We are pleased to welcome the Manitoba Association of Library Technicians as a Conference partner. School libraries are very aware of the importance of collaboration both within the walls of their respective schools and outside those walls within the community. This partnership with MALT is one example of community collaboration.

    Our focus on literacies with this Conference will resonate with all our library communities; particularly school, public, and academic. We are all looking at ways of supporting digital citizenship, information literacy, and literacy in general.

    Although we believe that the ideal library benefits from the close collaboration of a teacher librarian and a library technician, we also recognise that this is not the reality in many Manitoba schools. We will be looking closely at our Conference sessions to ensure that we are considering the needs of all library staff. We will have sessions dealing with technical issues such are RDA, PPR, and Copyright as well as sessions for librarians, teachers, and others interested in literacy issues.

    A last word to our library technicians, both within MSLA and within MALT: please take this opportunity to have a voice in the Conference. Please tell us what you need. Consider submitting a proposal for a Conference session, comment on our posts; join the conversation. The MSLA Conference will be a great professional development opportunity - with your help.

The MSLA executive was very pleased with all the great comments received about our 2012 Embracing the Edge Conference. A well deserved thank you goes out to Jeff Anderson and Andy McKiel for all their hard work.
Now, it's time to start talking about the Conference coming in the fall of 2013. We want to build on the success of last year and develop more connections as we focus on Information Literacy issues this year.