2026 NDLA Conference

Open educational resources (OER) are often presented as a straightforward solution to textbook affordability: find a free replacement, help faculty adopt it, and report the savings. In practice, OER support is shaped by mismatched expectations. Faculty may expect a ready-made replacement with all the convenience of a commercial platform. Librarians may undersell the instructional, technical, and accessibility work involved in adoption and adaptation. Administrators may support affordability in principle while leaving bookstore contracts, vendor platforms, staffing, and course materials workflows untouched.

This session takes a candid look at common myths surrounding OER and affordable course materials work, pairing each myth with a more complex reality and practical ways to respond. Topics may include weak metadata, aging repositories, limited creation and adaptation platforms, savings estimates, faculty labor, librarian skill gaps, accessibility, and the institutional silos that shape course materials decisions. Topics may include course redesign labor, accessibility, limited creation and adaptation platforms, licensing complexities, missed workflow handoffs, bookstore and vendor systems, unclear ownership of maintenance, and the institutional silos that shape course materials decisions.

Participants will leave with sharper language for naming these mismatches, strategies for avoiding unhelpful responsibilities, and practical approaches for building more realistic and sustainable support.

Imposter Phenomenon (IP) strikes everyone at some point. In libraries, it happens more than people realize. This presentation was introduced as a poster presentation at NDLA 2025 but there were so many questions, it's worth giving more time. This session will cover what IP is, how it may present, what the effects can be on a person and their workplace, as well as ways that an individual and a workplace can help to alleviate someone's worries about their ability to succeed. 

Creating SMART goals is an effective tool that provides clarity, focus, and motivation to achieve your goals. North Dakota Coordinating Council members Mary Soucie and Andrea Placher will focus on using SMART goals when applying for and writing Library Vision Grants. However, this session will be useful for all library staff in many facets of their work.

This session will focus on how to engage all curricular areas in your building. The presenters will focus on strategies to change how departments see the library, how time constraints and curriculum pressure often stop other areas (beyond ELA) from utilizing the library resources, and how to help align library skills to science, social studies, math, and elective standards. Participants will be able to share their successful collaboration ideas as well.

This session provides an update on the ILL Bridge project, a collaborative interlibrary loan initiative designed to streamline resource sharing across North Dakota and South Dakota. Attendees will gain insight into the technical implementation of the to-be-named system, including the current rollout status and the organizational structure between state libraries and ODIN's support role. We will discuss the project's impact on ILL workflows, share lessons learned during the initial configuration phases, and outline the future roadmap to Go Live in 2027 and beyond. This session is for all library types and anyone involved with ILL, Patron Services, Reference...really just about everyone can benefit from the work that is being done with this project!

Join us for a look at the bills and laws that are reshaping librarianship across the country. This session will cover noteworthy legal decisions, proposed and/or passed legislation, and other, similar governmental actions. This session is intended to be informational with updates on the status of each action and what it might mean for libraries in ND. 

When I started my current position, dropping from Director to a mid-level supervisor and librarian (that had to do RESEARCH), I was... trepidatious. However, in my first year as an academic librarian, I have found lovely points of intersection between public and academic librarianship, as well as opportunities for lucrative partnerships. This will explore some of these points and offer some ideas for programs and initiatives, though they will all be in the ideas phase, since I accidentally don't have enough time to do anything yet.