Over four days in October (Oct. 14–17), downtown Winston‑Salem became a hub for North Carolina’s library community as the North Carolina Library Association (NCLA) held its 66th Biennial Conference. Z. Smith Reynolds Library (ZSR) contributed throughout—serving on planning committees, sharing work in sessions and posters, and engaging as attendees. In this post, members of ZSR’s Research, Instruction, and Outreach (RIO) team share their reflections.

Morgan

Although the sessions, speakers, and posters at NCLA are all top-notch, my favorite thing about NCLA is (and will probably always be) getting to connect with colleagues and friends new and old. As a member of and past Chair of NCLA’s Business Librarianship section – BLINC, I’m always looking to connect and network with fellow-BLINC members, support their sessions, and learn from the excellent work they are doing in their communities and at their institutions. I was excited to attend the session introducing NC IDEA’s LEAF program – an initiative I’ve been actively supporting since its inception. Broadly LEAF is a collaborative effort between the NC IDEA Foundation, BLINC, and NC LIVE to support the development of libraries and librarians as essential components of the entrepreneurial ecosystem. LEAF stands for Libraries for Entrepreneurial Advancement Fellowship and is an 8-week cohort based model, where 16 librarians attend an intensive, fully funded 2.5 day in-person program followed by 8-weeks of virtual 1-hour meetings all centered around developing the necessary skills, competencies, and community needed to support entrepreneurship in their library’s context. I’ve loved every moment of my experience with LEAF and it was great to see the interest in the room and connect with individuals in the two cohorts that have (or are about to) complete the program. Outside of sessions and networking happening at the conference, the Simply Analytics-sponsored BLINC dinner at Spring House Restaurant is also a highlight and it was great to see some ZSR colleagues in the mix including Carol, Denice, and Hu!

(BLINC Dinner at Spring House – photo courtesy of Steve Cramer, UNCG)

Denice

I started the NCLA conference on Monday, October 13th with the STEM-LINC business meeting and wrapped it up at the conference luncheon on Friday, October 17th. This was my first year presenting a pre-conference workshop. “AI in Action: Practical Applications for Librarians” focussed on giving an overview of the different types of AI apps as well as a variety of use cases. Participants had the opportunity to choose from a list of different AI apps from chatbots to mindmapping and experiment with how they could use AI in their current role. Different participants discussed a particular pain-point and we brainstormed possible AI tools that would resolve the problem or how they could use AI to improve productivity. Hearing individuals share how they overcame their fear of AI to find ways to improve their productivity at the end of the pre-conference workshop was heartwarming.

I was honored to be nominated for the NCLA Women in Libraries Roundtable’s Marilyn Miller award and cheered on the winner at the luncheon. It was a joy networking and talking with different individuals at the President’s dinner, BLINC dinner and REMCO Luncheon. Lastly, on Friday, I shared different insights on the history of AI in academic libraries in “There is nothing new under the sun: The evolution of AI in academic libraries” and had a ball moderating the workshop “Beyond Books: Academic library grant and outreach programming establishes classroom libraries in new public charter school” with Colleen, Rebecca, and Rashawn Meekins from Anderson Academy.

I am happily turning over the proverbial reins of the STEM-LINC section to Candace Jacobs. After chairing STEM-LINC for two years and co-chairing with Candace for an additional two years, I will head into the next biennium as the Past Chair.

Hu

This was my last NCLA as an Instruction and Graduate Student Support Librarian! It was a joy to co-present with Tanya and Carolyn on the history of Writers’ Camp @ ZSR on Wednesday and to give my final conference presentation on Friday with Molly as we discussed the history of ZSR’s work with graduate students! One of the best sessions I attended was an updated presentation by Elon librarians on their assessment program! You can learn more about the program in the Elon Student Learning Assessment Guide

(Hu and former ZSR colleague Molly Keener present at NCLA – photo courtesy of Hu Womack)

Kathy

This was the first NCLA since 2015 that I wasn’t on the Planning Committee for! While that was a wonderful experience for the past four conferences, it was really nice to just be able to go and enjoy this conference and a regular attendee and presenter (and appreciate the great work of this year’s committee!).

The three keynotes this year really reflected the variety of libraries and librarianship. The opening keynote, presented by John Chrastka of EveryLibrary, was a great way to kick off this year’s conference. I heard numerous folks say that they felt empowered by his message and by knowing that we have folks like him working with and for libraries all over the country. I loved hearing more from author Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle about the importance of story in all communities and learning more about the Eastern Band of Cherokee. And I could have listened to the stories that Damarius Johnson and Sauda Mitchell shared in the closing keynote all afternoon! Their session, which centered around the book that Damarius co-edited, Picturing Black History: Photographs and Stories that Changed the World, was absolutely fascinating and had incredible visuals to accompany it.

The first session I attended was “‘The Thing’ About Congressional Collections” by our very own Kate Trathan and our former ZSR colleague, Stephanie Bennett. While I knew that Kate had been working on the Burr collection for years, I learned that I had no idea what that work actually entailed. I really enjoyed hearing about the ins and outs of this project (which she just published the finding aid for!) and the unique challenges of processing a congressional collection. It gave me a new appreciation for how monumental this task was, and I am so grateful that she’s staying on at ZSR to apply her knowledge and skills to new collections!

