international · peer reviewed · open access
A pathway to professional success: a step-by-step guide for creating poster sessions in library and information studies for MLIS students and new librariansAcknowledgementsWe would like to acknowledge Ms. Adrienne McPhaul, Information Services Librarian, Cook Library, University of Southern Mississippi and Ms. Amia Baker, Business Librarian, Auburn University Libraries, outstanding colleagues with whom we have collaborated on several poster sessions over the years. We would also like to acknowledge Ms. Karen Croneis, Associate Professor, McLure Education Library, University of Alabama, and Dr. Tonyia J. Tidline, Director of PhD Program and Associate Professor, Graduate School of Library and Information Science, Dominican University, for their advice about poster sessions. AbstractThis article is a step-by-step plan for creating a display at a library conference poster session. A poster session is a series of posters from different researchers displayed in a venue at a library conference, similar in concept to a science fair. Each poster explains the results of a research project or shares practical information about a library service. This article takes the reader all the way from brainstorming an idea for a poster to presenting the poster and expanding it into an article. For LIS students, participating in poster sessions is a great way to become involved at library conferences and connect with colleagues in the profession. New librarians who have publishing requirements as part of their scholarly activities should also view poster sessions as a step towards publishing an article-and a step towards succeeding in their performance reviews or earning tenure. Most importantly, poster sessions help everyone in the LIS field exchange ideas so that they can improve the services they offer to patrons. This article is focused on helping LIS students and new librarians with the poster process, but we also hope it will help experienced librarians who have never done a poster and perhaps provide a tip or two for those who are already experienced at creating a poster. Keywordsposter sessions; publishing; conferences IntroductionAs soon-to-be, or newly-minted, librarians, we hope to help build up our profession by participating in conferences or publishing. We want to connect with colleagues at other libraries, and some of us have jobs that require us to take an active role in conferences and publishing. However, succeeding in these tasks can be intimidating, especially to LIS students and new librarians. Finding a way to take an active role in a vast, bustling conference can be overwhelming. How do you discover the right venue to contribute your ideas, and meet colleagues with similar interests? Likewise, publishing an article can seem to be quite a difficult undertaking. To be successful as librarians, we need to overcome our initial writing anxiety, start putting ideas down, and gather feedback from colleagues. In addressing these challenges, we suggest that poster sessions offer one of the best avenues for participating in conferences as well as launching down the path to potentially publishing an article. Accordingly, this article outlines a step-by-step plan for creating your first poster session from creation to presentation to developing the article draft. After several years of collaborating on poster sessions, we had the idea of writing an article to introduce LIS students and new librarians to this practical and fun way of contributing to the field. We also hope that experienced librarians who have never done a poster will find it helpful. So To Begin With, What is a Poster Session?When we began our library careers, we had never heard of poster sessions. They're actually easy to understand: a poster session is similar in concept to a science fair project that you might have done in high school. Perhaps you worked on a project about Mars, and designed a booth for the fair. You put together a backboard with photographs of the red planet, graphs showing data about its temperature and size, and a text explaining the history of Martian exploration. You might have propped up your telescope and placed handouts at the booth. Likewise, your fellow students created booths with posters mounted on backboards, along with handouts and props, and at the science fair parents and teachers browsed the various booths, chatting with the students about their work. Professional poster sessions in LIS and other fields tend to follow this same format. At professional conferences, the organizers designate a large room or hall for poster session booths and schedule an hour or more on the agenda for their display. Conferences in many of the sciences and social sciences have featured poster sessions for years, with the American Library Association first offering poster sessions at its conference in 1982 (Fagan, 2009, p. 2). Many state and regional library conventions now providing this opportunity as well. At most LIS conferences, each poster session consists of a table with a large backboard that allows for a visual display of concepts. The poster presenter mounts a poster on the backboard with a blend of texts and graphics, stands beside the booth, explains the topic, and answers questions from conference attendees who circulate from poster to poster. Poster sessions are much more visual, personal, and conversational than other forms of scholarly communication like lectures or articles. As one recent conference participant noted about poster sessions, they present "bite-size info in a visual manner they allow me to see a lot of great ideas in a short period of time" (S. Seely, personal communication, March 23, 2009). For pictures of sample poster sessions, please see the ALA