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The Academic Senate for California Community Colleges (ASCCC) held its Spring Plenary Session in April at the Marriott Hotel in San Jose. The theme of Session was “Radicalizing Spaces of Possibility: Faculty Leadership in Vision 2030.” As ASCCC President Cheryl Aschenbach noted in her February President’s Update, “The future of teaching, learning, and leading must be focused in practices that challenge Eurocentric structures and elevate liberation.

I began by attending Developers Day+, a series of single-track sessions delivered over two days focusing on integrations, APIs, and so on. Attendees and presenters included everyone from the tech-curious to full-blown software engineers, with presentations ranging from birds-eye theoretical (how do we control for bias in development work?) to exploratory (can ChatGPT write normalization rules? Short answer: no) to the “wait, what—how are you doing that” (a demo on how to intercept Primo code at a base level and redirect it to third-party services—never mind!).

Thanks to the generous funding from CCL, I was able to attend the ELUNA Annual Meeting for the first time in Minneapolis last May. It was a 3-day event packed with numerous sessions presented by Ex Libris users and vendors. It was an excellent opportunity to see how other libraries are using various Ex Libris products to meet the needs of their community, but also to hear about successes, strategies, pitfalls and how these institutions make changes or improve their processes.

Attending the ELUNA conference for the first time was an invaluable experience. As a space that brings together professionals utilizing Ex Libris' library management system, ELUNA offers a unique opportunity to stay abreast of the latest developments in library technology. From new product releases to changes in the system itself, ELUNA provides a platform for library professionals to learn about what's on the horizon.

The San Diego Mesa College Library and Learning Resource Center (LRC) received the 2024 Library Excellence in Access and Diversity (LEAD) Award from Insight Into Diversity magazine, the largest and oldest diversity and inclusion publication in higher education. The LEAD Award honors academic libraries’ programs and initiatives that encourage and support DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) across their campus. 

The Wilfred J. Airey Library at Norco College welcomes two new Library Technical Assistants