MiALA 2026 Annual Conference

Do you have an active learning information literacy activity, lesson plan, or method you’ve used to great effect in class? Do you miss your elementary show and tell? This session gives you a chance to share your great work without putting together an entire presentation. Participants will have the option to spend two or three minutes describing your work in this unconference style session, no slides or preparation necessary.

Learning Objective(s): ​​​​1) Participants will connect with other information literacy instructors through sharing active learning techniques; 2) Participants will strengthen their understanding of active learning and why it is a vital tool in teaching and knowledge retention; and 3) Participants will co-create a collection of learning artifacts that they will be able to access and modify for use at their home institutions.

This session will discuss how a mid-sized university launched a Library of Things with no grant funding, only a small portion of the budget, and a lot of enthusiasm and creativity. It will show libraries how to frame a timeline, prioritize purchasing, and market the beginning of a new endeavor.

Learning Objective(s): 1) Evaluate the suitability of implementing a Library of Things within the listener’s institution and determine an appropriate timeframe; 2) Apply and modify the provided marketing plan to develop a customized promotional strategy for their own Library of Things; and 3) Analyze potential challenges associated with launching a Library of Things and design effective solutions to address them.

Public Canva Presentation Link: https://canva.link/9ebbbl435bzyvqu

Modernizing gallery, library, archives, and special library (GLAMS) records to include accurate tribal names, replacing derogatory terminology, identifying married women as individuals, giving equal respect (and space) in your classification system to all religions and classes of people, all fall under the umbrella of reparative cataloging in description! Learning about visionary librarians of the past, current reparative projects, with resources, and tips for starting a project today!

Learning Objective(s): ​​​​1) Identify Reparative Description projects, discuss the underlying logic and reasoning, and how those changes create more accurate descriptions, dignity, and equity for marginalized people; 2) Communicate how Reparative Description and Conscientious Cataloging embody the ethical standards of libraries; and 3) How to implement changes independently by using local subject headings, authority records, and controlled vocabularies

Much of our cultural legacy remains hidden in documents that traditional OCR cannot read and digital platforms struggle to surface. This session explores how one library is using emerging AI models to extract text from heavily degraded documents and historic handwriting, combined with modern development approaches to present these materials in new ways. Designed for librarians, archivists, and digital humanities practitioners, attendees will gain practical knowledge applicable to their own collections, regardless of technical background.

Learning Objective(s): ​​​​1) Identify AI tools beyond chat models, such as vision language models, that can extract text from degraded documents and historic handwriting; 2) Describe modern 'vibe-based' development approaches that lower technical barriers for creating digital collection interfaces; and 3) Evaluate how these emerging tools and techniques might be applied to cultural heritage materials in their own organizations.

In this session, we discuss our process for conducting a diversity audit, and the collection development strategies we developed following the audit. Diversity audits assist librarians in creating data that will inform collection development policies to better fit the diversity of their campus demographics. As centers of campus life, it is crucial that academic libraries reflect the diversity of their student populations, ensuring that everyone on campus feels seen and welcomed in the library space.

Learning Objective(s): ​​​​1) Develop practical skills for designing collection diversity audits; and 2) Learn how to use audit data to create and implement concrete collection development strategies.