Call for Papers

The 114.BiblioCon will take place from 19 – 22 June 2026 at the ESTREL Berlin.
The organisers are the Berufsverband Information Bibliothek e.V. (BIB) and the VDB – Verein Deutscher Bibliothekarinnen und Bibliothekare e.V. (Association of German Librarians).

Please click on this button to access the submission system.

Presentations can be submitted until 30.11.2025.
As organisers, we call on you, our colleagues as experts from academic and public libraries, information institutions and representatives of relevant associations to submit proposals for lectures and panel discussions on the following topics.

Topic 1: Data sovereignty

Here: AI, manipulation techniques, authenticity of generated content, quality management, promotion and acquisition of necessary skills, data sovereignty, disclosure of data sovereignty through contracts, transparency requirements, socio-political contexts

Topic 2: Data curation

Here: Open science, project results, networking, content classification, research data management, research software, library software, metadata, standard data, LinkedOpenData

Topic 3: Spaces

Here: Construction, services, working conditions, learning locations, places of residence, research locations, workflows

Topic 4: Qualifications

Here: Career changers, library expertise, qualifications, requirements management, personnel recruitment, further education, training, staff retention, personnel development

Topic 5: Traditions

Here: Regulations, book preservation, grandfathering, colonialism, publishing, library control, management

Topic 6: Dialogue

Here: Citizen participation, citizen science, democracy, politics, engagement, volunteering, diversity, influence

#Freiraum26
For the presentation of current topics, the use of the #Freiraum26 in the exhibition is ideal. Planning for #Freiraum26 will be possible with a short lead time and therefore allows the inclusion of contributions that can be planned at short notice.

Please pay attention to the separate call in January.

Submissions can only be made online; other methods of submission will not be considered, nor will incomplete submissions. Each submission must include an abstract, details of the panellists and moderator, all speakers, as well as details of the target audience and time/space requirements.

Please always link your submission to the names of all persons involved. Only these names can be checked for scheduling conflicts during the programme planning process. Unfortunately, subsequent programme changes are not possible.

BiblioCon would like to increasingly incorporate ideas and best practices from an international context and enable colleagues from non-German-speaking libraries and other areas to access discussions and developments. We therefore expressly welcome the submission of English-language contributions. When submitting your proposal, please indicate whether you are planning an English-language contribution or are flexible in your choice of presentation language.

BiblioCon thrives on the commitment of its participants, which is why lecture fees and travel expense reimbursements are not provided. The programme committee reserves the right to make individual decisions on requests from associations and committees.

Presentations by company representatives are part of the fee-based company programme. If company products are discussed in presentations by professional colleagues, it must be ensured that the focus is on service aspects; otherwise, the submitted contribution will be treated as a company presentation.

Individual colleagues who are not (or no longer) employed full-time in libraries and earn their main living from consulting and training activities are welcome to submit contributions. However, these contributions will be treated as company presentations and subject to a lower fee. This applies primarily to ‘solo self-employed’ individuals and not to employees of companies (see Company Presentation).

Proposals for events should be submitted in the form of an abstract of no more than 2,000 characters (including spaces). The title must not exceed 100 characters, and the organisers reserve the right to edit titles. Please provide a short biography of no more than 300 characters, preferably with a link to the content of the abstract submitted. Please also list the expected space requirements and target audience for your events. Please remember not to overload the presentations and prepare your presentation in a legible and concise manner.

We will evaluate submissions based on the following criteria:

• Quality of content
• Practical relevance
• Topicality and innovation potential
• Internationality and international connectivity
• (Project) results

Conference contributions from commissions of the organising associations can be submitted as fully curated sessions. The session will be evaluated as a whole by the programme committee.

Publication of presentations

By submitting their contributions, speakers agree that the abstracts of accepted presentations will be made available on the online publication server (BIB-OPUS, https://opus4.kobv.de/opus4-bib-info) until the start of the 114th BiblioCon.

Speakers may also submit the full version of their presentation online in good time before their presentation – media submissions will still be accepted on site. Details will be communicated to speakers upon acceptance of their presentation.

