myers@ky.gov .

(The hotel costs will be $139/night and conference registration will be $125.  We are finalizing the details on how we are going to process registrations.  Registration information will be posted to the website:  www.bpexchange.org/2011soon.)