Attending the MLA conference this year in Milwaukee was a highly rewarding experience! I am grateful for the opportunity to go, as I was able to see a new city, see what’s changing in librarianship, make friends, and gain inspiration for new and continued library-related projects back home.

Milwaukee is a wonderful city with lakeside views and even multiple beaches. The art museum is absolutely beautiful and awe-inspiring. The days were cold but sunny, and there were late-night thunderstorms which helped me fall asleep. There was a lovely mini mart near my hotel with helpful essentials like coffee and ice cream, and I found a pizza-by-the-slice place within walking distance as well (all very important).

This year at MLA, a key overall difference that I noticed was the variety of discussions on the use, ethics, and direction of AI in library and information science. I noticed that this year, presenters had tangible data and assessments on AI performance that I hadn’t seen in previous years, and so there was really a lot to say. Also, the audience’s perspectives on AI usage were refreshingly varied. Some shared positive experiences, others pointed out specific flaws. Checklists, data visualizations, and rubrics were presented as ways of measuring and evaluating AI performance. Q&A sessions that followed were engaging. This trend toward variety was informed and based on experience.

Another key moment at MLA this year was that Shannon Jones led the Janet Doe lecture, and was the third black woman in MLA’s history to do so. Shannon’s inspirational accomplishments in librarianship and sense of humor made her lecture memorable!

And for my personal highlights! I am most proud of leading an immersion session with two co-facilitators on creating and editing tutorial videos. This was a major accomplishment. We practiced and prepared for months! In our session, we had a full house of attendees who participated in our activities and asked great questions. Afterward I felt energized, buzzing with ideas like providing more in-depth video editing instruction online and maybe a longer video editing in-person instruction session. I’m grateful for the feedback I received and for the opportunity to contribute to librarianship at MLA.

Highlights stemmed from some key unexpected moments:
– While searching for the EBP caucus during the caucus meetup lunch session, I ended up at a totally different table and talked with the director of a cancer center instead. Because our work was different, we were able to provide refreshing perspectives on each other’s contributions to librarianship. I was touched to hear her say that flexibility is a strong asset in the field, and I fear that for better or for worse, that will stick with me (sorry for folks who may be more detail-oriented!). I’m grateful that at MLA, directors and early-career librarians like myself can sit at the same tables and talk.
– I spontaneously left the poster session early to talk with a new friend over empanadas: we both go on rounds, but she goes with multiple different groups, while I go with one group and am looking to grow. We talked about instruction sessions in clinical spaces and developing a medical knowledge base.

I had two additional presentations at MLA this year, first on a collaborative project evaluating the AI tool Elicit, and second on an instruction session for medical students on one of their rotations.

I was grouped with a clinical collaborations group for the AI evaluation project which surprised me initially. But after listening to the other speakers, I appreciated that what made our project unique was its collaboration aspect. Also, seeing the other accomplishments of clinical support shared in the session, workshops and embedded research groups, encouraged me to consider new ways of collaborating with clinicians. Particularly now that the AI evaluation project is coming to a close.

My second presentation about embedded instruction for students on rotation was key to my friendship development at MLA! Many other librarians in attendance also go on rounds at their institutions. And since many of us are the only rounding librarian at our respective institutions, it was cathartic to have a space to ask questions we’d been holding onto for what’s felt like too long: Who has gotten access to the electronic health record? Who is developing new connections with clinicians? How do you address clinical questions that come up?

And then after a few days of hard work, we partied! I was able to hop from the EBSCO private night-at-the-museum tour to Ovid’s swanky rooftop dance party. It’s fun to relax and enjoy being in a new place. There were also a few moments of synchronicity: first I wandered into the historical center on free admission day, and then later bumped into some colleagues at the Milwaukee airport for some final reflection before heading back home.

Overall, the ability to attend and contribute to a conference like this reassures me that I belong in library and information science. I wish the same opportunity for my colleagues and look forward to connecting more and more. I am excited for next year’s conference in Denver!

