loading . . . LILAC Stories: exploring the long-term impact of the LILAC Conference on the Information Literacy community #LILAC25 Jess Haigh (@bookelf.bsky.social) from Leeds Beckett University presented her research: The "LILAC Stories" project, which aimed to investigate the impact of the LILAC conference on the wider Information Literacy community, both for individuals and for institutions. Eva Garcia Grau also contributed to the data analysis. Jess undertook this research because she knew there was anecdotal evidence of the impact of the lilac conference, but this isn't enough for evidence-based decision-making, and it isn't research. Jess found a lot of literature about conference attendance - motivations, experiences and critical studies of conferences. However, there was less literature about the impact of conferences on attendees. Jess has been involved in the lilac conference committee for a long time, and they have found it tricky to evaluate the impact of the conference, but they wanted to demonstrate the value of the conference to employers in all sectors to support future applications for attendance and participation. Conferences enable access to temporary power, but it can also generate feelings of inferiority, shame, anxiety and fear.
The impact of the conference depends on what delegates do after the conference with the new information they have gleaned. Jess spoke about the time it takes to do research and how she managed to fit this in around her full-time job. She didn't have a research supervisor or any funding to do this research. She had to gain ethical approval, and there were concerns about anonymity because the lilac community is quite small. There were 3 main methods for data collection - 25 online form submissions of "lilac stories", 14 online interviews transcribed automatically and a review of 70 conference reports that were created after the conference. Jess spoke about the challenges of the research - lots of people promised to submit lilac stories but didn't. The online team's transcriptions weren't high quality, and anonymising the interviews without losing meaning was hard. Jess used Nvivo qualitative analysis software, which really helped simplify the thematic analysis of the data. She used Zotero reference management software to support the research process. Another limitation is that it wasn't possible to acknowledge the way that the conference has been complicit in oppressive systems.
Papers presented at Lilac were relevant to the delegates and supported them to develop information literacy research and practice "I would describe it as a great big ideas party". Presentations are used to benchmark practice locally and globally. The information gathered at the conference leads to further academic work and publications. Delegates report a "critical awakening" leading to more critical praxis, and led to confidence to challenge academic staff. Keynotes were a significant point of impact and development for delegates.
There were themes relating to the affective impact of the conference. First-timers can feel overwhelmed, and there was advice to take time to rest and process information. Attending Lilac can lead to professional validation, and feelings that their work matters and has value. It was clear from the data that there is a group of Lilac "fans", who gain significant benefit from the conference.
The social side of the conference was important. Connections made at the conference have led to professional collaborations, including research and publications. Sustained involvement in Lilac, e.g. on the committee or through regular attendance, has a significant impact on the careers of delegates. Attendance at the conference for many is dependent on bursary funding, either from the ILG or other partners. Getting a bursary can be instrumental in career development, research collaborations, or joining the committee.
More research is needed on the experiences of global majority delegates, the impact of fandom membership on conferences, the impact of conference attendance on citation practices, and the voices of those who haven't been to the conference or have only been once and didn't come again.
Recommendations: make more bursaries available, recruit people to the committee who come from sectors outside of Higher education, and work with organisations outside of HE to host a conference. There is a need to encourage reflection on the value of the conference.
Photo: display at the CILIP stand at the conference http://dlvr.it/TK9WS5
