I was able to attend the Minnesota Library Association Conference in St. Cloud, Minnesota on October 9 and 10, 2025.
It was wonderful being able to see fellow Minnesota librarians that I don’t often get to see outside of Zoom meetings. Having this time set aside to get together and collaborate is invaluable.
The MLA conference had a number of great sessions this year; I found it difficult to choose which to attend. My favorite session was about using marketing principles to create better book displays. The team of librarians talked about how they used specific colors and shapes to make their book displays more appealing to library users. They noticed an uptick in the number of books being checked out from the displays. They also made sure the displays weren’t too cluttered and that there were plenty of extra books to fill in the blank spots.
I attended another session about collaborating with schools and public libraries. The session was good, but the school and library were the St Paul Public Library and the St Paul Public School District. They each had specialists dedicated to the relationship with each other, which is great, but that is not something we have here in Rock County.
Another session I attended was how to ensure you have tools to be able to fight subtle censorship. That session gave out varying scenarios and broke us into small groups to discuss what we would do.
I also presented on the Rock County Community Library’s partnership with the local Farm Bureau. There were quite a few attendees, and they were very attentive and inquisitive. Many of the attendees mentioned they were interested in doing something similar in their communities.
There were more sessions I attended, but those were the stand-outs. There were also excellent keynote speakers at the meals, and it was wonderful to hear from officers for the organization. Overall, it was a great experience and always great to hear from other Minnesota libraries and librarians. Thank you for the opportunity to attend!