The PLA at ALA conference has a ton to offer! With the upcoming dates now official, we'd love to share just a fraction of the topics addressed at the 2026 conferences, from folks in the Prairieland region. We're also excited to share some of their reflections from the exhibit hall between sessions. Intrigued? You can [...]
I had the opportunity to attend the IMLS sponsored 250 Convening: Telling America's Story June 21-23. The first day, they took us to visit the historic Taft Museum of Art and the Cincinnati Museum Center. We saw works of art that were hundreds of years old and held maps created in the 1700s. On Days [...]
The book care and repair class was an interesting opportunity, and I am grateful that I was able to attend. My formal MLIS education never included anything about how to repair books, and I have always found this to be a serious gap in my professional knowledge. This class introduced and covered the basics of [...]
I had the pleasure of attending the 2026 Association for Rural and Small Libraries (ARSL) conference in Montgomery, Alabama from September 16 – September 19. This is my favorite conference of the year because it is all about rural and small libraries (as the title suggests) and our particular challenges and triumphs. Every library represented [...]
The Minnesota Council of Nonprofits offers a wide range of courses on leadership topics like this one. The class was a great way to reflect on my own practices as a leader, and also gave me helpful resources for working with others. In particular, I appreciated the focus on what your role is. As library [...]
The highlights of the day for me were the Author Spotlights. Our Mystery Book Club has read several books by Allen Eskens previously and we look forward to reading his newest book, The Quiet Librarian. He is a dynamic speaker. It would have been great if our entire book club had been able to hear [...]
I've learned quite a few things from the MLA Conference. I enjoyed the exhibition center, I got to meet new people and authors and what they offered. I also enjoyed the speakers that talked about how they organize book clubs not just with their employees but with other patrons, they include the community. Helped think [...]
I attended three panels at the MLA Conference. The first panel that I attended was "Transforming the 200s: Updating Dewey Classification Arrangement for Religious Studies." It was presented by a group of library professionals from the Dakota County Library System who spoke of their recent undertaking of updating their library materials in the 200s section [...]
I learned a lot and was reenergized for my work by attending the MLA conference. I have been applying the principles shared in the excellent session on merchandising. They recommended following vetted sales techniques, such as decluttering, setting things up in straight lines and pyramids and odd numbers, displaying items face forward, thinking about balance [...]
This was my first Minnesota Library Association Conference and I enjoyed every minute of it. My goals for the conference were to learn as much as I could about the Minnesota library structure as well as network with public librarians. I’ve recently made a career switch from a teacher librarian (school librarian) in another state [...]