This is to my knowledge a rather unique workshop that should be of interest to many in the CNI community, and I wanted to share the call for papers.

With best wishes for the holidays and the new year.

Clifford Lynch
Director, CNI

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Recounting Algorithms: A Workshop on Critical Algorithm Studies in the Library
University of Toronto Mississauga Library
May 7-8, 2020
https://www.recounting.net/
 
Call for Proposals
How can libraries and archives best contribute to emerging critical discourses around algorithms, machine learning, and artificial intelligence? Recounting Algorithms is a two-day workshop, supported by the Council on Library and Information Resources and hosted by the University of Toronto Mississauga Library, that aims to enrich the intersections of critical algorithm studies and academic librarianship.
 
Efforts to historicize, culturally situate, and foreground algorithmic systems as manifestations of bias and power have flourished recently. Work in this area has contributed important insights into the often oppressive operational conditions of systems used to automate tasks such as hiring, criminal risk assessment, supply chain management, web page ranking, and surveillance. The robustness of this growing field of inquiry is demonstrated in the varied institutional backgrounds of those who have contributed to it—they include journalists, artists, advocates, and academic researchers from across the disciplinary spectrum.
 
Librarians and archivists are beginning to incorporate aspects of this critical discourse through projects that advance algorithmic literacy and initiatives, like Information Maintainers, that emphasize the intersection of information technology, data governance, and social justice. Relatedly, initiatives such as Emulation as a Service and Collections as Data suggest new services and infrastructures that might facilitate analysis of algorithmic systems.
 
We invite proposals for pedagogical resources, creative projects, and library services that explore how libraries can support and build on investigations of algorithmic systems (including, machine learning and AI) and their enabling social conditions. While proposals should be oriented toward the library as a context for sustaining and supporting instruction and critical inquiry, we encourage submissions from non-librarians, particularly from educators, researchers, graduate students, artists, journalists and advocates. Potential themes include but are not limited to:
 
• Projects to collect, preserve, and curate materials relevant to the study of algorithmic systems.
• Resources for addressing emerging aspects of information and digital literacy related to machine learning and artificial intelligence.
• Projects that reframe core values and practices (such as access and literacy) in light of work from critical algorithm studies.
 
Invited workshop participants will present their proposals (in draft or prototype form) and engage in workshop activities to refine and develop them using constructive input from the group. Workshopped projects will be shared as an online resource following the workshop.
 
Submissions
Submissions should include a project abstract (500-word max) and bio (50 word max) for each presenter. If submitting with co-authors, please limit the group to no more than three presenters. Please submit all materials via email recountingalgs@gmail.com by January 17, 2020. Successful applicants will be notified of acceptance by February 7, 2020. Email recountingalgs@gmail.com with additional questions.

Coordinators
Seth Erickson (Penn State University Libraries)
Chris Young (University of Toronto Mississauga Library)
Andrew Meade McGee (Carnegie Mellon University Libraries)
Justin Shanks (Montana State University Library)
Wendy Hoi Yan Wong (Chinese University of Hong Kong Library)