Librarians in North America have long-standing relationships with Western European libraries and materials vendors to support research in the humanities and to maintain non-English collections. In today’s research and budgetary environments there are increasing pressures on the traditional humanities, while developments in technology and large-scale initiatives offer new opportunities for libraries, publishers, and content suppliers to collaborate. Despite the importance of addressing these changes, there are few opportunities for librarians and vendors to have meaningful and deep discussions.

The New Shape of Sharing: Networks, Expertise, Information continues conversations begun at the New Directions Symposium held in Frankfurt in 2017. This multi-day forum of panel presentations, a poster session, and interactive breakout sessions on key issues facing Western European collections and public services will encourage both structured and unstructured debate. We will advance our understanding of the challenges and initiate action in three areas: design new models for collaborative collection development and services; explore a growing range of content and format types and what they mean for libraries and researchers, and highlight the evolving role of libraries and librarians in the research process.

Draft Program Schedule

Draft Poster Session List

Some important dates to keep in mind:

• October 15, 2019: Extended proposal submission deadline
• December 2019: Notification of presenters and discussants
• December 10, 2019:  Deadline for travel stipend applications
• January 13, 2020: Pre-registration opens for presenters
• February 3, 2020:  Registration opens for attendees
• April 15, 2020: Deadline to submit presentation materials
• April 15, 2020 (or when full): Registration closes
• May 11-14, 2020: New Shape of Sharing Forum -- In-person event was postponed due to COVID-19.  Select sessions held as webinars in early 2021.