The Zombie Stack Exchanges That Just Won't Die
What is the best way for finding out about calls for papers for Library and Information Science conferences? Or for finding out that LIS conferences are taking place?
Rose Child
LIS Trends is a good place for conferences in both the United States and internationally: http://listrends.blogspot.com/p/conferencesevents-2012.html LIS Trends also lists which are available by Webinar -- a helpful tool for those of us for whom travel is not happening.
Finding conferences: I find that much of the time, info on LIS conferences is siloed within the professional organizations that sponsor them. I usually seek out divisions of ALA, ASIS&T, ACM, and/or regional library associations and find information on conferences from those organizations' pages. Also: listservs, for better or for worse.
Calls for Papers: A Library Writer's Blog has good info on CFPs for conferences, books and journals, as well as a few links to other library writing sites.
Specifically for conferences the International Calendar of Information Science conferences is a great place to start.
It's a little overwhelming, but a great way to find conferences that are in your areas of interest and expertise and then dig down from there.
I hate to say it, but I see most conference CFPs on listservs. Find the two-three most appropriate to your work, subscribe, autofilter, then every now and then search "CFP" in the folder you autofiltered them to.
Talk to people. I'm sure you know LIS is an enormous field (is it... relatively?) with many subdisciplines, niches, and communities. Aside from the answers given already (listervs are fantastic for CFPs), I would recommend you find some people who are working in a similar area as you (e.g. your direct colleagues) and ask them what conferences THEY go to. Then, go to that conference and ask those people what conferences THEY go to.
As for the CFPs--I've found these pile up in the inbox after you've subscribed to enough listservs. Set up some email filters to help manage the spam. Also, use the same tactic above: ask people where they have submitted in the past, or anything on their rader now. Poke around and find some people in your field that have CV's online and check out what they have listed as publications, professional development, etc. You can even see where they were publishing and what conferences they were presenting at when they were at your particular stage in your career--if they have a well organized CV.
Those answers may seem intuitive, but hopefully it sparks something for ya.
Some library science professionals have collaborated on putting together this guide to upcoming Library conferences on our site, Lanyrd: http://lanyrd.com/guides/library-conferences/ - it has 18 upcoming events listed at the moment. You can subscribe to an RSS feed or iCal feed of events in the guide, or sign in with Twitter and track the guide in order to recieve updates via email.
Since no one has explicitly mentioned it, Twitter is also a good source for hearing about CFPs. Many of the major library/archives/information science organizations have feeds where they announce CFPs. Many prominent conferences and journals have their own feeds of Twitter announcements. Better yet, start following a group of interesting librarians on Twitter---they'll often retweet CFPs for the conference they're interested in.
This might replicate much of what you'd get from listservs but Twitter can be another important information channel.
I use Dolores' List of CFPs:
http://www.personal.psu.edu/dxf19/blogs/dolores_list_of_cfps/
It has some general humanities/education postings but general library-related postings as well. Not comprehensive but sometimes I see things there I don't see elsewhere.