I wanted to designate a spot for acknowledging the support I’ve had over the past year. I am very grateful for the collaboration and contributions of Jessica Koos, Emily Espanol, and Sunny Chung in preparing the immersion session. My supervisor, Lynn Kysh, has provided amazing mentorship and guidance which helped me feel like three presentations could be doable. Lynn also led the collaborative project on evaluating Elicit, and I appreciate her leadership. I also am extremely grateful to the NCNMLG for sponsoring my trip to Milwaukee and making this all possible.

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– Submitted by Sadie Davenport, Health Sciences Librarian, University of California, Davis

While MLA offers many opportunities for learning, one of my personal delights this year was the diversity in offerings. In my experience of past MLA conferences, MLA has offered a lot of presentations on a singular topic, evidence synthesis, and while there were a lot of great presentations on that topic, this year was balanced by presentations on other topics. This included AI as a major concept, but not in such a way as to overwhelm the rest of the conference with only AI focused research and presentations. I was personally most excited for presentations on search hedge development, burnout workshops, and the RTI presentations. The RTI presentations were in the form of posters, which were also available to see during the poster session, which I thought was a really good idea, especially as someone who had a poster session and wouldn’t have been able to hear the presentations otherwise.

Milwaukee was a beautiful city, very walkable in the downtown areas, and the convention center itself had a lot of large windows, which was allowed for a lot of natural light. We were very fortunate to arrive during some nice weather, and the food at the convention was good for a convention, although the drink choices were somewhat limited. We did learn that the next MLA conference will be in Denver, CO, although with only 600 or so attendees at this year’s conference, I’m not sure what that will look like. I was able to spend some time with our MLGSCA colleagues and speak to members of Chapter Council, which I hope will be helpful for our future as a chapter.

One of my favorite things about MLA is having the time and space to speak with and get to know librarians who I haven’t had the opportunity to meet before, and this MLA was another excellent opportunity for this, as well as the being a space where I could meet so many librarians I’ve enjoyed virtual conservations, with and worked with remotely, in person for the first time. I want to express my gratitude to the professional development committee for funding my registration to MLA this year, and to NCNMLG as a whole for the support. While I know many chapter members were not able to attend MLA this year, I hope we can see each other at MLA next year in Colorado.

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– Submitted by Rachel Keiko Stark, Health Sciences Librarian

Receiving a NCNMLG Professional Development Grant for 2025-2026 enabled me to enroll in a Library Juice Academy course called “Leadership Essentials,” offered in January of this year. I had had my eye on the course for some time, and I would like to thank the NCNMLG for giving me the chance to finally seize this opportunity. While I do not supervise anyone in my current role, I have been called on to lead in less formal ways (e.g., chairing committees, serving as an officer in NCMLG and elsewhere, mentoring new librarians, etc.) and thought the course might help me feel more confident taking on these roles by providing instruction in the basics.

Library Juice Academy’s “Leadership Essentials,” taught by Cinthya Ippoliti, University Librarian and Director of the Auraria Library, is an asynchronous online course in which students can “explore who [they] want to be as a leader and leverage leadership models to help [them] apply this content to a broader institutional context.” Over the course of four weeks, we learned about various leadership theories, models, and approaches, with an emphasis on inclusiveness. We were asked to think about specific situations in our own libraries and how what we were learning might be applied in those situations in our weekly reflections and class discussions. I appreciated the highly reflective nature of the course, as well as the opportunity to discuss issues with the other students, many of whom have far more leadership experience than I do. While I wish that we were able to have some of these discussions in real time, the asynchronous nature of the course allowed the other students and I to fit our learning into our busy schedules. The readings, assignments, and discussions gave me a starting point for my own, individual exploration of this important topic and skillset.

All in all, I am glad I was able to complete this short, asynchronous online course on leadership basics and encourage other NCMLG members who are, perhaps, unable to travel to a conference but still wish to engage in professional development to remember that the grant can be used for courses like “Leadership Essentials.”

