The Society for Scholarly Publishing’s (SSP) 43rd Annual Meeting will be the last week of May 2021, and it’s not too late to submit your proposals! The deadline for Educational Session proposals is December 4. Submissions for the ever-popular Previews Sessions and Posters are now open too. Poster proposals can be submitted through January 29, 2021, and Preview Session proposals can be submitted through February 26, 2021. All sessions will be presented virtually.

SSP Annual Meeting Banner

The 2021 meeting theme is Charting a New Course from Chaos to Innovation, and the structure of the meeting will reflect our changed world. Without dwelling on the tumultuous events of the past year, we recognize their impact, igniting — and sometimes forcing — innovation to meet changing demands. We are looking forward to receiving content that speaks to the meeting topic, but we also welcome creative, non-thematic submissions. No matter the specific subject, all submissions should describe how the proposed session will engage SSP’s audience with vital information, challenge our way of thinking, and involve a diverse set of speakers across subject areas.

We encourage anyone who is involved in publishing or scholarly communication in any capacity to submit a proposal. The SSP Annual Meeting has a very wide scope, including all aspects of book and journal publishing from organizations of all types, perspectives from libraries and academia, discussion of fields from medicine to humanities, and a focus on the broader effects of sharing new knowledge on the world.

When working on your submissions (and feel free to submit multiple proposals!), please consider these descriptions:

  • Educational Sessions: Educational sessions are designed for multiple speakers to present a specific topic that will benefit SSP attendees. Successful proposals will include concrete plans for interactivity, the inclusion of new voices, a diverse panel (with respect to gender, race, background, organization type, subject area), and clear learning objectives for the audience. Educational session slots will be 60 minutes in length. Educational session proposals are being accepted through December 4, 2020.
  • Posters: Poster presentations will provide an opportunity for information to be displayed and available to all attendees, and for poster authors to be able to discuss their poster’s content with interested parties. Poster proposals are being accepted through January 29, 2021.
  • 5-minute Preview Sessions: Brief, back-to-back presentations showcasing new products, platforms, and/or content from publishers and vendors. Preview session proposals are being accepted through February 26, 2021.

Detailed submission guidelines are available at the SSP website. If you have any questions, please send them to tracy.mitchell@conferencedirect.com.

We are grateful to Ex Ordo for their sponsorship of SSP’s proposal submission system! Visit our 43rd Annual Meeting site for submission guidelines as well for more information on Poster and Preview Session submissions.

PLEASE NOTE: Draft submissions without substantive content that are not completed within 24 hours may be automatically removed by the system. We strongly recommend that you include a preliminary abstract within your draft submissions to prevent this.

We look forward to your proposals!

Yael Fitzpatrick

Yael Fitzpatrick is Editorial Ethics Manager at the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and has worked in a variety of roles within the scholarly communications community for over 25 years, including as Art Director for the Science family of journals. She is currently serving in her fourth and final year as co-chair of the SSP Annual Meeting Program Committee.

Cason Lynley

Cason Lynley is the Director of Marketing, Sales, and Finance at Duke University Press and has served on many SSP committees since 2010, including serving as Annual Meeting co-chair (2018-2021) and the Audit Committee co-chair.

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