PLA Member Spotlight: ALA Annual Conference 2024
The ALA Annual Conference will take place this year during June 27–July 2, 2024 in San Diego, CA. PLA will host 16 top-quality educational programs on public library topics at #ALAAC24, alongside the conference’s 150+ educational programs available on the Conference Scheduler. We can’t wait to hear from PLA members and public library workers on hot topics in the library field today—one such topic being food justice work in public libraries. Read below about the PLA members presenting the program “Food is a Right: Libraries Respond to Food Inequity” taking place on Sunday, June 30, at 9:00am-10:00am PT.
Lauren Boeke is the Assistant Youth Services Coordinator for the Toledo Lucas County (Ohio) Public Library.
“One of the best parts of my job is helping with the Connecting Kids to Meals partnership. Connecting Kids to Meals provides meals at 15 of TLCPL’s branches. Youths 18 years and under have access to free, nutritious hot meals with no eligibility requirements. TLCPL also intentionally builds programming and homework support around mealtimes, so children and their families have access to all that the Library has to offer. In 2023, nearly 60,000 meals were served at the library.”
Anastasia Diamond-Ortiz has served as the Executive Director of the Lorain (Ohio) Public Library System since 2016.
“For the last few years, we have been moving in the direction of supporting food justice initiatives developing in the communities we serve and I’m excited to share our journey during the presentation with Urban Libraries Council and my colleagues. Food justice work aligns with programs and services many libraries already provide and the community forming around this work is growing all the time. I look forward to the questions, conversations and connections that are sparked from talking about food justice because learning from the great work happening in libraries across the country is the best part of conferences like ALA Annual.”
View the full list of PLA programs taking place at the ALA Annual Conference here. Browse all the programs taking place at the conference here.
Tags: 2024 ALA Annual Conference, member spotlight, membership, PLA members
