Statement of Benefit from Margaret Villaverde

2023 ALA Annual Conference & Exhibition

Name of Recipient: Margaret Villaverde
Institution: Collier County Public Schools
Date(s) of Event / Conference / Session: June 22 – June 27, 2023

Please provide an overall, all-encompassing statement of what the event/conference/session was about.

The ALA Annual is a national conference sponsored by the American Library Association. It is nicknamed the world’s biggest library event”. The event brings together thousands of librarians including public school, private school and public librarians from all parts of the nation and abroad. There were librarians, library staff, authors, trustees, special guests, and exhibitors. This event took place this year in Chicago.

Besides the exhibitor such as the Library of Congress, academic librarians would have enjoyed this conference because there were many sessions that pertained to their field. One example of a session entitled Global Libraries as Advocates for Information Policy Change raised awareness and understanding for the need of information policies that support the ability of libraries to serve their communities, especially academic libraries. There were also tours being offered to visit Core Chicago area public libraries. For the techy librarians, there was a session focused on federal regulatory activities as they impact digital equity, broadband, e-books, licensing and digital resource models. These are just of few of the sessions that an academic librarian would enjoy. Most of all, the chance to network with fellow academic librarians would be a major reason for attending this conference.

What I learned will apply to a Public Library because…

Most of this conference would apply to the public library. For example, the session entitled Working Together Library Staff, Unions and Management. This was a meeting to discuss collaboration among library employees, library unions and managers. Another session entitled, Exploring With Tweens! Creating STEAM Exploration Spaces that are Inclusive, Equitable, and Accessible for Youth was a session focused on inclusive strategies for designing equitable learning environments and ways to engage tweens. Another session, Library Insights Summit: What a Librarian Needs was a panel of acquisition librarians from different sized
branches discussing common joys and challenges. If I was a public librarian, this would have been a session that would have interested me.

School Librarians/Media Specialists could take what I learned and translate it to their environment by…

What I learned from this as a public-school librarian was the networking that I was able to do with other librarians and authors in the exhibit area. I found great joy in speaking to authors to find out their motivation for writing a certain book. One session entitled, Library Insights Summit: Understanding and Combating Book Bans speaks about books bans which is very relevant in Florida at this time. In this session, a panel of librarians and experts share challenges and process ideas with the audience. This was more of an interactive session which allowed for participant input.

Special Librarians would benefit from this knowledge because…

Special librarians attending this conference would have a chance to network with the various exhibitors that specialize in their area of expertise. Making collections more accessible to all audiences are very important to your specific audience. The vendors that attended this conference could possibly help with that by using technology to digitize collections.