Selected presentations will be published after BiblioCon either in the VDB’s open access journal ‘o-bib’, in the printed conference proceedings published by o-bib, in the BIB’s journal ‘BuB – Forum Bibliothek Information’ (online and print) or on the BIB-OPUS server. Speakers whose presentations are selected for publication will be asked by the respective editorial team to submit their manuscripts to the editors shortly after the end of the conference. Further details will be communicated to speakers upon acceptance of their presentations.

Requirements for special equipment
If you have any special requirements regarding room furnishings, these must be specified when submitting your application. As renovations are expensive and labour-intensive, we plan to provide a medium-sized room with the option of customisation. Tables can be moved to the edges or brought into the centre, and chairs can be arranged in circles or open spaces.

Working sessions

Please note: With the exception of the general meetings of BIB, VDB and dbv, access to the working sessions at the congress venue is only possible for registered congress visitors.

Registration for general meetings is carried out by the responsible committee.

Other working sessions submitted will be assigned to the regular review process by the programme committee. Please note that working sessions with multiple speakers and content focuses must be submitted as content-related sessions for the main programme in the form of individual presentations. Allocation will be based on availability criteria; rooms outside the conference venue may have to be used if necessary.

Individual presentations

In order to allow sufficient time for discussions, individual presentations are limited to a maximum of 20 minutes. Only individual presentations may be submitted, not blocks of presentations. If there is a thematic connection between several presentations, please indicate this in the comments field when submitting your proposal.
Due to the limited speaking time, a maximum of two speakers per presentation can be considered. Both will be listed in the speaker list (online and print). All other authors and/or speakers can only be listed directly in the abstract and will not be included in the review of time overlaps (see above).

If a moderator is proposed for one or more presentations, please name them. Speakers receive free admission. If several people are giving presentations, only one person will receive this benefit.

Panel discussions

Panel discussions are intended to be controversial debates on a given topic. Each participant pursues a thesis, which they briefly present at the beginning of the discussion. The audience participates in the course of the discussion.

Panels with more than five participants plus a moderator are not permitted.

Between 90 minutes and two hours are available for panel discussions. Please state the (controversial) theses in the abstract, as well as the participants (if applicable, also in status; ‘requested’) and the moderator of the discussion. The moderator of each discussion receives free admission.

Panel participants who are not from the BID context and who bring an external perspective to the discussion can be granted free admission via a free day ticket (by emailing registrierung@bibliocon.de). There is no entitlement to this benefit. The speakers at BiblioCon are volunteers and are not paid a fee. This also applies to moderators.

Hands-on Labs
Hands-on labs will once again be held at BiblioCon. Hands-on labs focus on a topic, software tool or service from a practical perspective and aim to actively involve participants. Hands-on labs consisting of a series of lectures will not be accepted. The organiser of the hands-on lab will receive free admission (one person).

Curated sessions of the commissions
Conference contributions from committees of the organising associations may be submitted as fully curated sessions. Individual presentations must be submitted as usual. However, it may be indicated that they are part of a planned session. The session will be evaluated as a whole by the programme committee.

Company presentations and product presentations
Companies are invited to present their products in the company exhibition and at company presentations, where they can engage in conversation with customers. Company presentations, exhibition space and sponsorship services can be booked via the online booking system ‘Exhibition and Sponsoring Ordering System (ESOS™)’. Ms Alexandra Krohn from K.I.T. Group is available as your contact person at ausstellung@bibliocon.de. Further information and the relevant terms and conditions can be found in the exhibitor and sponsor handbook under the heading ‘Company Presentations’.

Poster
Posters on current and innovative issues and topics may be submitted. A separate call for submissions will be issued in January 2026.

Dates
The submission of abstracts is possible from 01.09. to 30.11.2025.
The authors will be notified by end of February 2026.

The submission of posters is possible from 12.01. to 20.03.2026.
There will be a separate call for poster.

The submission of abstracts for the #Freiraum26 is possible from 12.01.2026.
There will be a separate call for #Freiraum26.

 

Contact
For any further question please fell free to contact Mrs. Wioletta Syplie of K.I.T. Group at abstract@bibliocon.de.

Please click on this button to access the submission system.