Welcome New Members!
University of Michigan
Christie Zablocki
Michigan State University
Yuri Cantrell
Northern Michigan University
Jennifer Donner
Wanted: Your Member Spotlight!
Have you recently joined MiALA? Even if you’ve been a member for a while, we want to get to know you better! If you are interested in being featured in our monthly MiALA Member Spotlight, simply submit your entry by going to the member spotlight questionnaire. You can also view previously published spotlights on this page.
Deans/Directors/Leaders IG
Do you serve in a leadership role at your institution? If so, please consider joining the recently formed, and very recently renamed, Deans/Directors/Leaders Interest Group! We welcome anyone whose job is leading an academic library of any sort. We have been meeting monthly via Zoom, and will meet next at 10am on February 7. Please contact Maurine McCourry, mmccourry@hillsdale.edu, with any questions. Hope to see you then!
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Message From the President
Greetings and happy new year! I truly hope everyone was able to take some downtime and enjoy the holiday season. While it is technically a new year your MiALA Board continues to work on a number of things.
Firstly, the Strategic Planning team will be meeting early this month to start developing the strategic plan for MiALA. Over the holiday break the team has broken into small groups working on key areas as revealed through the Stakeholder Conversation and the Stakeholder Survey reports and the visioning retreat. As mentioned before the Strategic Planning Team will be sharing some on their initial work at the February All member meeting (date TBD). In the meantime if you have not reviewed the Stakeholder Conversation and the Stakeholder Survey reports we encourage you to do so.
Secondly, I would like to share an update from our President-elect, Julie Garrison, about an update about the 2026 Annual Conference. Nope your eyes are not fooling you nor have I missed typed. We are looking ahead and rethinking future conference planning. Julie's message to MiALA is:
“Based upon feedback from previous annual conference chairs, the MiALA Board is piloting a new process for selecting the dates and location for the 2026 Annual Conference. Rather than soliciting proposals directly from members and member institutions, the MiALA Board has selected two potential conference cities and sets of dates in May 2026 and will engage in an RFP process to identify potential hotels and conference venues to host the conference. The goal is to lessen the burden on member institutions, expand geographic diversity of conference locations, broaden conference chair and committee opportunities, and establish a longer planning cycle for the Conference Planning Committee. If any member or member institution is eager to host the 2026 MiALA Annual Conference or has questions regarding the new process, please contact Julie Garrison, MiALA Vice-President.”
Thirdly, and speaking of the Annual Conference, here is a reminder that it’s not too late to submit a proposal for this year’s 2025 Annual Conference. If you have been sitting on the fence and not too sure to submit your proposal, I encourage you to share your voice and plan a proposal.
So again welcome back to a new year and may this year bring you great success.
Cheers,
Mies
IDEA Featured Resource
This month’s featured resource from the MiALA IDEA Resources for Education and Training list is:
Lee, R., Ahtone, T. (2020, March 30). Land-grab universities. High Country News, 52(4).
https://www.hcn.org/issues/52.4/indigenous-affairs-education-land-grab-universities
Description: This article discusses the 1862 Morrill Act, signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln, which sold indigenous lands (seized or confiscated through treaties that were not ratified) to raise funds for land-grant universities. Many U.S. land-grant universities continue to profit from this theft. Few if any universities are willing to admit this or discuss the issue. A team made up of a “historian, cartographer, photographer, fact-checkers, web designer, coder, and reporters” worked to investigate the tangled web of original tribal owners, land parcel sales, and college endowments. The team created a geodatabase to track all of these land parcels. A free version of this story by the same authors can be found on the Pulitzer Center website.
As part of the IDEA Committee's continued effort to build a concise, streamlined list of recent articles, books, reports, training resources and toolkits, websites, videos, terminology resources, and online communities related to IDEA, MiALA members are invited to suggest resources. Make your suggestion here.
MiALA 2025 Annual Conference: Call for Poster Session Proposals Now Open!
Please consider submitting a poster session proposal for MiALA’s upcoming annual conference! Participation from librarians, library staff, LIS students, and administrators from all types of academic libraries are encouraged so please share this announcement widely.
We welcome posters on any topic related to work in academic libraries, particularly if they have a connection to the conference theme, “Driving Excellence: Navigating the Challenges & Opportunities.” You can learn more about the theme from the conference website.
We have a Poster Session Guidelines page, which should be reviewed prior to developing your proposal and a proposal submission form to be completed by February 14, 2025.
Poster proposals will be evaluated on their impact on academic libraries and higher education, originality and creativity, and clarity.
Questions can be sent to poster team leader, Dina Mein (dmein@kettering.edu). Questions about the conference in general can be sent to conference@miala.org.
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