Each year the American Library Association (ALA) hosts an annual conference to share the latest trends and research as well as to elevate key policy issues in librarianship, information science, and education through workshops, keynotes, and exhibits. It is also a valuable opportunity to network and collaborate with thousands of professionals in the library community, along with authors, publishers, and vendors from around the world.
The conference took place in Philadelphia where Dean of University Libraries, Marianne Ryan, Research and Learning Librarian, Monique Clark, and John Felice Rome Center Librarian, Anne Wittrick, were in attendance. Dean Ryan attended affiliate meetings as well as participated in professional development opportunities. Monique and Anne attended workshops and had the opportunity to network with fellow library professionals.
PR XCHANGE AWARDS COMPETITION WINNER
One of the conference’s features is the annual PR Xchange Awards Competition that showcases the amazing print and electronic promotional and marketing materials developed by libraries. Of the 297 entries, 51 winners were selected from more than 100 institutions including academic, public, school, state, and special libraries.
We are proud to announce that Loyola University Chicago Libraries Impact Report was one of four awardees in the Advocacy, Fundraising, Annual Reports, and Strategic Plan categories in the electronic format division. We want to thank the creative team who worked on this project: Tim Bannon (editor), Jocelyn Cheng (project coordinator), Sara Dreyfuss (copyeditor), Lukas Keapproth (photographer), Marianne Ryan (dean of libraries; editor), and Ross Zafar (graphic designer).
To learn more about the competition, please visit this page: Winners Announced: 2025 PR Xchange Awards Competition | ALA. For a slide presentation, see slide #36.
CONFERENCE REFLECTIONS BY MONIQUE CLARK
I visited Philadelphia on June 28 and 29 to present at the Conference. The day before my presentation, I met up with Anne Wittrick for coffee and baked goods. I later met up with a former direct report of mine who had recently joined the library staff at Montclair State University in New Jersey.
Photo: Monique Clark
On Sunday, I co-presented a poster titled, “Seamless Support: Library and Writing Center Integration” with Kelly Peterson-Fairchild (University of Massachusetts Global) and Rob Gray (Utah Tech University). To view the poster, please scroll to the end of the article.
The poster session was a blast; in addition to the people who stopped by to check out our poster, we had in-depth discussions with at least 17 attendees, some of whom had intended to follow up with us about our experiences. This was my first time presenting a poster and I appreciated the opportunity for a low-pressure way to present our experiences with combining library and writing center services to support student success. I worked with Kelly briefly while at UMass Global and I was excited to finally meet her in-person. While I attended two additional sessions at ALA, the poster session was the highlight of my experience, and I would consider doing a poster presentation at ALA or another conference if the opportunity ever presents itself.
Photo: Monique Clark
