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 use an annual or quarterly scholarship to help defray some of the costs!

Dates for next year:

PLA at ALA 2027 Annual Conference & Exhibition
June 24–28, 2027
New Orleans, LA

Some of the session topics Prairielands members attended last time:

  • Teaching Tech to Adults Who Say They’re Bad at Technology
  • Building Boundaries with Patrons
  • Better Internal Communicatio
  • Early Literacy Outreach to Spanish Speakers
  • Capital Funding in Tumultuous Times.
  • Strategies for Advocacy
  • Activating Leaders
  • Redesigning Rules to Reflect Library Values
  • Designing Accessible and Equitable Library Card Registrations
  • Activating Teen Services in Rural Communities
  • Making Space for Teens at the Library
  • How Gen Z Use (and Don’t Uuse) Public Libraries
  • Prompting AI to Harness Your Grant Proposal Potential
  • Summer Reading Strategies for Rural Libraries
  • Storytelling Festival
  • Tackling Kindergarten Readiness
  • Gateway to Reading
  • Internal Communication with Library Staff
  • Adopting Artificial Intelligence
  • Transforming Library Public Policy & Advocacy in a New Political Era.
  • AI Secret Agents
  • Memory Cafe
  • 3D Printing for Accessibility
  • AI Book CLubs
  • Digital Literacy for Adults
  • Leading with Intention: Establishing a Healthy Leadership Culture
  • Engaging with Korean Culture
  • Nonfiction Readers’ Advisory
  • Screening of the documentary: Are you a Librarian? Black Librarians and Freedom Through Literacy

Another reason to attend:

Attendees also had a lot to say about their “downtime” whilst at the conference! On top of attending fantastic conversations and presentations, our scholarship recipients also visited numerous vendors and resource tables in the Exhibit Hall. Their comments repeatedly addressed

  • Connecting with vendors
  • Easy access to resources
  • Countless freebies
  • Chatting with other librarians from all over the nation- and in at least one case, around the world.

Ultimately, one attendee shared the following and expressed her hopes that more folks take the opportunity to attend! (As do we at Prairielands!)

Spending the conference surrounded by 6,000 other attendees and approximately a thousand other vendors, presenters and industry adjacent professionals really hit home what an undertaking librarianship is.  The conference was a good reminder of how big and significant the scope of our work is.