poster session web site: http://www.lib.jmu.edu/org/ala/posters.aspx. So Why Bother with a Poster Session at All?In addition to giving a boost to our conference efforts, posters help us jumpstart the publication process. As Gravois (1999) notes, many poster authors are successful in expanding their projects into articles. One reason for this successful transition from poster to article is that creating a poster will let you see your ideas laid out in a concise, visual outline. After that, you'll find it much easier to write a formal paper. The text that you write for a poster is much shorter and more informal than a full-blown article, making it less daunting to start off. After presenting a poster, you can then take the poster content and flesh it out into a formal article. In other words, posters are like rough drafts or blueprints of potential articles! They act as intermediate goals between your ideas and the final publication. As with many other projects, setting an intermediate goal like a poster session can make it easier to achieve a long-term goal like a journal article. Posters give you a specific deadline to work towards (the conference date) and help you start putting ideas down. By presenting your work as a poster first, you can float ideas with colleagues in a friendly, non-intimidating forum, gaining feedback that can guide you as you craft an article. A colleague noted about her experience, "It was interesting to see that people focused on assessment in my poster when I thought they would be interested in collaboration. Now I know that perhaps I should go in that direction if I decide to write something up about this project. The poster session gave a barometer of what people were interested in regarding my project" (S. Seely, personal communication, March 23, 2009). Further, journal editors sometimes visit conferences to advise poster creators, and even solicit them for articles based on the poster displays they see. To sum up, posters help get a publication project off the ground! For LIS students, creating a poster offers a way of communicating new ideas you might have about librarianship, or the results of a paper you completed in your library school coursework. Posters can also help strengthen your resume and boost your chances of getting your dream job. A poster session on your resume makes potential employers take notice, as it shows them that you have gone above and beyond your work as a student and demonstrated a commitment to the library profession. After you become a new librarian with conference or publication requirements, posters can go a long way in helping you succeed in your annual reviews. Posters are professional achievements in and of themselves that can be listed on tenure or performance reviews, but, because they facilitate the creation of article manuscripts, posters also make it more likely that you'll be able to report a publication in your review in addition to your poster. Please note that you may be able to present your poster at one conference, and then present it again at other conferences. This can allow you the opportunity to gather more feedback and firm up your ideas, until you hopefully turn your project into a published article. By going through this creation process, posters can be an effective part of a tenure or promotion-earning strategy because they help establish a record of professional contributions. Overall, posters reap great rewards for the profession and for you personally, both as venues for conference participation as well as seeds of future publications and additions to your tenure portfolio. Harig et. al. (1993, xi-xii) identifies three factors as to the importance of poster sessions at ALA conferences:
Brainstorming a Poster TopicThe best advice the authors of this article received in library school was to consider everything you do as potential material for a publication! Many experiences related to your time in school, your research, or your job at the library can translate into poster sessions and publications. Maybe you find yourself wondering how many of your library school professors have worked as professional librarians, and how that experience has influenced their teaching. Or, you may already have a research paper you're working on for a class that might be the basis of a poster. Perhaps you're doing an internship, or have experience working part-time or full-time at a library. What parts of your job interest you the most? Are you helping pilot a new service? Are you gathering data in your job that might also be used in a poster session? On the other hand, perhaps you just landed your first professional job--think of the different aspects or events in your job. Did a writing lab open in the library? How are the students and faculty reacting? How has it changed the library environment? Do you see any potential for collaboration? Or maybe you wonder about the impact of allowing food and drink in the library. The simplest, everyday things around you can be groomed into ideas, outlines, and poster sessions (and eventually articles)! LIS poster sessions can deal with any research project or practical topic in the field. However, the most commonly-used poster format is the more informal "how I did it" or "library did good" format. The poster-author describes a successful, innovative technique or program at their library and offers tips to fellow librarians about how to do the same thing. For example, you might create a poster to showcase how you helped implement a virtual reference program during your internship, and offer tips to other librarians trying to do the same. Or, you might tell the story of how you and your colleagues came up with an effective lesson plan for teaching freshmen students about the library. One strategy to capturing potential poster topics is to keep an online journal, notebook, or binder where you jot down ideas you have for posters and articles, projects for work or school, and details of your different library and research related experiences. Once you have a list of ideas, take the next step and undertake a literature review. This will allow you to see what has already been written on your topic and what you can offer to the current body of knowledge on your subject of interest. Then outline your idea. What are the major points you want to cover in a poster? For your library school and work projects, keep up with these details:
Finding Potential CollaboratorsYou don't have to undertake creating a poster by yourself! Just like poster topic ideas, potential collaborators are all around you! Whether it is your fellow students, coworkers, colleagues at other libraries, or teaching faculty, everyone is usually interested in the opportunity to collaborate on a poster session. If you are in library school then your classmates can be a potential goldmine of eager collaborators. And even if you are working as a professional librarian, remember those contacts you made in your study groups and working late nights on those research papers? Where are they now? How can you pool your experiences and skills together to create a great poster and publication? Don't lose track of your peers! Co-workers in your department who carry out the same functions as you can make good collaborators, but don't forget to consider colleagues in other departments. For example, if you are a new reference librarian hoping to do a poster about how to manage print reference collections, teaming up with a cataloger can add more perspective and information to your poster. In your job you may also serve on library committees that implement new programs. These committees are ready-made poster session teams! Through a poster, you can share your activities and results of your work, and often the reports that you write in these groups can provide the launching pad for a poster. At conferences you will meet lots of other librarians. Keep those business cards! Take note of who is interested in the same area of librarianship as you are. When you go to presentations notice who is working on the same kinds of projects as you are and who is attending the sessions with you. You can make a connection with a potential collaborator on a coffee break. Don't be afraid to strike up a conversation! If you are at a University library you may also find potential collaborators on committees with you around campus, or during your collection development work. If your poster session idea focuses on a particular area of research, what faculty do you know doing research in that area? What faculty do you work with closely for instruction or when ordering materials for the library? Are there any staff on campus you have worked with? Have you collaborated on projects that could lead to collaboration on publications and poster sessions? Is there a library school faculty member who has interests similar to yours? Whether in library school or in a library workplace, collaborators are all around you. Finding a Conference Venue for your PosterBefore the conference takes place, conference organizers will send out "calls for poster proposals" asking librarians to submit one-paragraph abstracts of proposed posters. In this way, a conference venue "comes to you" in the sense that calls for poster proposals are disseminated on library listservs, flyers, or via advertisements in local, regional, or national library publications. Staying immersed in library communication and professional journals is one way to keep on top of poster opportunities. Traditionally, conferences associated with the American Library Association (ALA) provide venues for poster sessions in the yearly and mid-year gatherings. Many regional or state library associations such as the Southeastern Library Association (SELA) or Alabama Library Association (ALLA) also include poster sessions as part of their conferences. In most cases, the call for posters are put out well in advance of these conferences. So if you are targeting a particular conference, begin keeping an eye out for poster sessions proposals approximately six months before the conference date. It might also be a good strategy to check library association web sites regularly well before their conferences for information. Creating an Abstract of your PosterThe calls for poster session proposals will usually ask that abstracts be submitted through a web form, or emailed to one of the conference organizers. The organizers will then review all the submissions, and select posters based on these abstracts for presentation at the conference. Besides coming up with an idea for a poster, probably the most important aspect in participating in a poster session is creating an abstract. You need not have finished a project or created a poster before writing an abstract; your abstract is a proposal explaining what you plan to present by the time of the conference. A well-crafted abstract can determine whether the poster session selection committee chooses your poster proposal over other submissions. Selection for some venues can be quite competitive so an abstract should make your proposal stand out from others in the pool of submissions. Avoid the "so what" factor in your submission proposal by staying away from topics that don't have broad appeal or are not easily generalized to other libraries (Hardesty, 2002, para. 10). An abstract serves to "sell" the poster as much as describe the poster's content. In a nutshell, the abstract should do the following: Give the title of your poster: Aim for a main title that is appealing and