Te Rau Herenga o Aotearoa LIANZA 2025 Conference will be every bit as amazing as LIANZA 2023.
Ko au te taiao, ko te taiao ko au - Sustaining and Changing
Whakatauki
Taiao is a Māori word that can mean 'the natural world' or the 'environment'. It can also refer to the land, water, climate, and living beings that make up the natural world. "Ko au te taiao, ko te taiao ko au" can take on new meanings. I am the natural world, and the natural world is me, so too, I am the land, water and so forth.
In the Māori worldview, the environment is part of the collective and collective thinking. In this conference, te taiao is central to our planning and implementation.
Kaupapa
Aotearoa is changing - our communities are changing, our climate is changing, our ways of communicating and knowledge practices are changing, technology continues to rapidly change while access to the benefits of new technology continues to widen, and trust relationships are being questioned and renegotiated. The pace of change just seems to accelerate.
Libraries are continually changing and adapting to meet the needs of our communities - it's one of our great strengths and part of why it's so interesting to be a librarian and information professional in contemporary society.
This is the mahi we need to do to educate and sustain ourselves and thrive through this continual change. Ongoing changes include - being community hubs, digital experts and digital literacy teachers, and (mis/dis)information navigators, offering critical social (and government) services, and being climate advocates, to name a few. While at the same time, our shift to digital and responding to AI draws on limited global resources.
Given our role at the heart of our communities and learning environments, we are some of the first to see other changes or the need to reinforce the value of existing services required to sustain our communities. For example:
- The societal good of reading for pleasure and the role of libraries within the literary and education eco-system.
- Toitū te Taiao, Toitū Te Tiriti. Upholding Te Tiriti o Waitangi in an ever-changing environment.
- The value of library spaces and services for inter-generational activity and learning.
- Society's increasing need for community human connectivity the more global and digital the world becomes.
- The need to easily discover, access and use trusted information resources important in our lives through the continual shift to digital.
This is big kaupapa that matters! LIANZA 2025 provides the opportunity to acknowledge, share, and understand these changes, and to address our mahi to sustain our profession, our communities, our tamariki, our climate, and our future through change.
Key dates
- Call for proposals open February 24
- Call for reviewers February 24
- Call for proposals close April 28
- Early bird registration opens May 19
- Notification of acceptance of proposals by June 9
- Early bird registration closes July 25