The call for presenters went out this week. Although the deadline for presenters isn't until April, we encourage you to think about what you would like to hear at the Conference and how you could participate. If you have any ideas, please fill out the form found on the Call for Presentations page  We all have had times that we have thought, "I wish I knew more about X." Well, this is your opportunity to get the informatiion you are looking for. If you have questions about a topic you can be sure others have the same question.
    There are a lot of great people quietly doing great work in their libraries and classrooms. They may not think they are doing anything different or special but you know that they have something to share. If you know of one of those quiet stars, please let us know. Sometimes all it takes is an invitation.
    Talking about invitations, here's one for you; if you are interested in helping out with the Conference please let us know. We are always looking for enthusiastic people to keep our Association fresh.

    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.