AMICAL – Looking back and looking ahead
We’d like to wish you a great academic year and update you on what the AMICAL Consortium has accomplished together this year, and what we’re working on for the next.
First some great news – while we were saddened by the circumstances preventing us from hosting the AMICAL Conference this year at American University of Sharjah, we are pleased to announce that Central European University (CEU) has graciously agreed to host the rescheduled Conference at their Budapest site, April 8–10, 2027. We’re also excited that we’ve raised over €50,000 in sponsorship for the Conference, much of which will go toward enabling participation by colleagues from member institutions. More information about the event, including a Call for Proposals, will be sent to members in November.
Highlights from 2025-2026
500+ registrants for 25 events on timely topics:
Campus-level AI initiatives
AI in the classroom
AI & information literacy
Library leadership
Library innovation & services
Digital liberal arts & innovative pedagogy
Organizational governance and development
We facilitated complimentary access to partner and member-shared events:
Open Education Conference (35 registrants)
Research Methodology course, offered by Forman Christian College (74 registrants)
Symposium on “The Enduring Value of the Liberal Arts in The Age of AI”, offered by the American University in Cairo (51 registrants)
We helped reduce costs for member institutions through:
10 deals with library vendors resulting in an average of €4,500 total discount for participating institutions
OCLC library management software offered at discounted prices (10-70%)
€3,810 awarded by the Elisabetta Morani Funds for the professional development of library staff
Discounts on professional development from the Chronicle of Higher Education and Library Juice Academy
In parallel with these actions, we’ve been working on elements of organizational development that will enable AMICAL to be more effective in its collaborative work on the projects most important to members, while becoming more sustainable as an organization. Following on our Spring Summit on Consortial Development, for example, we developed a new consortial strategy, as well as a survey of member institutions' tools, support & interest for grant development.
What is AMICAL working on for 2026-2027?
AMICAL’s new strategic priorities, as explained in a recent blog post, are as follows:
Engage strategically with AI
Enable peer knowledge exchange
Organize a biennial in-person conference
Reduce costs for members
Two AI-focused interest groups are organizing events and shared projects throughout the coming year:
This fall we are inviting AMICAL members to participate in our Peer Advising Week (30 Nov – 3 Dec 2026) – a dedicated time for colleagues to connect and share challenges and advice through online peer-to-peer advising sessions. You can now sign up as an Advisor, and sign-ups for Advisees will open soon.
A Call for Proposals for the AMICAL 2027 Conference will be sent out in November, describing the audience, topics and structure that the Program Committee is imagining for this event.
And our E-Resources Committee and Library Resources Buyers Group will continue their good work on reducing the costs for library and academic technology resources of common interest across the consortium.
Throughout the year, meanwhile, most of our member-driven groups are organizing events in their areas of focus, and information about these will be announced through AMICAL Connect and posted on our Events page as it becomes available.
Thanks to our members!
We are grateful to the many colleagues who volunteer through our 17 member groups to help organize these events and programs and ensure the sustainability of this network. Your generous contributions of time and expertise are what make AMICAL a vibrant community of peers across 28 international liberal arts institutions.
We would especially like to thank our colleagues at American University of Sharjah and Central European University who have tirelessly worked to make our in-person conference a reality.
Thank you all for being part of the AMICAL network – and hope to see you at an upcoming event!