Clare Thorpe
The Symposium Program Committee is delighted to announce our first keynote address. Clare Thorpe will start a day of rich conversations by asking us to consider what impact means in our everyday library and information practice. Please read more about this keynote and our presenter.
Impact, Reimagined
Reframing Practice-Based Research in Library and Information Work
What do we mean by impact? In this keynote, I will explore impact not only as something that happens as an outcome of practice research but through the process of inquiry embedded in everyday library and information science work. When librarians and information professionals question, adapt, and experiment in real time, they are already shaping behaviours, decisions, and outcomes across their communities. Drawing on examples from across sectors and contexts, this keynote challenges the idea that impact must be large-scale or externally validated to matter. Instead, it is an invitation to reconsider impact as something immediate, situated, and already happening, and to recognise practice-based research, research-based practice, and evidence-based librarianship not as a pathway to impact, but as impact itself.
About Clare
Clare Thorpe is the Director, Library Services at Southern Cross University, Australia. With more than 25 years’ experience across academic and state libraries, she is recognised for advancing evidence-based library and information practice, open access, and digital innovation. As a researcher-practitioner her work has explored leadership in libraries and higher education, libraries contributions to the Sustainable Development Goals, and she is co-creator of a maturity model for evidence-based practice in libraries. A committed advocate for inclusive, evidence-informed leadership , she has led sector-level collaborations in information literacy, open educational resources (OER), and third space research, contributing to both scholarly discourse and tangible institutional change.