eye-catching. Use the subtitle to be more specific and analytical about the poster's contents. State the purpose of your poster: Include a clear, one sentence thesis statement. You might start off by saying "The purpose of this poster is to..." or "Our project reveals...". In most cases the thesis should be stated within the first 2-3 lines of your abstract. Explain how your poster differs from previous works on the topic: You will not have the space for a comprehensive literature review, but in a sentence or two you can summarize what other works have said about your topic, and how your work adds to our understanding. Even if you find that several other works have covered your topic, there is usually a unique slant you can take. Note evidence that shows the validity of the poster's conclusions: Discuss whether you will use survey results, literature review, anecdotes, patron feedback, personal observation, quotations, statistics, or other types of evidence to support your thesis. Consider qualitative and quantitative evidence. Describe the mediums that you will use in your poster (laptop, graphs, illustrations, models, samples): Remember that a poster should be as visual as possible. Tell what audiences will benefit from your poster: Is your poster targeted at public, academic, school, or special libraries? New or experienced librarians and staff? Public or technical services? Librarians working on a particular type of project? The conference attendees will have a chance to read your abstract before the conference and will want to know if your poster is relevant to them. If you can, try to make your poster relevant to a broad spectrum of librarians. While there is a lot of thought that should be put into crafting an abstract, be aware of and follow any limits given in the call for posters. If the requirements are for an abstract of a fixed-word count, try your utmost to respect that criterion. In most cases, you may only need one or two sentences to cover each of the elements discussed above. Remember that one of the best things you can do is to use an informal peer review-ask your colleagues to read over your abstract before submitting. Also, many LIS professors will gladly lend a hand. See if your abstract grabs their interest or seek advice about how to punch up the wording. When preparing an abstract, we highly recommend that you look at examples of successful abstracts from past conferences. Please see the ALA poster session web site: http://www.lib.jmu.edu/org/ala/. Developing the Poster Content and TextYou found out that your poster is accepted! Now, it's time to construct the content and design the poster. After you decide on the poster content, you may find that you have to edit the text as you design the poster, perhaps shortening some parts so they will fit in the poster, or cutting out some wording in favor of a table or graphic that conveys the information more effectively. You may have to work on the text and the poster layout in tandem. Writing the text for a poster is actually a delicate process. Space on the poster will be limited! Therefore, you will want to create powerful, concise wording. Remember that the text need not be in complete sentences. Also, please note that some conference organizers require that your abstract be included somewhere in your poster display. Here are some tips depending on the type of poster: If your poster is a research project, you can write sections summarizing the background, purpose, methodology, and findings. Use terms that most conference attendees will understand. Include practical implications as most conference attendees will want to know how your research can improve library services. If your poster is a "how to do it" project, explain the background of your topic and the step-by-step process you followed. Let the reader know how you knew your effort was successful. Are there survey results, statistics showing increased use of the library, or positive patron feedback that proved success? Offer tips for those seeking to implement the program at their own library, taking into account that other libraries may be different than yours. Also, you might consider things you would have done differently if you could start your project over again. As you are writing the text, think ahead to the poster, visualizing how it will be displayed. Avoid unnecessary wording. A good exercise to keep from over-crowding your poster with text is to imagine your poster as a PowerPoint slide that is being viewed in a large room. In such a case there is not much text that can be viewed from afar. Images/charts/graphs are better able to relay the content of your poster. "Reinterpret text graphically by creating a chart or table or picture to illustrate the story. When presenting a poster, less text is more" (Leber and Roberts, 2006, p. 113). Keep the mantra "less is more" in mind as you create text for your poster. The text on the poster is basically just an outline. Remember that you'll have a chance to explain more about your project as you converse with attendees. Plus, if you feel the need to expand on your data or content, consider providing an in-depth handout. Often people will want more info on your topic than you can supply at the conference, so it is also a good idea to collect email addresses on sheet of paper or provide a bowl for business cards so you can follow up with additional information after the conference. Designing the PosterThe key thing to remember when designing a poster is that it really is a visual medium. The poster is not intended to be an entire article. Just as in advertising, you need to quickly grab a passerby's attention, ideally in the first thirty seconds. A viewer needs to be able to understand your main points quickly. Listed below