The group met 2-3 times this reporting period.
After reviewing the current PLA Strategic Plan, please tell us:
Describe the current work of this committee and how it supports our strategic goals. Include work accomplished, decisions made, and any recommended follow-up actions.
The committee continued discussion and voting around the 2025 volume year feature article contest and helped identify potential winning submissions. The articles reflected the goals of professional growth and advocacy & awareness noted in the PLA Strategic Plan. Items that support the goals include:
• The committee began brainstorming and refining possible themes for the 2027 volume year, including topics related to media literacy, ethics, collection development, workforce development, aging populations, social media, and equity in library services.
• The committee continues to serve as an advisory body supporting editorial direction and helping identify timely issues and trends relevant to the field
Members discussed opportunities for future feature articles, contributors, and emerging issues affecting public libraries that will need to be followed up by the incoming committee members.
Do you see opportunities to better align committee work with those goals?
The goals of transformation and professional growth align with the committee work and the articles created support library workers at all levels. The articles should mirror the goals of PLA and how to help library workers.
Identified in our mid-year report, the committee sees opportunities to further strengthen alignment by continuing to prioritize contributors from small, rural, and underrepresented libraries, and by identifying stories and voices that directly support PLA’s focus on equity, workforce development, and community impact.
What recommendations do you have for in-coming committee members? Are there particular streams of
work in progress to be carried over into the new committee year? (January–June reporting period only)
For in-coming committee members, upcoming work includes finalizing contest selections, continuing development of 2027 themes, and overall advisory. They will also need to brainstorm ideas for future articles.
What specific activities will this committee undertake over the next six months to support that alignment? (July–December reporting period only)
Are there other PLA or ALA committees whose partnership and collaboration would accelerate meeting PLA strategic goals?
There is always opportunity to partner with other PLA and/or ALA committees. Many of the article ideas come from PLA/ALA conferences, speakers/presenters and work that is being done in committees.
Is there anything else about your committee experience you’d like to share?
Kathleen Hughes is an amazing liaison to this committee. She is clear in her emails and details an agenda with information. I appreciate her sending out an email before our meeting on 1/15/26 that encouraged use to prepare to share ideas on specific items. She always created a poll for voting on articles and scoring grid. Emails and discussions along with articles and scoring grids were sent out. And there is always a recap of the meetings, most recently, the one on April 24, 2026 where we finalized the feature article contest update and initial theme ideas for 2027. I enjoyed serving on this committee and reading the articles/hearing the podcast and thinking on all the new topics affecting libraries today. The committee will be meeting in person at the ALA Conference this June.
Submitted by Phyllis Gorshe on 06/04/2026