2025 Saskatchewan Libraries Conference: Grow With Your Library

Participating exhibitors are Lung Saskatchewan and CVS Midwest Tape.

Sponsored by Regina Public Library

Greetings and opening prayer by Elder Julie Pitzel
Greetings from the Government of Saskatchewan: Alison Hopkins, Executive Director, Provincial Library & Literacy Office, Ministry of Education
Greetings from the City of Saskatoon: Ward 6 Councillor Jasmin Parker
Keynote Speaker: Omayra Issa, award-winning anchor

Omayra Issa is an award-winning anchor, who has built a rich and diverse portfolio over the course of 15 years in broadcasting. She began her career at Radio-Canada creating compelling content on television, radio and digital platforms, and then for CBC News.

A former national reporter for CBC News, Omayra served as a correspondent on flagship show The National. She co-created, co-produced and led the Black on the Prairies series, which received international recognition, reached an audience of millions worldwide, and is integrated in museums and public libraries across the prairie provinces. A leading
expert in community powered journalism and inclusive journalism, Omayra’s work led to impactful changes in education policy and garnered several RTDNA Canada Awards, celebrating the best in Canadian journalism.

Omayra brought her strong vision to CPAC in 2024, as part of its on-air team connecting Canadians to their democracy. Her work guiding national conversations around inclusion and diversity in newsrooms has set her apart as an innovator and changemaker. She has been recognized with the Reelword Trailblazers Award for inspiring others by blazing a trail of excellence through her constant and committed efforts to improve and diversify the film and television industry. Fluent in five languages, Omayra has been named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in 2024, one of Canada’s Top 100 Black Women to Watch and been nominated for a YWCA Woman of Distinction.

Sponsored by United Library Services

Presented by Rachel Sutherland & Jo Ann Murphy

The session will explore the collaborative partnership between the University of Saskatchewan Library and Foundations Learning & Skills Saskatchewan’s Spark program, showcasing how we worked together to offer meaningful volunteer opportunities for students. Participants will learn how the partnership engages students in community based service-learning through supporting literacy in the community, while encouraging critical reflection on literacy, privilege, and citizenship. The session will include information on the volunteer opportunity offered, success stories from the organizations and student perspectives, and the challenges encountered and how these were overcome.

Attendees will leave with practical insights on how to create impactful community service-learning opportunities in their own library that benefit the library as well as partners, students, and the wider community.

Presented by Ariana Giroux

Ariana Giroux will explore the concept of communal liberation as the ultimate “growth mindset” framework. Utilizing lived experiences of queer and disabled people, case studies, and the social enterprise known as Their Collective as examples, this session will highlight strategies for building diverse libraries and strong communities through inclusive and purposeful community engagement.

This session champions libraries, social enterprises, and community-led approaches as transformative tools for liberation, empowerment, and mutual education.

Yuri Forbes-Petrovich is the Branch Manager for the Yorkton Public Library. Yuri has served in a variety of academic and professional posts, including post-secondary education in Sociology and Philosophy where he taught technology studies, social theory, and environmental ethics and has published and presented research on public ethics, environmental sociology, social theory, and the philosophy of phenomenology and religion.

Sponsored by OverDrive

Presented by Regan Gunningham

The Saskatchewan Electronic Resources Partnership (SERP) program, formerly the Multitype Database Licensing Program, was established in 1998 to support equity of access to online library resources for Saskatchewan residents but even pillars of the Saskatchewan library community can begin to crumble. This long-running database licensing program has undergone a five-year revitalization process to shore up its foundation. The process impacted program funding, governance, decision-making and training.

This session is ideal for current SERP program partners who want to learn more about the revitalization and how it affects their library. Not a SERP partner yet? Attend the session to learn more about the program and connect with Provincial Library and Literacy Office staff.

Presented by Phaedra Hitchings

Presenter will focus around a central question of “what makes a ‘good reader’?” and explore ways of identifying this (spoiler: it doesn’t have to be reading lots of (tough) books, or even any books.

Presented by Alanna Carlson

Implement trauma-informed strategies to create a supportive and resilient work environment with improved job satisfaction and service delivery.
 

