Volume 53, Issue 3 —— Summer 2026
Emma Moore
Inaugural Information Science Summit and Special Libraries Conference: Albuquerque 2026
One of the biggest promises made by last year’s merger of the Special Libraries Association (SLA) and the Association for Information Science and Technology (ASIS&T) was preserving a conference focused on the needs of special library practitioners. A conference focused on the day to day practice of information science had been in ASIS&T’s strategic plan even before the merger, as the Board had identified a need to connect faculty research with librarian experiences on the ground. After the successful votes by SLA and ASIS&T members in favor of the merger in early Autumn 2025, a tireless Conference Planning committee, lead by Kendra Levine, quickly got to work. From June 6 to June 9th at the Clyde Hotel in Albuquerque, New Mexico, all their hard work came to fruition.
The conference was intentionally smaller and more focused in scale, which provided a feeling of “right-sizedness” at least to your correspondent. We were lucky to have a local expert, Dr. Stephanie Moore of UNM, give a targeted, accessible and optimistic keynote: ““Working GenAI into Shape: Ethics as Professional Agency and Leadership”. That blend of big picture ethical thinking and on-the-ground efficacy set a tone for the sessions of the next few days. In the intimate scale of the Clyde’s meeting rooms, there were sessions on popular topics which became standing room only! One of my favorites was on “information friction”, by Darin Freiburg of the University of South Carolina- Darin is also the leader of the Libraries and Librarianship Special Interest Group (SIG), and their leadership is quite interested in integrating the knowledge of newly arrived members from SLA.
As always, there was a mix of sessions focused on successful projects; those focused on new tools and frameworks that might be useful back at the office; and roundtables that let the audience explore their professional needs and strengths along with panelists and moderators. PAM (soon to be CAMMP) had three very successful sessions accepted. The Math Roundtable focused on uses and ways to teach LaTex to diverse student populations, and that was immediately followed by a lively and collegial PAM dinner at the 505 foodhall. Many thanks also to Sharice and Byron of AAAS for their generous sponsorship of the Monday night PAM dinner! The industry partners of PAM were well represented, both at the exhibit hall and in the always popular industry partners roundtable on Monday the 7th. While I had to leave early, it was great to see that Meg Eastwood and PAM were leading a great session on AI and Open Access to close out the weekend.
In the wake of the conference, there was a general feeling both of optimism and lessons learned, especially as attendees were given the choice to vote on a 2027 conference location (New Orleans or Denver). This feels like the ABQ conference will be a first step in the right direction, as the new organization created by last year’s merger figures out what we look like at this new frontier.