2020 Conference UpdateOLAC

OLAC 2020 Conference Update

Hayley Moreno and Bryan Baldus

As mentioned in the President’s column, the Conference Planning Committee and OLAC Executive Board have been hard at work on deciding the future of the OLAC 2020 Conference due to the health and economic concerns surrounding COVID-19. We thank everyone who filled out the survey. We read every comment and took into consideration your current circumstances surrounding the conference. The survey results solidify what many of us suspected, that an in-person conference would not be feasible for many of you. It was a hard decision for everyone involved not to move forward with the in-person event, as many resources and time had gone into having the conference in Dublin, Ohio. Even though the decision was difficult, our members' well-being is top priority, and also, we understand the difficult economic circumstances that our colleagues are facing due to budget restrictions in their organizations.

With the Board’s approval of moving the conference fully online, the Conference Planning Committee is already developing a transition plan. We are currently assessing appropriate conference fees now that the event will be online and how best to provide an interactive experience even though we are no longer meeting in-person. As this transition is still being developed, we will have to open registration later than June 16 th as originally planned. We hope to provide more information to the membership by the end of July. This truly is an unprecedented time for all of us, as this will be OLAC’s first online conference.

We hope you are still planning to join us online as the content will continue to be stellar, and we need all of you to celebrate the big milestone of OLAC’s Fortieth Anniversary. OLAC is nothing without the great people behind it and even though we will not be able to gather in person, we can still learn and celebrate together. OLAC needs your support more than ever and it's up to each and everyone one of us to help this organization continue to exist for the next forty years, so make sure to join us in October for the online conference!

Bryan and I would also like to take a moment to give a big thank you to all of our colleagues in the Conference Planning Committee for their dedication to this herculean effort. How this group of people

have stood up to the challenges of organizing an in-person event and now managing the transition to online is admirable.

If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, please do not hesitate to reach out to your 2020 Conference Planning Committee. You can fill out the contact form or email us directly at 2020olac@gmail.com.

Conference Planning Committee members

Bryan Baldus--OCLC (Co-chair) Hayley Moreno--OCLC (Co-chair) Autumn Faulkner--Michigan State University Katherine Leigh--Ball State University Richard Leigh--Ball State University Morris Levy--Ohio State University Peter H. Lisius--Kent State University Sevim McCutcheon--Kent State University Roman Panchyshyn--Kent State University David Procházka--University of Akron