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– Submitted by Elena Azadbakht, Health Sciences & Evidence Synthesis Librarian, University of Nevada, Reno

Receiving the NCNMLG Professional Development Award for 2023-2024 allowed me to attend the annual MLA conference in Portland, OR. The conference ran from May 18 through 21, with the theme of Stronger Together, focusing on collaborative librarianship and advancing together as a profession. The funding NCNMLG provided allowed me to attend the conference earlier, arriving on the 18th to participate in the AI Summit, “Why AI? Transforming the Health Information Profession,” which provided attendees and vendors the opportunity to discuss AI and the role it currently plays in librarianship and future implications, both for health sciences librarianship and health sciences in general.

MLA 2024 was jam-packed with paper sessions, lightning talks, and immersion sessions, and along with the focus on togetherness and connection, many of the sessions covered digital and health equity and BINPOC representation in medicine. One of the presentations that I enjoyed the most was, “Do You See Me?: The Lack of Representation of Diverse Skin Tones in Medical Education,” that discussed librarian efforts and programming in developing and promoting visual resources of diverse skin tones for medical students. This presentation was really inspiring- demonstrating in a very tangible way just how systemic racism is embedded throughout the medical education process, from the resources used, to how clinicians instruct, and to what tools are prioritized. Libraries do a great job of promoting inclusion and representation within the stacks and book collections but it would be amazing to push even further and challenge the publishers and vendors toward more accountability in the resources they sell to us; how are they promoting inclusion and representation?

I was also able to attend an immersion session on slow librarianship entitled, “Lessons in Slow Librarianship: Making Room for Thought, Intention, and Kindness,” that discussed how slow librarianship principles can be applied to health sciences librarianship. It can be extra challenging to incorporate principles of slow librarianship into health sciences librarianship (which lives in a culture of urgency) and the presenters offered some great exercises that allowed for real-world examples and implementation.

The conference culminated with the John P. McGovern’s lecture by Dr. Safiya Noble, author of Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism, reinforcing that AI has been here, is here to stay, and how we as librarians need to come together to address issues in digital and health equity.

I am thankful to have received the professional development award and encourage anyone that is interested in attending a conference or a professional development event to reach out to NCNMLG and apply.

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– Submitted by Ana Corral

I was fortunate to be able to attend ALA Annual 2024 in San Diego, CA June 28-July 2, 2024 with the assistance of the NCNMLG Professional Development Award. I am a fairly new academic librarian at California State University, Sacramento. Since I am still exploring what my research focus will be, a large conference like ALA was appealing to get a sampling of research across many different topics. I had not attended this conference since 2015, and it was heartening to see the turnout and participation gradually returning to pre-pandemic levels. 

A major focus of this year’s conference programming was unsurprisingly artificial intelligence (AI). I attended several sessions on this topic, ranging from how to design AI prompts to incorporating AI into information literacy instruction. I was able to share several resources I learned about with my colleagues in the research and instruction department, and it spurred me and two other colleagues to create an AI literacy research guide of our own for our faculty and students. We have been promoting this guide this semester and have received positive feedback so far.

As our institution prepares for its reclassification to an R2 university, we are expecting an uptick in research service needs, one of which may be research data management services. I made sure to attend two panel sessions on data literacy (“Developing Data Literacy Champions: Building a Culture of Critical Engagement with Data”) and Open Science (“Open Science Conversations: Academic Library Engagement, Outreach & Services in the Year of Open Science”) which were great resources to prepare for these services. The topic of AI bled into these sessions, and I was surprised to discover a new challenge to Open Access: researchers are hesitant to deposit their works into open repositories for fear that proprietary AI will harvest their work and use it as training content. I also learned about features and benefits of Open Science to create buy-in with researchers, such as streamlining their research process, eliminating loss of data, versioning control, and justifying that higher education is valuable in society to policymakers and the general public.

One particularly special aspect about my attendance this year was that I was able to attend the ALA Spectrum Scholarship graduation lunch. I am a Spectrum Scholar alum (2012) and the current co-chair of the scholarship jury, so getting to meet and celebrate this year’s awardees was particularly rewarding. I also was able to meet my co-chair and ODLOS staff for the first time in person after more than two years of Zoom meetings, and this would not have been possible without the NCNMLG award. I encourage anyone considering applying for this award to apply, as it greatly helped with my professional development.

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– Submitted by Alicia Zuniga