Library science is an enormous field, home to every interest you could imagine! This means that there are many organizations out there for you to join, in order to connect with other people who share your professional interests.

So even if you work alone in your library, there are other people out there doing work similar to yours! Each week we will highlight a different library association for you to learn more about, and depending on your work, potentially join! You can also check out our page dedicated to Library Associations.

This week we’ll learn about the Mountain Plains Library Association (MPLA). MPLA is a twelve state organization of libraries, librarians, and friends of libraries in the states of Arizona, Colorado, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Utah and Wyoming. The main goal of MPLA is to “improve present and future library services in the Mountain Plains region through development of librarians, trustees and library employees.”

MPLA is an impressive library association with a ton to offer their members. One of the first things we noticed about this association is that they have a library podcast!! It’s called the Library Leadership Podcast and you can listen to their episodes on their podcast page. We love to see libraries podcasting!

MPLA has an annual conference, taking place this year in Wichita, KS from October 23 – 26th. They offer professional development grants to members, with the categories of mini-grants and regular grants. Their Continuing Education page is full of great resources, including links to free training, relevant state library associations, and vendors.

Their 2018 Leadership Institute is coming up in Estes Park, CO from April 29th – May 4th and will feature nationally known organizational development consultant Maureen Sullivan.  “Ms. Sullivan has over 25 years of experience in leadership development and is the Past President of the American Library Association.  She helped establish the ACRL/Harvard Leadership Institute and is a faculty member for its annual program.” Check out testimonials from past conference attendees here.

Stay on top of MPLA happenings with their newsletter, explore their posted jobs, or find out more about becoming a member of their organization! Keep up the great work, MPLA!