PRACTICES FOR PAPERS TO BE PRESENTED AT SLA CONFERENCES

It is the practice of the Special Libraries Association to provide a platform for its members to make a contribution to their profession by presenting/participating before their peers at the Association's Annual Conference.

The purpose of this policy is to provide guidelines for the development and delivery of formal presentations, such as papers, at Association meetings.

The main purpose of an SLA Conference (meeting) is to provide a platform for its members to make a contribution to their profession.

1. The term "paper" shall include any presentation of professional import for which titles and authors are listed on the program at the General Sessions, contributed paper sessions, or division programs which may be reduced to writing either prior to, during, or subsequent to the meeting at which it is presented. This is not meant to encompass those presentations by those speakers who are asked to make introductory or welcoming remarks as at a division hosted event.

2. No paper shall be presented at an Association or division meeting unless its title appears on the program for the meeting; no paper shall be presented which has been presented elsewhere or which has been published or accepted for publication.

3. No paper by a librarian or information scientist who is not a member of the Association shall appear on the program of an Association meeting, or division meeting or committee meeting unless it is a joint paper with one or more Association members, unless the author has been invited to present the paper at a meeting organized by a division or section or committee, and the chairman of such division or section or committee has certified to the Executive Director of the Association prior to publication of the program that presentation by the author of such paper is important to the success of the meeting.

4. Authorship of papers shall be accredited only to individuals and not to libraries, companies or other organizations.

5. Rules corresponding to Items 1, 2 and 3 above for a cooperative meeting shall be subject to agreement in advance between the organizations concerned, but should conform, insofar as possible, to these statements and be subject to approval of the organization by the Executive Director.

6. The Association assumes no responsibility for statements or opinions expressed by individuals in papers or discussion thereof.

7. The President of the Association shall have authority to exclude any paper from a program at any time prior to its presentation at a meeting of the Association.

8. The Association's approved journal has the right of "first refusal" for all papers presented at Association, division or section meetings. Papers presented at division or section meetings will be returned to the divisions if they are not considered appropriate for the Association's journal. Papers presented at General Sessions will be returned to the authors if they are not considered appropriate for the Association's journal. However, consideration of the publication of papers in the Association's journal is based upon the earliest date of receipt of the complete paper by the journal's editor.

9. The SLA Board of Directors has empowered officers of divisions to request any paper in advance, so that it may be passed upon and an indication made to the author as to whether the author is to read the entire paper or to abstract it in order to allow time for discussion.

Special attention should be given to avoid the misuse of trade names or copyrighted materials in papers given at the meetings of the Association.

The Executive Director is responsible for monitoring the compliance with this policy.

Approved: October 1977
Reformatted: October 1995