Welcome to the Ontario Association of Library Technicians / Association des bibliotechniciens de l’Ontario

Conference Coordinator’s Report / Rapport du coordinatrice de la conférence

Conference Coordinator’s Report [PDF]

48th Annual General Meeting / 48e Assemblée Générale Annuelle

Friday May 14 2021 / le vendredi le 14 mai 2021
online / en ligne

The 2021 OALT/ABO is a whole different experience for all of us.  We are experiencing our very first Virtual Conference.

We had started making arrangements to hold our annual conference in Sudbury.  We had not been up into the north for a few years.

Pauline Gordon was exploring us going to the College.  And then the shutdown for the Pandemic started and we quickly decided that we would move into the Virtual world.

Vincent Elit started exploring the world of Zoom and running our conference virtually.

Melanie Taylor-Ridgway and Pauline Gordon started exploring their communities to find people that would be willing to present at the Conference.  I proceeded to email the presenters that had committed to participating in the 2020 conference.  Several agreed and I went exploring programming in Ontario.  Many libraries were entering the virtual world and I discovered some unique programs that I thought would be of interest to a wide variety of people and pertinent to 2021 and libraries.

What you have experienced this week was interesting and enjoyable.  We also decided to host a games night for a little bit of fun.

Because we were entering the world of virtual programming we decided to ask Doug Wilford and Liz Aldrey, two of our founding members to talk about our past; our present and our future.  They also decided to regale us with some stories about our past conferences.  Doug said I don’t think we can keep it to the 15 minutes and we said go for it you have up to an hour.

We were able to find someone from the Rainbow District School Board to present our Land Acknowledgement.

We also wanted to give everyone a feel for being in the north so we were able to receive a Welcome from the Deputy Mayor of Sudbury and a virtual tour of Sudbury and experience the Sudbury Mine.

We will be offering out a survey to members and participants about the 2021 conference and by mid-summer we will start planning our next conference which will be virtual or a combination of virtual and on-site.

I would like to thank Pauline and Melanie and all of the Board for their assistance in helping to plan this conference and supporting our venture into our modern technological world.

Respectfully submitted,

-Original signed by Janna Munkittrick-Colton

Janna Munkittrick-Colton
Conference Coordinator, Board of Directors | Coordinatrice de la conférence, Conseil d’administration
Ontario Association of Library Technicians/Association des bibliotechniciens de l’Ontario
info@oaltabo.on.ca | https://oaltabo.on.ca/