SDSU at the American Library Association's Annual Meeting

Each year, SDSU faculty and staff participate to the largest meeting of the library community in North America - librarians and library workers, library educators, authors, publishers, vendors and library service providers, as well as friends groups, trustees, and elected officials with an interest in libraries and library work - the Annual Conference of the American Library Association, being held this year in Chicago, Illinois. 

While the Annual Conference welcomes librarians and library workers from all sorts of libraries - academic, public, school, and special (e.g., hospital libraries, government libraries) - the focus for academic librarians will reflect many of the most significant concerns for our segment of the field, including responding to federal executive and legislative actions, addressing budget reductions and re-allocations, navigating the emergence of artificial intelligence tools and technologies in higher education and in library practice, evolving approaches to library collections, recruitment and retention of professional staff, data science and services, and sustainability.

Among the SDSU contributions to the program were: 

• Education Librarian Linda Salem's discussion of the Edward Gorey Personal Library as part of a panel on "Preserving Artists' Personal Libraries: Discovery, Access, and Scholarship"
• Assessment Librarian Connor Franklin Rey's co-authored study of "Algorithms in the Stacks: Investigating Automated, For-Profit Collection Diversity Audits in Public Libraries" and related panel discussion of "The State of Diversity Audits of Public Library Collections";
• Sciences and Sustainability Librarian Sarah Tribelhorn's panel discussions of "Catalysts for Sustainability Partnerships: Building Trust with Sustainability Stakeholders Beyond the Library," and "From Global to Local: How ALA's UN Engagement Strengthens Libraries and Communities."

These contributions are among many being made by library faculty and staff from across the CSU Libraries, including Humboldt, Long Beach, Los Angeles, Sacramento, and San Jose. SDSU contributions, in particular, reflect our commitments and strategic investments in inclusive collections and sustainability.

"The American Library Association is the oldest and largest professional association in the world for librarians, library employees, and their professional and community partners," said SDSU Library Dean Scott Walter, "and, as we approach the 150th anniversary of the Association's founding, our field faces several challenges, including to funding, emergent technologies, changes in user behavior, and access to information. It is essential for SDSU librarians and library staff to learn from our colleagues, identify opportunities for innovation seen in the work of libraries around the world, participate in discussions of library policy and advocacy, and share with our colleagues some of the 'best practices' that we develop every day at SDSU and throughout the CSU libraries."