Digital Storytelling in Practice: A New Session Format for the DLF Forum
Team DLF is introducing a new session format in the Call for Proposals for the 2026 Virtual DLF Forum: Digital Storytelling Presentations. This format is designed to deepen collaboration, center relationships, and create space for shared learning across roles, institutions, and communities.
The new 40-minute Digital Storytelling (DS) Presentation format is designed as an interactive session that highlights digital storytelling projects developed through collaborative partnerships. These DS Presentations center on installation-inspired projects, such as exhibits, platforms, or collections, that offer immersive, experiential engagement for participants. We encourage presenters to incorporate demonstrations whenever possible to help attendees engage more fully with the tools, platforms, or storytelling approaches being shared.
Rather than focusing solely on a single presenter or project overview, the format should feature a minimum of two (2) presenters and no more than three (3) presenters. For example, a digital librarian or archivist might pair with a community partner, student, artist, or scholar whose work is represented in, or inspired by, the digital project. Together, presenters will explore not only the final product but also the collaborative process, relationships, and ideas that shaped the work, to show attendees how this work might be imagined, adapted, and implemented within their own institutions.
Presentations will emphasize the broader significance of digitization, why access matters, how collections are used, and the impact beyond the institution. Examples of proposals might include:
Archive to Art: A digital archivist and artist show how digitized protest materials inspired a multimedia installation, emphasizing workflow and creative impact. Example: Women’s March on Washington and Atlanta March for Social Justice and Women Collection (January 21, 2017), Women and Gender Collections, Georgia State University Library Digital Collections
Community Memory in Motion: A librarian and historian built a neighborhood digital archive through collaboration, now used in schools and local programs. Example: Folded Map Project
Teaching with Data: A librarian and student used a digitized collection to create a data visualization project, linking the technical process to student research. Example: Students Turn College Fight Songs into Award-Winning Data Visualization | News | Northwestern Engineering
This format is included in the 2026 Call for Proposals, and we look forward to seeing how presenters bring collaborative digital storytelling to the Forum. If you’d like to talk through your idea or learn more about the format, please email us at forum@diglib.org.