Many thanks to Amanda Unger from the Hudson Area Public Library, who attended the PLA Annual Conference earlier this month, for sharing a few take-aways!
I had the privilege to attend all three days of the Public Library Association Conference. There was an overwhelming amount of information to take away from the conference, and I am glad to share my much longer document detailing the sessions I attended, but the most common themes that I came across during my time at the PLA were:
- Libraries Without Borders
- Librarian Uncertainty about AI
- Libraries and Community Partnership
These themes occurred in nearly every session I attended during my time at the PLA, which made it clear that these are the modern issues of public libraries.
In Mobile Libraries vs Library Deserts, the presenters shared how they can get library access to patrons in the rural and underserved parts of their library system by taking a bookmobile to various locations throughout the week. Their bookmobile is decked out with internet access, library card creation tools, self-checkouts and more. The bus they use is 444 James Pattersons long, they noted.
In the session How Gen Z Uses and Doesn’t Use Libraries the presenters took both a positive and negative outlook on AI. They told the audience that their study showed that Gen Z feels increasing anxiety about using AI and that they will underreport using it because of this. They also shared how they used their own AI model to create an interactive display for their history room. Meanwhile, one of the presenters even shared how she teaches a digital ethics class at her university and that she tells her students that AI is NOT inevitable, and we don’t have to treat it that way. That reminded me of Thursday’s Opening Session with Dr. Ruha Benjamin, The New Jim Code, where she referred to the big AI groups in Silicon Valley as the “Broligarchy”.
Several library sessions including From Kimchi to Korean Book Discussion: Culture and Community, Phoning It In: Innovative Strategies to Provide Immigration Legal Help, and The Revolution Will not be Alphabetized all suggested the use of community partnership to promote programming in your library and create more sound relationships with patrons and businesses.
Overall, the PLA Conference reinforced the role of libraries as community-centered institutions that must navigate the rapidly changing world around them whether it be through technology, politics, or accessibility.
Thank you for reading,
Amanda