MLA ’25 Contributed Content
Content contributed by professional in the field is the heart of each MLA conference. Share your professional research and explorations with your colleagues and contribute to the knowledge of the profession!
Schedule for MLA ’25 Proposals
Round 1: Papers and Immersion Sessions: Open September 4 – October 24, 2024
Round 2: Posters and Lightning Talks: Open December 12, 2024 – January 30, 2025
General Abstract and Presentation Questions
Submissions for round 1 are for immersion sessions and paper presentation proposals. Submissions for round 2 are for posters and lightning talks.
Commercial presentations are not eligible for contributed content submission.
Immersion Sessions
Immersion sessions are meant to provide an in-depth perspective on areas of interest to MLA members. Immersion sessions should strive for attendee engagement and participation. They can vary widely in format; examples are a panel of invited speakers debating, a session that facilitates development of a work product to benefit the profession, or a facilitated book discussion. Programming excluded from immersion sessions are the other types of contributed content.
Paper Presentations
Paper presentations are 12-15 minutes and focus on research or programs. Authors should select one type of abstract for each proposal during the submission process.
- Research paper presentations report on designing, conducting, and analyzing a research project.
- Program presentations describe the creation and improvement of products, programs, initiatives, technologies, administrative practices, or services that librarians and information professionals’ conduct.
Lightning Talks
Lightning talks are brief (up to 5-minute presentations), focus on one main point, and are more verbally oriented. You may include 1-3 slides to help you illustrate your project. Lightning talks can be research or program oriented.
Posters
Posters are visual and can be research or program oriented. Poster sessions in-person allow you to present your poster with additional verbal information to interested attendees and to answer questions.
- Typically, paper presentations are limited to 12-15 minutes and lightning talk presentations are limited to 5 minutes—but this depends on the total number of presentations scheduled during a session of 75 minutes. Some presentations may have a little more time, some a little less.
- These limits also apply to on-demand recorded or virtual presentations.
- Onsite poster presenters should prepare to staff their poster during the in-person meeting and record up to a five-minute presentation to accompany their poster for on-demand.
- Consider your presentation style and the nature of the material you wish to present.
- Posters are highly visual presentations.
- Lightning talks are brief, focus on one main point, and are more verbally oriented.
- Papers are lengthier and verbally oriented.
- You may also wish to consider the rules or guidelines of your institution for obtaining travel funding and consider your career goals. Generally paper presentation acceptance is more competitive than poster or lightning talk acceptances.
Download the MLA ’25 review criteria (rubrics) that will be used to review all submitted abstracts.
Given time constraints, there is a maximum number of papers, posters, and lightning talks that can be presented. To make acceptance decisions, all scored proposals submitted as paper presentations are pooled, and the highest-scoring abstracts will be accepted. We follow a similar process for posters and lightning talks.
“As part of Medical Library Association’s (MLA) professional development and continuing education efforts, you or MLA may record sessions prior to or at the Annual Conference and MLA makes those audio and video recordings available to attendees, members, and other professionals interested in the topics being covered. You agree to participate in the Annual Conference program described above and therefore grant the following licensing rights for no monetary compensation:
You hereby grant to MLA the following rights to any written or visual material submitted in connection with your presentation(s) at the Annual Conference in any and all media or form of communication whether now or existing or hereafter developed:
- the non-exclusive worldwide right to transcribe, publish, reproduce, distribute, sell, display, or license your abstract and presentation(s), as presented at MLA’s Annual Conference, alone or in conjunction with other materials;
- the non-exclusive worldwide right to use your presentation(s) recordings or materials as part of a course book or in any other publication produced by MLA; and
- the non-exclusive worldwide right to use your name, likeness, and biography in connection with the advertising and promotion of your presentation(s) and/or MLA.
You warrant that you have authority to enter into this agreement and that your presentation and any other material:
- is original to you or your coauthors, not subject to any third party copyright;
- will not libel anyone or infringe on or invade the rights of others and you have obtained permission from the copyright proprietor for use of any third party copyrighted material;
- is not under consideration elsewhere for this Annual Conference and has not previously been presented at an MLA Annual Conference;
- is free of commercial bias; and
- will include a disclosure to the audience of any relevant conflicts of interest.
This speaker release does not give copyright or your ideas to MLA. You are welcome to give this same presentation at other conferences or venues.
MLA is happy to provide a copy of any recording made to you and will grant you a non-exclusive license to use the recording in any way you would like.”
For questions, please contact Kate Corcoran.
Based on past practice, what does this licensing agreement mean?
- MLA will produce an abstract book with your accepted abstract and any updates you provide ahead of the conference for publication in the Journal of the Medical Library Association as part of MLA ’25 proceedings and on the MLANET website.
- MLA may provide your abstract and recorded presentation to the wider audience of MLA members after an exclusive attendee-only viewing period. This may be in a searchable database format on MLANET as part of MLA’s professional practice library.
- MLA may use your likeness and name to promote, in print and online, to members and others, your presentation as part of the MLA annual conference.
Transparency
- Sources of funding should always be disclosed.
- Where a clinical trial registration number is available, this should be included.
- For research papers, any IRB approval should be disclosed.
Conflicts of Interest
Presenters shall provide a statement and slide at the beginning of the presentation that discloses any conflicts of interest (or lack thereof). Examples and wording:
- [Name of individual] owns other interest in the organization and brief description
- [Name of individual] has received fees for serving as a speaker, a consultant, or an advisory board member for [names of organizations], and has received research funding from [names of organization].
- [Name of individual] is an employee of [name of organization].
- [Name of individual] owns stocks and shares in [name of organization].
The MLA Research Caucus gives out several awards recognizing those paper and poster presenters whose work demonstrates high-quality research, and they will continue this for the 2025 conference.
