Blog post by Rita Mitchell! Moderating a table discussion at MLA ’26

Hi, this is Rita Mitchell, librarian at Aurora Sinai Medical Center in Milwaukee, WI and a recipient of a WHSLA professional development award. Back in September of 2025, I decided to reply to a call for volunteers for the MLA Living Book events organized by the MLA Community Building and Belonging Committee (CBB). I was interested in being a “book” for the live event being held at MLA ’26. The CBB committee was facing difficulties with having only 1 or 2 members able to attend the MLA ’26 conference in person, so fellow caucuses joined in to collaborate on a roundtable event. The Living Book event was not going to happen. The CBB committee decided to invite interested “books” who would be in Milwaukee at MLA ’26 to participate in the Storytelling Roundtable. This made the theme of the MLA ’26 Conference – Cultured Collaborations, very relevant. I volunteered, helped plan the details of the event, and participated as a moderator of a table.

Here is the description:

The Community Building and Belonging Committee along with Accessibility and Disability and Social Justice and Health Disparities Caucuses invite you to join us in sharing our stories of resilience, change, and confusion due to recent changes in our country and professional community. The hope is not only to have space for catharsis, but to share strategies for problem solving, working around, working through and resisting. An additional aim is to widen, strengthen or establish a network of support for members facing issues related to identity, community building, belonging, social justice, and/or accessibility.

Roundtables will have moderators to help guide conversation, some with defined topics for those that wish to focus on a particular issue, but others that are open for more mixed conversations. We will have a Padlet as a mechanism for recording discussions/reporting back which allows for both named and anonymous participation.

I was the moderator for one of the tables at the event: Later in Life Disabilities: Adapting to a disability later in life presents unique challenges. Join the conversation on how to manage this transition and provide meaningful support to others.

This allowed me a space to talk about my recently acquired disabilities – I suffered a Subdural Hematoma, a traumatic brain injury, in June of 2020. I spent June and July in the Neuro ICU and then went to a rehabilitation facility specifically for head injury patients. I didn’t return home until December and returned to work part time in January of 2021. I received exceptional support from my director, manager and teammates during my hospitalization/rehab and after my return to home and work. I thought sharing what this entailed might be helpful to others. What do you do when you or someone you work with “get hit by a bus”? Pardon the expression, but this is what we would say at a former job I had – be ready or have your job documented in case someone needs to take over when you “get hit by a bus”. Well, I did get “hit by a bus”, but I had the support of my colleagues and my family to pull me through.

I had a very engaging conversation at my “Later in Life Disabilities” table, and I hope I shared some pearls of wisdom with the participants.

Some pearls of wisdom for the manager/director of someone with a later-in-life disability:

• Be present for their family if it is welcomed – my husband appreciated the calls from my director about insurance and medical leave tasks that needed to be completed while I was in the hospital.

• Manage the person’s work email – I was gone for 7 months and having my important emails addressed and the “not so important” emails put in a folder was extremely helpful. Bonus – we didn’t lose any patrons or service requests because I was absent and couldn’t respond to an email.

• Accommodations/work restrictions – these are very important to have in place. Managers should be able to help direct the employee to the correct forms or HR contacts to have these in place.

Pearls for those living with a later-in-life disability:

• Life is too short to be miserable at work – find your support network, reach out and find those who have similar challenges or experiences.

• Ask for help when you need it and give yourself grace (Giving yourself grace means cutting yourself some slack. It’s about letting go of perfection, dropping the harsh inner critic, and allowing yourself to be human. Treat yourself with the same kindness, patience, and understanding you would offer a good friend – from Jenna Overbaugh).

• Be honest – if you are having a bad day, let it be, and let your manager know. Open communication is key to your success and happiness at work.

Helping with the planning process allowed me to meet some fantastic MLA members from different locations and different types of libraries. I get very nervous about presenting or speaking with peers, but this experience of moderating “difficult conversations” has helped me gain some confidence and provided the conference speaking engagement I needed. My biggest takeaway was that MLA is an organization for the profession, but also for people. The MLA Community Building and Belonging Committee is there to support inclusivity, fairness and belonging within the organization, at all levels. A huge thank you to WHSLA for the financial support provided to attend the conference in Milwaukee, and to the MLA CBB committee for inviting me to be part of the Storytelling Roundtable.