are some basic considerations for poster design. We also recommend that you consult LeBer and Roberts (2006), Nicol and Pexman (2003), or Woolsey (1989) for even more in-depth advice on design. As you read through our text, we also suggest looking over the pictures of sample poster sessions on the ALA poster session web site at http://www.lib.jmu.edu/org/ala/posters.aspx so that you can visualize the concepts. Determine the guidelines. Conference organizers will usually send you guidelines about the size and format for the poster when your abstract is accepted. These guidelines should also cover the type of presentation space you will be given so that you will have an idea of the way you will be required to present the poster. Most conferences provide each presenter with two things: a table and a backboard (often 4 x 8 feet) that is easy to pin posters on. While you might be able to devise a poster that will cover the entire backboard at the conference, please note that it is OK to create a poster smaller than the backboard. If you decide to go this route, consider using a big piece of colored background paper that will cover the entire backboard. You can pin your poster paper on the backboard, and then mount your actual poster. You can usually purchase large poster paper at teacher supply stores. Another consideration before you start designing is the guidelines at the print store where you may be printing your poster. Find out what type of file (gif, jpg, ppt etc.) may be required. It is also worth taking under consideration how early you need to submit the file to meet your deadline, and how large a poster they are capable of printing. Ask about lamination services if interested: posters don't have to be laminated but many authors prefer it because they like the glossy shine, and the lamination protects the poster and makes it easy to clean. You may also want to get some price quotes from different printers! If you work on an academic campus, consider scouting out resources which may be available to you such as map printers in geography departments or campus print services. Decide upon a method of design. Once you find out the poster session guidelines for your conference it is time to decide how you will create your poster. There are various ways you can develop a poster:
Figure out a layout and flow. After you decide how you are going to create the poster, it's time to get started with the design. It is often useful to sketch out a few rough designs before starting work on the actual poster. One of the most important things to remember when choosing a layout is to make sure your poster has a logical flow. Remember, you not only want the poster to look nice, you need it to inform and to inform quickly. Your audience needs to be able to spot the key elements of your poster such as the introduction and abstract and then easily move on to the main points in an intuitive fashion. To ease in viewing you may have to numerically highlight the main points, or place arrows in between text blocks to help guide the viewers' eyes across the poster. Some poster designers use a standard research design. In this case, the flow of your poster is fairly obvious to viewers: the order of your ideas follows the common introduction- methodology-findings-conclusions sequence. On the other hand, for "how to do it" posters, you might consider a list of numbered steps or tips. Some of the most effective posters consist of several text blocks in numbered order. Thematic designs can be especially fun. We were part of a group of poster authors who designed a poster using a sun as a theme. Each ray of the sun ended with a text block. Some poster authors have used football fields, solar systems, comic strips, trails, stairwells, doorways, mazes, trees, or underwater settings for their poster layouts. The content of your poster might suggest a visual theme. For instance, if you are offering tips about carrying out a shelf shifting project, you could organize your poster like a bookshelf. Your imagination is the limit when it comes to layout schemes! You'll need to consider several elements of your design including: Text: You'll want to take the text you wrote earlier and put it in a font that is an appropriate size, color, and style. It should come as no surprise that large type/large titles and coherence of content have been shown to be the top two concerns of poster viewers. The most common weakness of many posters is having font that is too small to read (Welch & Waehler, 1996, p. 44). Whatever text you do include should be readable by the viewer from a distance. LeBer and Roberts (2006, p. 117) suggest these font sizes for various aspects of the poster: Title (80pts), Subtitles (greater than or equal to 72pts, subheadings (greater than or equal 48 pts), body of the text (greater than or equal to 24 pts). Consider the color and style of font. Again LeBer and Roberts have advice on the subject reminding us that "black text on light background is most readable" and to avoid excessive use of font styles and colors with texts (2006, p. 117-118). And remember, red text is a no no! In terms of style, Tahoma or other simple, bold fonts are often good for posters. Color Scheme: In considering the general color scheme of the poster, please note that color is important, but too much color and colors that are too bright and in the wrong places can distract the viewer from your content. Make sure your background is a neutral or mellow color. Avoid pulsar pink or fluorescent green! Space: Think about space as well. You can use open space to accentuate key points, but don't leave chunks of open space in the center of your poster-the viewer's eye will be drawn to the center and you want them to find something useful there! On the