On Thursday morning, I moderated a panel discussion, “Listen Up! Introducing Audiobooks to Campus Life”, featuring Meghan Webb, Shannon Tennant (Elon) and Katelyn Ander (UNC-CH). Each panelist shared about their experience launching an audiobook collection on campus, how it has been received, and challenges they faced. They also shared some stats, such as the most-used titles at each campus (spoiler alert: Rebecca Yarros is very popular). Our audiobook service is less than a year old, so it was especially useful to hear from other libraries whose collections have been in place much longer. (I had also been excited to moderate a non-AI session, but alas, AI-generated audiobooks did creep into the discussion…)

Beyond these, I attended multiple sessions presented by my amazing ZSR colleagues, who were all over the conference! I also attended sessions on collection development, popular reading, and library liaisons; using AI for information literacy and scholarship; and middle management. And of course, I couldn’t miss Hu and Molly’s last-ever ZSR presentation! There were also several sessions I couldn’t attend because of conflicts. But as always, NCLA is one of my favorite conferences, because I get so much out of connecting with and learning from folks at all kinds of libraries, whether we’re getting coffee, chatting in the exhibit hall, or attending a presentation.

One of the biggest highlights of the conference for me was at the All-Conference Reception on Thursday evening. In my role as Director-at-Large for the Piedmont region, I serve on the Membership Committee, and each year, our committee presents the NCLA Distinguished Library Service Award. This year, we selected two recipients and Breanne Crumption (Director-at-Large for the Western region) and I had the honor of presenting those awards to Lorrie Russell (High Point Public Library) and Tracey Fitzmaurice (Fontana Regional Library). It was a joy to see these individuals being celebrated for their contributions to libraries and their communities.

Elizabeth

NCLA’s Biennial Conference is a perpetual favorite of mine, because it was at my very first NCLA conference that I learned about the amazing credit-bearing instruction work ZSR librarians were engaged in! Relationship building over the years is truly one of my favorite things about our professional association! This year I really only attended sessions that I was presenting at (three of them) because the Library Advocacy and Legislation Section (LALS), which I chaired this biennium, had a joint booth with the Intellectual Freedom Committee to promote ReadFreeNC, a resource for librarians facing censorship, harassment, or looking to stay informed about legislation impacting libraries at the state level. Conference attendees were given a coupon for a ReadFreeNC t-shirt (designed by ZSR’s very own Jemma Johnson), so our booth received a lot of traffic!

(Elizabeth at the Read Free NC Booth – photo courtesy of Elizabeth Ellis)

Speaking of censorship and intellectual freedom, I also had a blast presenting with WFU colleagues Amanda Kaufman, Meghan Webb, and Alicia LaPrelle on the work we’ve been doing with our FYS on Banned Books. With the NCLA conference in town, we had a unique opportunity to bring a little bit of the conference to our students through a lunch and learn class session with keynote speaker and EveryLibrary Executive Director John Chrastka and EveryLibrary Project Manager Martha McGehee. Thanks to a ZSR Innovation Grant, we had a wonderful lunch and engaging conversation with our students and these library advocates on topics like freedom of speech, local political (not partisan) engagement, and how social media influences these things.

(Lunch and learn class session with keynote speaker and EveryLibrary Executive Director John Chrastka and EveryLibrary Project Manager Martha McGehee – photo courtesy of Elizabeth Ellis)

Lastly, I want to share about the excellent pre-conference workshop sponsored by LALS on Building Capacity for Dialogue Across Difference with Alan Yarborough of Habits of Discourse. This half-day workshop honestly felt too short, as attendees considered our values, how they align with what we perceive to be our library/user values, as well as the values of our nation, and how we can use this as a starting point to find common ground and engage with one another. I highly recommend reaching out to Alan if your program or library is considering a workshop on how to effectively engage in conversations where contentious topics may arise!

Amanda

I look forward to NCLA every two years because of the opportunity to catch up with colleagues from across North Carolina. This year, I enjoyed attending two separate sessions related to instruction and mid-career librarianship and presenting on our Banned Books FYS.

The first session I attended was presented by our colleagues at Appalachian State University, Laura, Langberg, and Mitch Britton on, “Using the Internet to Contextualize Information Literacy for First Year Students,” which had great takeaways for integrating students prior knowledge about searching the internet into first year one-shot information literacy sessions. The second session I attended, was presented by our colleagues at UNC–Wilmington and UN –Charlotte (Meghan Wanucha-Smith and Garrison Libby, respectively), on “The Liminality of Middle Management: Navigating the Periphery and Finding Solidarity.” Both had some great advice on managing increasing levels of responsibility in the library, and Wanucha-Smith’s discussion of Amanda Litman’s, “responsible authenticity” has given me food for thought for the past several weeks.

Myself, Elizabeth Ellis, Meghan Webb, and Alicia LaPrelle also had the honor of presenting on our banned books FYS, in the presentation, “New Frontiers in Intellectual Freedom: Teaching Gen Z About Book Challenges.” We had an engaged crowd that stayed late to ask a lot of great questions, even on a Friday, so that felt really good. 🙂