Note: Posted on behalf of Rita Mitchell 🌟

Submit Your Research Proposal to the Midwest MLA 2026 Conference!

Image adapted from Markus Winkler's from Pixabay

*Note: The text below was pasted from an announcement made by the Members of the Research Subcommittee of the 2026 Midwest MLA Annual Conference.

The Annual Conference of the Midwest Chapter/MLA Research Committee invites proposals for contributed papers, posters, and lightning sessions for the 2026 Midwest Annual Meeting, themed “Care and Comfort.” Contributed content will be presented virtually on October 22nd and 23rd.
Papers presenters will have 15 minutes, and lightning talks presenters will have 5 minutes. Poster presenters will be asked to provide a 5-minute video or audio recording ahead of time about your poster. The posters and recordings will be made available to conference attendees in advance. More details to follow in August after presenters have been notified of acceptance.

Presentations from the 2026 MLA meeting in Milwaukee are welcome. Please consider presenting it again at the Midwest MLA 2026 conference!

The deadline for submissions is Thursday, July 30th. Notifications of acceptance or rejection will be made by Thursday, August 20th.

Please use this Qualtrics Form to submit your proposal. 

Happy submitting! ☕

Reflections from MLA ’26: Cultured Collaborations (a post by Karen L. Hanus!)

As a medical librarian in Wisconsin, I was thrilled to be an active planner and participant in the Medical Library Association Conference held in Milwaukee, Wisconsin! It was especially meaningful to connect with so many Wisconsin colleagues at a national conference. It was so fun to collaborate, learn, and eat together! I’m deeply grateful to the Wisconsin Health Science Library Association for its financial support for my and so many other WHSLA members’ conference experiences. Thank you!

One of the memorable aspects of the MLA ‘26 conference was how much conference coordinators and participants leaned into cheese puns to celebrate being in the Dairy State! Visitors to the Hospitality booth were welcomed to adopt their cheese name (based on the first initial of your real first and last name) and decorate their badge with cheesy stickers. But, all the “cultured” collaborations weren’t just about cheese. I especially liked the NLM Update where Ken Koyle, NNLM Program Director, said that he didn’t have any cheese puns, but the conference lacked beer puns and he didn’t want to “let that opportunity Pabst us by!”

Beyond the playful local puns, the conference also offered the kind of substantive professional learning that makes MLA a valuable learning experience. There was an opportunity to attend a wide variety of paper sessions; I’ll report on one. In “From Brie-f Comments to Lasting Revisions: Librarian Peer Review in Action” Melissa Rethlefsen from University of New Mexico and her colleagues reported on their project to assess the differences between librarians and non-librarians in their peer review comments and analyze the comparative impact of the comments on how authors decided to revise their manuscripts. They analyzed manuscripts with at least one librarian peer reviewer and that were ultimately published. They found that librarians tended to focus on the methodology piece and barely talked about the results and discussion in contrast to non-librarian reviewers. They found there was no significant difference between whether the comments were made by librarians or non-librarians on whether authors made changes to their manuscript. The project team hopes to continue their research by looking at articles that were rejected to see if there were significant differences in how the authors reacted to comments made by librarians vs. non-librarians.

MLA’s first-ever AI Prompt-a-Thon offered me a contrast from scholarly communication to emerging tools and skills for medical librarians. In the session, attendees worked in teams of 2-5. We worked through two scenarios and developed prompts using the CLEAR prompting framework to interact with a variety of AI products. Once developed, our prompts were submitted through a form and were scored in real-time based on the adherence to the CLEAR (Concise, Logical, Explicit, Adaptive, and Reflective) framework. For an added bit of fun, teams whose prompts scored highest won a prize. My team tied for first in the PubMed Search Strategy scenario and I was awarded an Ebola virus plush toy. That was a unique conference experience and I suspect the AI Prompt-a-Thon will be repeated! Just a little tip if you ever have the opportunity to attend: be sure to bring a laptop as working on a phone is challenging.