other hand, don't cluster everything in the middle. If the poster is too busy the viewer will have a hard time focusing on the key points and may just grab some handouts from your table and run! Illustrations: You will want to use illustrations and graphics but don't go crazy. Just as with color, a little is good but too much can distract from your content. It may be tempting to use all those clipart smiley faces but you really want your pictures to have a purpose. They should somehow reflect the purpose of the poster or illustrate your research with tables, charts, and graphs. In addition to clip art and statistical figures, consider these kinds of graphics: Photographs; Handouts from instruction sessions; Flowcharts displaying a process; Diagrams, blueprints, or maps; Drawings or other artwork. You or a co-presenter might be a talented artist-use this skill to the max! Props: Some poster presenters sit props on their table or next to their poster. Posters about publishing or censorship might have actual copies of the books in question on the table. One group of poster presenters who did a poster about the use of flowcharts in reference services devised a poster layout with photographs of flowing rivers, and added some pebbles gathered from local rivers to the table. Small touches like that can make your poster stand out from the crowd. Statuettes, balloons, and models can all enhance a poster presentation, and some poster presenters go a step further and have interactive handouts or props at their table such as a little quiz testing a visitor's knowledge of a topic, or a grab bag box. You can also use laptop computers sitting on the poster table that feature running slide shows or web sites that you designed. Check with the conference organizers about internet access and table space--and be sure to bring a power supply. After you finish your poster and print it out, you may wish to purchase a special carrying tube designed for posters from an art store or campus book store. Don't forget the thumbtacks or T-pins that you will need to affix your poster to the backboard. You may also wish to have some candy to entice people to your poster! Preparing the HandoutsYour handouts are the place where you really want to expound on the key points from your poster. This is where you can flesh out your outline (which puts you even closer to having a finished article) and also where you can include extra information for your audience to take with them. In addition to the text of your poster, you will want to have contact information for the presenters, your abstract, and maybe a short literature review. Some presenters like to include supporting materials (such as handouts from instruction sessions or printouts of web pages) as separate handouts or as appendices in their main handout. Think about how much information you want on the main handout and then calculate the pages you will need to print and how much this may cost. A rule of thumb for larger conferences is to have fifty handouts on hand. You will also want to bring a sign-up sheet for the email addresses of interested viewers in case you run out. To save paper you may also want to consider putting part of your handout online as a web page and put the URL on a card to give out at the conference. Don't think you get to abandon all your newly learned design skills when you prepare the handout! Put some thought and care into your handout design. While you do not need to print in color, it doesn't hurt to have a graphic on the handout. Make sure you put your key points in bold to help the viewer move through the pages, and use bulleted points or numbered lists. The more attractive your handout is the more your audience will want to read it. Presenting the PosterThe big day has arrived! The organizers have sent you the time, date, and location of your table, and you've made it to the conference. Arrive very early, at least 30 minutes if possible, and setup your session. You may start getting visitors before the official poster session time. If you have another event scheduled right before the poster sessions, you may wish to locate the poster session area well in advance so that you can proceed from the event to the poster area without too much difficulty. If you have a chance, grab some bottled water before the poster sessions start so you can take sips in between conversations.Get help from a friend. Stretching to mount your poster on a high backboard can be hard. Please be aware that you may be able to take down the backboard and mount the poster more easily that way. If you are presenting alone, ask a colleague to come along and help with the set up. Stand beside your poster session for the designated time period. If you have one or more co-presenters, you can work in shifts. Take turns, with one person presenting the poster and another person visiting the other posters in the conference hall. Remember that poster sessions give you the opportunity to not only broadcast your ideas, but also glean ideas from others. Be enthusiastic. Standing next to the poster, and exuding enthusiasm, will attract a lot of people to your poster (LeBer and Roberts, 2006)! Don't simply mull around your poster - greet people as they come by. A recent poster session participant noted, "I needed to remind myself to ask people, 'Do you have any questions about my poster?'" (S. Seely, personal communication, March 23, 2009). Go with the presentation style that matches your personality and poster, and observe the nonverbal cues of approaching visitors. In presenting their poster, some authors allow visitors to read over the poster, take a handout, and then ask questions if they have any. This method gives visitors a chance to read over the poster's contents before formulating a question. On the other hand, some presenters like to be proactive, and immediately greet and explain the poster to visitors as they approach the poster board. Be prepared to answer questions that visitors might ask:
