ULA Annual Conference 2025

Every librarian gets asked for help choosing a book, but sometimes it can be difficult to know what to recommend. This session will help you solve the mystery of what your patrons want to read.

Lego Serious Play is a facilitation and problem-solving method where participants use Lego bricks to model and brainstorm solutions to complex problems by “thinking with their hands.” Emphasizing active engagement, open communication, and inclusion, Lego Serious Play is useful for making library planning and UX projects more participatory for both staff and library users. In our case, Lego building activities provided a fun and engaging way to gain insight into students’ sense of belonging and perceptions of library services, and was useful in helping kickstart more complex design conversations about the library’s homepage.

Library customer experience is ongoing, not a moment in time. It is shaped by all the interactions your community has with your library, regardless of whether they are consistent and empowering or scattered and stodgy. Customer experiences include navigating the digital world and your physical buildings. It is the programs and events they attend as well as the big and small interactions with staff. What do communities expect from their libraries? Do staff members have the time and ability to meet those expectations? What factors impact the customer experience? Salt Lake City Public Library’s chief service and impact officer Daniel Neville-Rehbehn and MSR Design senior associate Jeff Davis will address these questions and more as they illustrate how they are increasing customer satisfaction through ongoing customer feedback. They will offer inspiring stories about implementing community engagement within the ongoing customer experience journey.

This session is anticipated to be an updated version of my presentation at the ULA 2024 Fall Forum discussing what constitutes unauthorized practice of law, how to navigate the Utah State Court website and resources, and provide links and information on how to find legal reference information.

We'll explore the meaning of allyship and discuss intentional ways to embody it in the Library. Get ready to supercharge your skills with practical tools for effective disruption and intervention, and leave empowered to be a more impactful co-worker and advocate.

Learn how to make inclusion a natural part of your library's operations -- without needing to overhaul programs, services, or resources. Multiple presenters will share their practical strategies, personal experiences, and key takeaways from creating more inclusive library spaces, programs, and offerings.

This program will explore how to leverage the unique personalities of your library staff to create more engaging, relatable marketing. Attendees will: 1) Learn ways to use your staffs' personalities to promote your library 2)Hear suggestions on how to make email marketing, podcasts, and social media more engaging and 3) Provide new ways to think about how your library communicates with your patrons.

This presentation explores the translation capabilities of various Artificial Intelligence systems, with a particular focus on several European minority languages. Additionally, it examines the challenges and techniques involved in translating colloquialisms and idiomatic expressions within literary works.

In 1983, two journalists traveled the country asking hundreds of people with diverse backgrounds and professions two questions: “What book has made the biggest difference in your life?” and “What was that difference?” In a partial replication of that inquiry, we designed a two-phase study in which we ask a similar sequence of questions via survey and then follow up with more in-depth, probing questions through interviews and focus groups. While we began by focusing on our own university community of students (undergraduate and graduate) and employees (faculty and staff) representing a diverse range of academic disciplines and professional service areas, we employed snowball sampling to reach a broader pool of participants. Initial findings will be discussed including titles, genres, and authors identified as well as emergent themes regarding the impact of chosen books. Additionally, in light of this year’s ULA conference theme (“Our Stories Inspire”), attendees will have an opportunity to share a book that has been influential to them and see what books have made a difference in the lives of other conference attendees.

Reaching “across the aisle” to the ‘BookBanners’ was frightening. But a desire to know why, what we shared, and how to come together was stronger. Hear about the experiences when Intellectual Freedom meets Crusaders for Clean.

In 2024, The Salt Lake County Library installed free period product machines in County Library restrooms. This presentation will share how the process evolved for the County Library and what financial, building-related, and public health considerations came up throughout the process. We will also discuss: why should libraries care about what patrons are needing from our restroom spaces? How can something as simple as providing free period supplies in our restrooms convey care to our patrons? How can public libraries reframe the "normative restroom experience" and develop creative ways to meet patron needs in a place we all eventually visit - the restroom? Come explore and go with the flow!

All libraries face the challenge of reaching the non-library user in their communities. Come listen to a panel of out-reach tasked librarians from academic, public (small and large), and special libraries discuss the challenges and opportunities of reaching out and engaging their communities. Learn from their failures and successes and gather outreach ideas for your own library.

Public Libraries collect a lot of data, but for many people, data can be abstract and fail to account for the whole story of an institution. As librarians and library staff it is important for us to tell individual stories that illustrate and elaborate on the data we collect. These stories help communicate our impact to all our shareholders, including city leaders during budget planning, granting organizations, and in our communications with the public. This presentation will include examples of innovative storytelling from libraries around Utah and the country.