While I appreciated the opportunity to learn as an attendee, I was also grateful to contribute to the program as a panelist at Adaptation and Navigation: Collections in a Time of Change, one of the Collection Development symposia. My co-panelists and I first outlined the content of two executive orders which revoked previous executive orders and align with a shift away from diversity-focused programs to merit-based opportunities. Then we demonstrated how ACGME and LCME accreditation requirements have evolved in response to state laws and federal actions. Nicole Thies-Mahon, Meredith Solomon and I then spoke about our different organizations’ experiences on how federal and state policy changes related to DEI have impacted our collections and practices. Each librarian had a different perspective and reflected on the different cultures in their organizations in how they are adapting.

My individual participation was just one part of a larger Wisconsin librarian presence throughout MLA ’26. I want to take this opportunity to recognize and thank all the Wisconsin librarians who helped with the planning and execution of MLA ‘26! The Local Assistance Committee (LAC) participated in various conference planning aspects including developing the Dining Guide, writing blog posts, coordinating volunteers and hospitality, planning the local service project, and highlighting museums and libraries in the area.

One of the LAC’s accomplishments was planning an awesome presentation at the J.R.R. Tolkien archives at Marquette University! The Tolkien archives tour was “sold out” quickly, but a few registrants had to cancel last minute due to flight delays. Fortunately, we were able to fill their spots to maximize participation for a fantastic event! Prior to the tour, I didn’t ever consider why the Tolkien manuscripts are at Marquette University. William Ready, library director from 1956 to 1963 had a vision to collect Catholic authors’ manuscripts for the new library. Soon after it was published, he recognized that The Lord of the Rings was a work of genius and he contacted Tolkien, a life-long Catholic, with what we now know to be a relatively modest offer to purchase the manuscripts (less than $5,000). Ready was the first to reach out with an offer and Tolkien thought it was best he’d ever get. How astounding, but how fortunate for Marquette University!

I was also pleased to have a role in the planning and execution of the My Very Own Blanket Local Service Project. MLA conference attendees came together at a blanket-making party and created 75 no-sew fleece blankets. An additional five blankets crafted by members prior to the conference raised the total to 80 hand-made blankets that were donated to Robyn’s Nest, a core support program of Children’s Wisconsin that provides essential resources to families involved in foster care. MLA’s presence positively impacted on the community in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and left tangible reminders for children in foster care. I thank WHSLA also for the generous donation to the cause, having supported 10 blanket kits for the event!

Next year’s MLA conference is going to be in Denver, CO and their convention center has a 40-foot blue bear peering in through the windows. MLA ’26 conference attendees found a “growing bear” promotional item in their conference bags. That little blue bear was a fun reminder that MLA conferences often leave us with both professional inspiration and memorable moments of joviality. So, for one last bit of fun from MLA ’26, I put my Denver blue bear in a two-gallon container of water for a couple of weeks. The package promised that the approximately two-inch bear could grow up to 600% depending on how big a container of water you’d put it in, but mine only grew to about four inches. I wonder if I put it in a swimming pool how big it would get!

The MLA ‘26 conference was a joyous and engaging experience! I am grateful for the opportunity to represent Wisconsin, learn from colleagues across the profession, and bring the inspiration of MLA ’26 back to WHSLA. Thank you again, WHSLA, for your support!

 Note: Posted on behalf of Karen L. Hanus 🌟

Upcoming (and FREE!) Online Conference: LESSS

Image by Foden Nguyen from Pixabay

Register for the upcoming Library Evidence Synthesis Services Symposium (LESSS)! 

The conference is a "four-day, free, virtual professional development event for information professionals supporting evidence synthesis services in libraries and other information workplaces." The conference will take place June 15th through June 18th, 2026.

You can register for the conference via their form. 

For a taste of what LESSS conferences are like, you can take a look at their YouTube channel, which contains recorded sessions and presentations from last year's conference.

Thanks for reading, and happy searching!