If your proposal is accepted, you’ll be asked if you wish to be considered for the Research Awards. Criteria used to assess research projects and the process used to judge projects are created by the MLA Research Caucus. We will indicate all accepted research papers and posters with a notation in the Official Program.
Disclaimer
MLA assumes no responsibility for statements or opinions expressed in the presentations. The MLA President and Executive Director have the authority to exclude a presentation from the program.
How to Submit MLA ’25 Proposals
- Submit abstracts for papers, posters, and lightning talks using MLA’s online abstract submission site. You may continue to make changes to your abstract until the specific submission deadlines, noted below. There will be no extensions of these deadlines. You are encouraged to submit your abstract before the deadline to avoid the last-minute rush and allow time for technical assistance, if needed.
- To use the system, you need to provide your name and email address. If you submitted for 2024, you can use that login, or reset your Pheedloop password if needed.The email will come from “Medical Library Association” at the email address <no-reply@pheedloop.com>.
- You do not need to be an MLA member to submit content.
- Your full abstract submission includes multiple areas where you will need to provide information. Please see additional entries on these specific topics below.
- Please examine the criteria (rubric) to be used to evaluate abstracts to ensure your abstract includes the level of detail needed to permit review.
- To ensure anonymous peer review, author names, institution affiliations, locations, and any address information should NOT be in the title, description or the body of your abstract.
- Program description submissions MUST use structured abstract format and include Background, Description, and Conclusions.
- Research submissions MUST use structured abstract format and include Objectives, Methods, Results, and Conclusions. Please refer to The Structured Abstract: An Essential Tool for Researchers for guidance on writing a structured research abstract.
- Please consult the MLA Style Guide for guidance on style, spelling, and grammar.
- When completing your submissions, please include results or conclusions (if complete). These will be included in the peer review process. See the question below for more information on adding results and conclusions after the submission process.
- Your submission MUST include the author/main contact, background, and description sections of the structured abstract.
- Titles and abstracts will not be formatted or edited. It is your responsibility to check for correct spelling, grammar, and punctuation. You will be judged in the review process on the professionalism of your submitted abstract. The abstract as submitted will be put into the online meeting scheduler.
- The background section should include program objectives and/or purpose, background description and setting. Word limit is 120 words.
- The description section should include the process of developing, implementing, and evaluating your new service, program, or initiative and may not exceed 200 words.
- The conclusions section: If your program has already been completed, enter your outcomes at this time. Otherwise, include outcomes of the program you expect to measure. Word limit is 120 words.
- Your submission MUST include the author/main contact, objective, and methods sections of the structured abstract.
- Titles and abstracts will not be formatted or edited. It is your responsibility to check for correct spelling, grammar, and punctuation. You will be judged in the review process on the professionalism of your submitted abstract. The abstract as submitted will be put into the online meeting scheduler and abstract supplement.
- The objective section (for which you may substitute the research question) may not exceed 100 words.
- The methods section should describe your methods in sufficient detail (include the design, setting, population, intervention, and exposure as appropriate) so the peer reviewers can evaluate your submission adequately. Word limit is 200 words.
- The results section: enter results and conclusions if completed. Authors should share any available information about your results at the time of submission, such as how the approach to analysis (quantitative, qualitative, mixed methods, etc.) will inform conclusions. The results section may not exceed 100 words.
- The conclusions section: enter conclusions if completed. Authors should share any available information about your conclusions at the time of submission, such as trends you have noticed in this field will inform conclusions. The conclusion section may not exceed 120 words.
- Authors with selected abstracts will need to add the results and conclusions sections if they did not already do so in the initial abstract submission; please add by late February 2025
Topic area(s)
Categorize your submission based on one or more topic areas (select up to two main topic areas), which will provide the NPC a common taxonomy for organizing and scheduling contributed content. If your submission is accepted, your selections will also help attendees to identify content of most interest to them
Other areas
- Additional authors, if any, (optional)
- MLA ’25 presenting preference
- Research award consideration (if you submit a research abstract)
- JMLA Virtual Project Section Consideration (does not guarantee publication)
- Reviewer feedback preference
No. Structured abstracts should NOT contain tables, figures, or bibliographic references.
IMPORTANT: To ensure anonymous peer review, author names, institution affiliations, locations, and any address information should NOT be in the title, description or the body of your abstract.
The National Program Committee (NPC) reserves the right to edit abstracts containing any author, institutional, location, or company names for the purpose of eliminating identifying information before sending the abstract to reviewers. You are urged to anonymize your abstract yourself, because the NPC cannot guarantee the resulting quality if changes must be made after submission.
- Authors of paper abstracts will receive by email an automated acceptance or rejection notification letter on/after December 5, 2024. If you are a paper author and have not received the notification email by December 16, please contact Debra Cavanaugh.
- If you submit a poster or lightning talk abstract, you will receive notification by February 26, 2025.
- If you have COMPLETED and submitted your proposal and it is BEFORE the submission deadline, contact Debra Cavanaugh, director, Professional Development. Be sure to include the full title of your abstract and author name.
- If your proposal has been ACCEPTED, withdrawal or cancellation must be in writing and emailed to Debra Cavanaugh, director, Professional Development. Be sure to include the full title of your abstract and author name.
- If you have been working on a proposal and do not submit it, your proposal will not be considered. MLA may (but is not obligated to) contact you regarding your plans, if your proposal appears to be complete but was not submitted.
Yes, please do! NOTE: the focus and requirements for each type of presentation abstract are different. If a primary author wishes to resubmit an unsuccessful paper or immersion session topic, the submission must be changed to meet the requirements for the new presentation type (poster or lightning talk). Primary authors have access to their previous submission data and a “Preview Abstract” button to enable easier resubmission.