VLA Announcements: Conference and Leadership, July 20, 2020

The Virginia Library Association Annual Conference will not be taking place in person this year. In August 2020, the VLA Executive Committee and 2020 Conference Committee will announce our Fall learning plans for the organization.

Last week, we let you know that our 2021 VLA President, Joslyn Bowling Dixon, was leaving VA for a position as Director of Newark Public Library in New Jersey. The Executive Committee met virtually last week to discuss the 2021 leadership year. Jennifer Resor-Whicker (Radford University) who is the 2020 VLA President, has graciously offered to act as President for 2021. This extra commitment to VLA on Jennifer’s part assures consistent leadership for the organization.  This will also give Jennifer the chance to preside over an in-person conference in Richmond in 2021. In 2021, Jennifer will act as both President and Past President of VLA. If the Executive Committee needs to vote on anything during that time, Past President Jessica Scalph will be called in as a tiebreaker.

VLA Elections (which will determine our 2021 President-Elect and Secretary), will open on August 3 and will close on September 16. We encourage you to visit https://www.vla.org/2021-vla-election-of-officers--candidate-statements-and-biographies to learn more about our candidates, and then log in to your VLA account to make sure you know your password (it will make voting easier for you in just a couple of weeks.)

If your session proposal was accepted by our conference committee, we will be in touch in the coming weeks to provide alternatives to you. Our conference this year may not look like it has in the past, but we are committed to providing learning experiences for librarians and library staff in Virginia.

We are losing many opportunities by not having our in-person conference this year, and want to find ways for you to all continue to network; we want to honor our authors whose books were given awards by VLA this year, and to celebrate our VLA Scholarship and Award recipients. These are all part of our considerations as we move forward.

We ask you to mark your calendars in advance for October 27-29, 2021 in Richmond.

Stay safe, stay healthy, and thank you for serving your communities. Your work matters.

As always, please let me know if you have any questions.
Lisa R. Varga, MLS
Executive Director
Virginia Library Association
[email protected]