2025 Saskatchewan Libraries Conference: Grow With Your Library

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.

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 Lydia Moss

To have privilege means that we have advantages that others do not. Those without privilege -- those who experience disadvantages -- often do so as a result of systemic barriers.

Give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, you feed him for a lifetime. Seems simple enough, right?!! Join Lydia Moss as she prepares participants for a fishing trip, through the eyes of marginalized communities. Using real-world contexts, this presentation seeks to address the following:

- What is information privilege? What factors influence access to information?
- What experiences/biases/privileges do we have that affect our ability to serve our patrons effectively and equitably?
- What is the Saskatoon Public Library doing to try and reduce some of the barriers to information access?

Lydia hopes this description has you "hooked" ;)

Sponsored by Bravo Tango

Presented by Jenny Ryan, Miali Rakotondravah, Makenzie Murdock & Meg Schmieder

Most libraries know that one of the keys to developing and fostering an engaged community is developing and fostering engaged community partners. But what is a "partner" anyway, and what does a partnership look like? How do you start it, how do you maintain it, and how do you end it? Join Jenny Ryan, a Community Librarian at Saskatoon Public Library and representatives from three of SPL's partner organizations. Together, we'll explore the ways partnerships can be very active or more passive and learn what expectations partners may have of the library. At the end you will leave with a better understanding of how to develop and maintain partnerships with organizations, groups, and individuals in your community.

Presented by Donna Thiessen & Darryl Isbister

The treasure maps of OER are well known to post-secondary education, although some search Oak Island and others track R.L. Stevenson. The wealth of resources that are shared openly and can be copied, printed, disseminated, revised, and sometimes even sold is not as well known in other types of libraries. Join an academic librarian with a passion for public libraries and an academic lead/school teacher with a passion for equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) as they navigate the seas of OE and provide guidance on the use of OERs as textbooks, reference sources and a cache of non-fiction waiting to be discovered (as well as a source and support for EDI initiatives; perhaps the real treasure).

Presented by Morgan Kelly & Amber Andersen

Since 2019, Southeast Regional Library (SRL) and South East District for Sport, Culture, and Recreation (SED) have had an ongoing partnership to provide libraries with the means of introducing patrons to new and exciting programming. This partnership was expanded in 2023, after community visits conducted by SED revealed that many recreation staff felt their communities lacked arts and culture programming. A proposal to bring professional artists into rural communities led to the development of the Art Starts at the Library Program, where community partners can book artists and borrow the necessary materials for the artistic practice of their choosing from their local library branch.
This session will cover the development of our Art Starts kits, how we’ve connected with professional artists, and how partnerships between towns, villages, RMs, and libraries play a key role in the success of arts and culture programming.

Presented by Chasity Berast, Becky Szeman & Jaydan Harrison

This session will showcase the experience of taking eight Library and Information Technology students to Mexico City, where we explored a variety of libraries and immersed ourselves in Mexican culture. Two LIT instructors and one student will highlight the trip's activities, the learning opportunities they encountered, and how the experience contributed to both their academic and personal growth.

Presented by Ashley Breland

In an age where selflessness is often celebrated, many individuals struggle to navigate the complex landscape of personal boundaries. “Braving Your Boundaries: A Framework for Self-Protection” offers an engaging and transformative session designed to empower participants to enhance their relationship with themselves, master the art of saying no, and protect the moments that truly matter. This interactive workshop will explore the profound consequences of lacking boundaries, including self-abandonment, emotional burnout, and strained relationships while emphasizing that these struggles are often rooted in societal norms, gender roles, and cultural pressures.

Participants will discover that setting boundaries is not synonymous with selfishness but rather a vital act of self-care that opens the door to authentic connections, personal growth, and meaningful engagement in their communities. Through practical strategies and reflective activities, attendees will learn to discern true boundaries from false ones, recognize the impact of their decisions, and articulate their needs confidently and respectfully. Join us in fostering a growth mindset as we empower each other to reclaim our “yes” moments and navigate our roles as community builders, learners, and leaders in the library and information services landscape.

Mark your calendars for May 8-9, 2025, at the TCU Place in Saskatoon, SK, and embrace the opportunity to grow with your library community through this enlightening session!

Presented by John (Jock) Buckmaster

In this session, we’ll look at the ways ingrained Ableism affects our outlook, equipment, and our service to patrons. Focus will be on practical advice to address these problems, and provide better service.

Presented by Julie Arie

Have you ever wondered why millions of adults dedicate hours to hunting dragons, building alliances, and exploring digital worlds? For many "gamers", online gaming is not just a hobby - it's a gateway to their communities and to developing their digital and technical literacies.

Join an experienced librarian and guild leader as she explores the skills that gamers cultivate through immersive online experiences. Using the Massive Multiplayer Online game The Elder Scrolls Online as a case study, the session will explore how gaming communities foster collaboration, critical thinking, and technical competencies. Learn how libraries can tap into the world of gaming to connect with diverse audiences and create innovative programming.

Come on a literacy adventure!