You need not have a memorized spiel, but rather a basic idea about how you would answer possible questions. Be prepared for questions that may not be about the poster. Visitors may ask where you're from, what conference committees you're on, why you became a librarian, or how you like your job. Enjoy the conversation. Use this opportunity to network, and make new colleagues! Aim for a conversational, interactive presentation. Weave the graphics and handouts into your conversations. Reinforce your explanations by pointing to relevant graphics and text on the backboard. Also use the handouts. Remember that a poster should be visual. Ask for feedback. Do they find your topic significant? Is the message clear? If you are talking about a program at your library, ask visitors if they have a similar program and how it is similar or different. Jot down any really good ideas! Visitors' feedback can be very valuable if you decide to turn your poster into an article. Please see Brenda Hazard's "Poster Session Alphabet Soup: A Recipe for Success" (2006) for more tips on presenting your poster. Turning your Poster into a Potential ArticleThe conference is over, and you had a great time connecting with colleagues at your poster session. Maybe you'll receive some emails after the conference from attendees who picked up a handout and wanted more information. Perhaps you even ran into a potential future employer during your poster session! Remember that you can present your poster again at other conferences (citing the original poster session in any subsequent poster sessions). You might also think about turning your poster into a conference workshop or lecture-style paper. A how-to-do-it poster might make a great workshop while research-oriented posters lend themselves to conference papers. However, we also encourage you to consider building your poster session into a publication. There is a strong connection between presenting at a poster session and creating an article for publication. Library directors often see the connection between poster sessions as research starters (Gravois, 1999). In creating a poster, you have laid the basic groundwork for creating an article in doing the research, crafting an abstract, and developing an organization outline for your content. A poster is thus the nascent rough draft of an article! Also, in presenting the poster you have already begun the editing process by receiving feedback about the content of your poster. Another potential bonus in presenting a poster is that, in some cases, journal editors visit the poster display areas for potential articles for their publications. This gives the poster author a good opportunity to place their research in a publication before the article has even been written. All in all, creating a poster is a great stepping stone to writing an article. Consider these questions and tips as you try to build your poster into an article:
... Keep your momentum going after you present your poster! SummaryFollowing the steps in this tutorial can help you create a worthwhile poster session. Poster sessions have played an important role in the overall process of scholarly communication in the sciences and social sciences for decades, and their display at ALA conferences has become widespread. Whether you are a brand new LIS student or a budding professional already working in a library, a poster session can boost your conference participation and potential article publication efforts - not to mention your resume and tenure portfolio. Take it from us, creating a poster session is one of the best investments that a new librarian can make in their career. Poster sessions can be part of a successful publishing strategy because they help you propel ideas from the drawing board to the journal. By sparking collaboration and the exchange of ideas, posters foster relationships with many great colleagues close to home and throughout the library world. Most significantly, poster sessions nourish the library field, helping us all learn from each other and enhance the services we offer to patrons. ReferencesFagan, J.C., American Library Association, Poster Sessions. (2009). Introduction. Retrieved June 8, 2009 from http://www.lib.jmu.edu/org/ala/ Hardesty, L. (2002). Demystifying the program selection process; How to submit a successful proposal for the 11th ACRL National Conference. College & Research Library News 63(4), 269-270. Retrieved June 8, 2009 from http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/acrl/publications/crlnews/2002/apr/demystifying.cfm Shontz, P. (2007). LIScareer.com: The Library and Information Professional's Career Development Center. Publishing. Retrieved June 10, 2009 from http://liscareer.com/publishing.htm. Further ReadingBaird, B. N. (1991). In-Class Poster Sessions. Teaching of Psychology, 18(1), p27-29. Author's BioRichard A. Stoddart Rick is the Communications, Criminal justice, and Sociology liaison at Boise State University. He has an interest in promoting collections and library services through poster sessions. He has had poster sessions at the Southeastern Library Association, Pacific Northwest Library Association, and American Library Association. Brett Spencer Brett is the History liaison at the University of Alabama. One of the favorite parts of his job is collaborating with MLIS students on poster sessions. He has had poster sessions at the Alabama Library Association, Southeastern Library Association, and American Library Association. |
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