Inside OLA

Happy Freedom to Read Week! Thanks to all who participated in the Digital Day of Action on Monday. It was great to see so many incredible posts from your libraries. If you’ve got events planned this week, please remember to record your event at the FTRW site so that we can include you in our wrap-up report.

This week always carried a bit of extra weight. It’s a reminder that the work we do is not abstract. It requires attention, advocacy, and sometimes a little courage.

Blog post is late this week because Laurel is on holiday and frankly, I forgot!

All OLA councils met last week for their first full meetings of the year. I always love this moment in the calendar. Fresh workplans, and sharpened pencils. It is where strategy starts to turn into action across public, school, academic, and health sectors. Governance might not be flashy, but it is the engine room of a good association!

Final planning details are coming together for Freedom to Read Week, which kicks off next week.

Back at our desks. Mostly.  

Week 5 was our official return to the office after this year’s amazing OLA Super Conference, and while it was technically a short week, it did not feel quiet in the slightest. 

The OLA office was closed on Monday and Tuesday to give staff time to rest. The remainder of the week was an opportunity for the staff to clean up, reset, wrap invoices, file reports, and gently reintroduce themselves to regular email volume.

’Twas the night before conference, and all through the hall,

The staff were still working, no slowing at all.

With inboxes overflowing and timelines so tight,

Every last detail was getting just right.

Support tickets pinged like sleigh bells at night,

Registration questions coming fast and quite bright.

We are officially one week out from the conference, which means the team is deep into last-minute preparations. Final details are coming together, inboxes are busy, and the focus is firmly on making sure everything is ready to welcome you next week. We are also organizing the info session at the conference for OLA’s new Communities of Practice (Friday at 1 PM), and we are looking forward to sharing more about how these communities will support connection, learning, and engagement across the association. 

This is officially the week when we stop saying Happy New Year, right? Let’s swap that out for Happy Conference Season! We are officially in that exciting, slightly chaotic, very caffeinated lead-up to the OLA conference, and things are moving fast over here. 

This week kicked off with the OLA Board and Council Orientation, where we walked through the governance, responsibilities, and logistical realities of these volunteer leadership roles.

Hello Library Land friends, and happy new year! 

OLA staff are officially back in the office, and I am pleased to report that while many of us spent the holidays combating sniffles, we have emerged stronger, wiser, and allegedly immune to everything forever. That’s just science.  

It’s always a little wild to hit this point in the calendar and realize how much has happened, and how much is underway. I’ve barely put up my 2026 calendar, but there’s already so much planned for the year ahead!  

Speaking of gearing up, the OLA election is now open for all members to vote. Please take a moment to vote and help shape the leadership of the Association.

While I was technically on vacation for most of the week, doing my best to truly be out of office, the OLA team kept things moving at full speed.  

While I was away, the Copyright Symposium took place on Thursday and by all accounts it was a fantastic conversation about accessibility and copyright.

It’s the last week of November! Here are all the things Team OLA got up to last week.  

My colleague Lily and I kicked things off by meeting with VIMLOC to talk about mentorship opportunities. They’re doing such thoughtful work in the sector, and I’m excited about how we might collaborate to support visible minority library workers.