Take a Peek at Our Conference Schedule for ACRL 2025

The panels and programs we're most looking forward to

Posted on March 26, 2025 in Blog Posts

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LibTech Insights editor
A librarian scheduling her time at the ACRL conference

With just one week until the ACRL conference in Minneapolis, we at Choice have been scouring the panels and finalizing our schedule. With more than 500 programs to choose from, we’ve been finding this difficult to do, and imagine that many of you are in the same boat. (Don’t worry if you can’t attend—we’ll write a party report with all the important takeaways and hot gossip when we’re back from Minneapolis.)

To help you plan your schedules and give you a preview of our coverage, we thought we’d highlight a few tech-related programs we’re most looking forward to attending.

Reframing Information-Seeking in the Age of Generative AI: A Critical and Humanistic Approach

Thursday, April 3 @ 8:30 AM

Perhaps unsurprisingly, AI dominates most of the tech-focused panels at ACRL this year. While we can’t attend every session, we are excited to see this conversation unfolding. Joseph Kevin Sebastian’s paper, bright and early on Thursday, offers new perspectives of information-seeking behavior for AI-accompanied research, drawing from queer theory and critical digital literacy. From the description: “Participants will explore pedagogical strategies that challenge mechanistic views of AI literacy, foreground subjectivity, and cultivate reflexive engagement with AI systems.” We’re excited to learn more about the “sociocultural, affective, and identity-driven dimensions of research” as they pertain to AI.

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AI Competencies for Library Workers

Thursday, April 3 @ 10:30 AM

This talk is our can’t-miss event of the conference. ACRL President (and former LTI webinar host) Leo Lo is giving an hour-long talk about ACRL’s task force to develop AI competencies for library workers. We focus a lot on what AI literacy means in a general or a pedagogical context, but this talk will hopefully get us to think deeply about the skills that library professionals themselves need. Alongside the two co-chairs of the task force, Lo will “unveil” the competencies they developed and show how they can support professional growth.

Empowering Digital Accessibility: Strategies and Practices for Inclusive Library Content Creation

Thursday, April 3 @ 1:00 PM

At LibTech Insights, we love a great case study. In this panel, a team of librarians from UC–Davis is reporting on their efforts to make their online guide content more accessible. The panel covers everything from peer review procedures to workflows and shared governance, offering a full-spectrum treatment of digital accessibility and promising actionable takeaways.

Empower Not Punish: Educating Students’ Use of AI Tools in Higher Education

Friday, April 4 @ 10:30 AM

We have long been interested in ethical uses of AI in higher ed and, in particular, in having conversations that meet students where they’re at rather than circulating fears about cheating. We are excited to see a panel that emphasizes academic integrity and the real risks of these tools while also creating digital literacy initiatives to address these issues. Many students don’t use or don’t know how they should use AI in higher ed. We should focus on teaching them now so we don’t have to mitigate problems down the line.

Evaluating generative AI-powered resources: separating the tools from the toys

Friday, April 4 @ 1:00 PM

The most brilliant minds of ACRL are coming together for this panel on Friday afternoon. By most brilliant minds, I mean the Choice crew! Along with two librarians, Abby Mann and Evan Fruehauf, we are discussing the rubric we have developed for evaluating AI tools. We know there’s a lot of hype and marketing surrounding AI, and we also know that libraries don’t have huge budgets to spend on “hype.” Our goal is to provide guidelines for librarians to use as they consider which AI tools to purchase for their institutions.

There are so, so many more great panels at ACRL this year, and we’d love to highlight more but we have a PowerPoint to make. Or we might save that until the plane ride over.

Hope to see you in Minneapolis!

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