I was fortunate to receive a WHSLA Professional Grant to attend the MLA '26 Conference held in Milwaukee last May. This post full fills the grant requirement to share what I learned with my WHSLA colleagues.
I was pleased to be able to attend MLA this year so close to home, and glad that WHSLA made it possible for so many of us to attend this year. [THANK YOU, WHSLA!]
Having attended several MLA Conferences over the last 25 years, this one seemed much reduced in terms of attendance and vendors. The first MLA conference I attended was in Chicago in 2000 (or so) and had roughly 5000 attendees in person. This time, it was less than 1000 people, with some attending virtually. Despite the reduced attendance, MLA still put on a great conference with many interesting presentation topics. Many attendees gave multiple presentations.
I did appreciate all the gouda cheese puns woven throughout the conference. Ha Ha!
This paper that stuck with me the most was:
Beyond the Widget Count: Telling Our Story with Microsoft Loop and Co-Pilot by Katherine Staab, AHIP, of Kaiser-Permanente (KP) Libraries.
Although I didn't know it when I sat in on this paper, it was a continuation of an older KP effort to show the value of libraries not just with statistics but also a narrative to explain the numbers. Their efforts have evolved to incorporate some AI tools, specifically Microsoft Loop and Co-Pilot, to collect the monthly narratives from ALL the KP Librarians to help fill in the bigger story about How much did we do in the last month? and What changed because of what we did? They also made an effort to link it back to company goals and objectives, which translates the value of Library Services into the language organizational leaders will understand. The tools make it much easier to gather the narratives from library staff so that 1 person can pull it into a collective report.
