December 2024

Call For Nominating & Elections Committee Volunteers!

The Nominations/Elections Committee seeks members from each of the three types of academic libraries to identify candidates for President-Elect, Secretary, Board of Directors, and Interest Group Coordination Council. Other duties include developing an election timeline, marketing and promoting the election process to members, soliciting candidate’s profiles and information, and verifying election results. The committee will begin its work in February and conclude with the end of the election cycle in June 2025.

If you can spare a few hours in the spring to help us build MiALA’s leadership team, or have questions, please contact committee Chair Darlene Johnson-Bignotti: dxjohnso@oaklandcc.edu

Strategic Planning Group Update

The MiALA Strategic Planning Team appreciates the rich feedback they’ve received from members through the stakeholder conversations and survey.  The Team came together for a visioning retreat on November 22 to discuss this feedback and help inform a new draft vision statement and key strategic priorities. Look for additional opportunities to provide input into a draft plan in February.

Here are the reports that came out of the stakeholder conversations and survey that are driving our next steps:

Message From the President

I don’t know about you but I can say I’m really looking forward to some time away from the office. Although I could use at least a foot of snow to quiet things down a bit but I’ll take whatever I can get. This month I don’t have a lot to share but what I have I think is worth noting. First, as some might already know, our consultants from MCLS shared their survey research with the Strategic Planning Team. Thank you to all who participated in this process. The team met on Friday November 22nd for a day-long visioning meeting.  I will leave the update of that meeting to our two Co-chairs who have done an excellent job guiding the team through this process. But in the meantime, I wanted to acknowledge that it was a really productive meeting, we covered a lot of ground, and now have plans to put these findings down into a plan.

Speaking of updates the MiALA Board will be hosting an all member meeting in February where the Strategic Planning Team along with others will be providing updates to MiALA membership. I suspect there will be quite a lot to go over so be on the lookout for more information on that upcoming meeting.

Finally a couple of reminders. Last month the call for committee volunteers went out. There will be openings for President-Elect, Secretary, Board of Directors and more. Please consider becoming part of MiALA leadership, I can attest it’s a wonderful experience working with such a collection of fellow professionals. So if you have any questions please contact committee Chair Darlene Johnson-Bignotti dxjohnso@oaklandcceduy. My other reminder is the Annual MiALA Conference planning team has announced the call for conference proposals. Please consider submitting a proposal for our 2025 Annual Meeting in Flint on May 18-20. For questions contact Jill Spreitzer werdeljc@udmercy.edu.

Until next time, let it snow.

Cheers
Mies

MiALA 2025 Annual Conference Call for Presentations Now Open

In anticipation of the upcoming MiALA 2025 Annual Conference to be held in Flint, MI, the call for presentation proposals is now open through January 10, 2025.

The conference theme, “Driving Excellence: Navigating the Challenges & Opportunities,” allows us to explore new pathways into the future as we are guided by the wisdom, openness, and tenacity of our profession to provide the best outcomes for library users. New opportunities and technologies can challenge our beliefs about academic integrity and impact a variety of library collections and services. Has your library staff taken a new strategic approach, designed an innovative service, developed a new policy, or begun a new area of professional development that you would like to share? If so, we invite you to share your challenges, successes, and solutions with your academic library colleagues as we guide academic libraries down the road of innovation and into the future.

We are currently seeking proposal submissions for the following three presentation formats:

  1. Presentations, panels, or moderated discussion sessions (45 min.)

  2. Interactive workshops (105 min.)

  3. Lightning Talks (10 min.)


Proposals can be submitted using the application form until January 10, 2025; there is also a Breakout Session Collaboration Sheet available to find potential collaborators around a topic or idea. A call for poster proposals will be issued after submissions for presentations close in January.

Participation from librarians, library staff, LIS students, and administrators from all types of academic libraries is encouraged. MiALA membership is not required to submit a proposal. We welcome proposals on topics covering any aspect of academic libraries.

New IG: Higher Education for Incarcerated Students

New to MiALA this fall, the Higher Education for Incarcerated Students IG was formed to give academic libraries supporting or interested in supporting Prison Education Programs in carceral facilities a forum to share knowledge and experiences in this work. This group will meet and plan programming about meeting the unique research needs of incarcerated students. The group may also serve to advocate for information access for the incarcerated population of Michigan.

All are welcome to join the IG, drop in our next meeting, and/or reach out with any questions! Contact co-chairs Sarah Kolk (Calvin University - sarah.kolk@calvin.edu) and Jessica Hronchek (Hope College - hronchek@hope.edu).

Next meeting: Thursday 12/12, 11 am-12 pm (Microsoft Team link: https://teams.microsoft.com/l/meetup-join/19%3ameeting_MWZmODMzYzctMmU0OC00ZjkxLThmMzctZWIxNzRlZWIyZmEx%40thread.v2/0?context=%7b%22Tid%22%3a%22756349b9-0610-4b01-917b-2a4ac10df947%22%2c%22Oid%22%3a%2257627436-5c10-46d6-ab3a-87a4073debc3%22%7d)

MiALA Newsletter - December 2024