Sponsored by CVS Midwest Tape

Presented by Ann Liang

Explore how artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming libraries and empowering professionals to streamline daily tasks—but at what cost? This session delves into evaluating AI's potential in your work while highlighting its strengths and weaknesses and it will also touch on how AI has affected publishers and databases, and the pressing ethical concerns around privacy, misinformation, copyright, and licensing agreements. Delve into all the issues you need to know about when considering policies for the use of AI while balancing innovation with integrity and ensuring AI supports your library’s mission while fostering trust and accountability with stakeholders.

Sponsored by Palliser Regional Library

Presented by Wendy Thienes 

Age-Friendly is a global movement of communities where policies, services, settings and structures support and enable people to age actively in their home and/or communities of choice. An Age-Friendly Community views significant aspects, or domains, of their community through the lens of older adults’ experience and wisdom to identify ways to support better health, improved safety and greater participation of all members of the community. Session participants will hear examples of community collaboration on Age-Friendly initiatives with specific examples of public library engagement and will have the opportunity to provide ideas for ways that libraries are currently supporting Age-Friendly concepts and brainstorm additional opportunities for collaboration and support.

Presented by Taylor Soderberg, Amber Christensen, Brian Klenk, Janna Ferris & Rachael Kaseke 

Safe and welcoming is a core focus at the Regina Public Library. This has lead to the library taking an approach that is collaborative, empathy-led and involves many moving parts to facilitate a safe and welcoming environment. Engaging staff, and through engaging services of outside agencies as well as engagement with community social service groups, RPL, with a focus on Central Library has taken steps to make a change to address the diversity of needs involved in responding to a changing community. Some of these changes have included working with Family Services Regina first through a pilot and now with a contract for two full time Library Outreach and Crisis Workers at Central, a change in security teams that included a re-focus of requirements requested by the Library in our RFP process, and a key RPL staff position created to connect staff, guards and crisis workers together --- the Safe and Welcoming Specialist. The RPL presentation team will discuss the process and the steps that we took to develop, implement and the outcomes, successes and challenges of this approach. Pieces of this approach have also been taken into the way they report incidents and their suspension guidelines and reviews as well as how they work with youth. The community around public libraries continues to change and evolve with new challenges and we see this approach as a response to that changing community.

Presented by Marika Hunter & Alan Kilpatrick

Libraries are fundamental for incarcerated individuals. Literacy activities and reading materials positively affect their lives and experiences and serve an essential role in reintegration, providing a connection to and mirror of the outside world, and preparing individuals for release.

Unfortunately, incarcerated individuals in Saskatchewan are an underserved segment of our province's population who do not have adequate access to library services. Many prisons lack formal libraries and recreational, cultural, and educational reading materials.

The Saskatchewan Library Association (SLA) established a Prison Library Sub-Committee (PLSC) in 2021 to address the deficit of reading materials available to incarcerated youths and adults in Saskatchewan's correctional facilities. For over two years, the PLSC has been providing books to Regina’s incarcerated population at Regina Correctional Centre, White Birch Remand, and Paul Dojack Youth Centre. However, more still needs to be done. How can you and your library help? Take advantage of this must-see session to learn about how you can get involved.

Presented by Jessica Dinan

Are you curious about the differences between graphic novels, comics, and manga? Are you seeing an increase in the popularity of your graphic novel collections? Would you like to feel more knowledgeable on how to grow and promote these collections? Do you secretly (or not so secretly) question whether reading graphic novels is even "real reading"? Join Jessica for a crash course in graphic novel collections and come away with helpful collection development and merchandising tips, and graphic novel advocacy resources.

Tour of the SPL Frances Morrison Central Library 
(Meet at the front door of TCU Place)

Sponsored by Library Bound Inc.

Ry Moran is Canada’s inaugural Associate University Librarian – Reconciliation at the University of Victoria. His role within UVic Libraries focuses on building and sustaining relationships to introduce Indigenous approaches and knowledge into the daily work of the libraries and more broadly across the campus community.

Ry’s life-long passion for the arts and music continues to be an important part of his life as he continues to write and produce original music. Ry is a distinguished alumnus of the University of Victoria and was awarded a Meritorious Service Cross by the Governor General. On May 29, 2024, Ry received an Honorary Doctor of Laws from the University of British Columbia. Ry is a proud member of the Red River Métis.

Ry came to this position from the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation hosted by the University of Manitoba. Prior to the NCTR, he served with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. On the TRC’s behalf, he facilitated the gathering of nearly 7,000 video/audio-recorded statements of former residential school students and millions of pages of
archival records.

Sponsored by Saskatoon Public Library