2026 OLA Super Conference Recap

1. Workshop on Cataloguing with Official RDA

The workshop was very well prepared, and I particularly appreciated the hands-on exercises on mapping RDA data to MARC 21. Working through concrete examples made the concepts more tangible and helped clarify how RDA is applied in practice. I have attended RDA courses before, and this was one of the best ones I’ve participated in, one where I truly felt I understood the material!

The workshop also brought me back to a long-standing question I continue to have about RDA: why is it so complex? I am still not fully convinced that this level of complexity necessarily makes it easier for users to find, identify, select, and obtain resources, especially in a landscape increasingly shaped by emerging technologies. This may reflect my own need for further study of RDA, but it is a question that continues to surface for me.

Many UX studies have shown that library discovery tools remain difficult for users to navigate when compared to alternatives such as Google and now, generative AI tools. In that context, it feels important to continue asking how RDA’s conceptual and structural complexity translates into tangible benefits for end users.

RDA was also designed to describe a wide range of resources beyond books, which is one of its strengths. At the same time, its steep learning curve makes me wonder how broadly it can be adopted outside of the library community, particularly when Dublin Core is already widely used in other domains.

Perhaps I simply need to spend more time studying RDA and applying it in practice to better appreciate its full benefits.

2. Manage Up and Manage Down

As a middle manager, this was one of the most valuable sessions I attended at OLA. It reinforced for me how essential strategic communication is in this role, the ability to communicate effectively upward, downward, and across the organization. Each panelist shared their own examples while applying one of the change management frameworks to their work.

I was also reminded that being a middle manager can be isolating at times. You can’t always share everything, and your team may place the blame on you, while your supervisor may not fully understand. This makes effective communication in both directions essential, not to assign blame, but to build understanding and trust. It also made me believe how important it is to take care of yourself and to learn how to say “no” effectively.

In addition, we need to adapt to new technologies throughout our career, but as a middle manager, it is critical to understand where your team is in terms of abilities, knowledge, and skill sets. If I were making decisions solely as an individual librarian, I could move quickly based on my own interests and needs. As a middle manager, however, I have to think at the team level, bringing people along rather than moving alone. Before applying new technologies to projects, I need to consider the team’s readiness to ensure the change is sustainable.

I learned a new phrase: “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” It resonated with me because it highlights work I care deeply about in my role. I want my team’s culture to encourage exploring new ways of working whether through new technologies, new ideas, or new ways of thinking and to feel safe trying, learning, and even failing. I know this takes time, but I hope to shape the conditions, habits, and conversations within my team that allow strategy and change to actually take hold.

Kotter

• Create urgency
  • Help others see the need for change through a bold, aspirational opportunity statement.
• Build a guiding coalition
  • Assemble a volunteer network of people from all levels with the power and influence to lead the change.
• Form a strategic vision
  • Clarify how the future will be different from the past and how you can make that future a reality.
• Enlist a volunteer army
  • Communicate the vision in a way that inspires large numbers of people to buy in and drive the change.
• Enable action by removing barriers
  • Remove inefficient processes and hirarchies that prevent people from doing their best work.
• Generate short-term wins
  • Recognize and communicate early successes to validate the effort and keep sprits high.
• Sustain acceleration
  • Use the momentum from early wins to push harder; don’t declare victory too soon.
• Institute change
  • Anchor new behaviors in the organizational culture so they become “the way we do things here.”

Penfold

• Audit
  • Assessing the current state. This involves a SWOT analysis of the information service, identifying the drivers for change (internal or external) and evaluating current resources.
• Analysis
  • Interpreting audit data. Managers look for gaps between “where we are” and “where we need to be,” focusing on stakeholder requirements and organizational culture.
• Strategy
  • Developing the roadmap. Creating a clear vision and mission for the change, setting measurable objectives, and determining the required budget and staffing levels.
• Implementation
  • Executing the plan. This is the “action” phase involving communication with staff, training, managing resistance, and rolling out new systems or workflows.
• Evaluation
  • Measuring success. Reviewing the outcomes against the original objectives and establishing a loop for continuous improvement and feedback.

Situated change

• Social sensing
  • What are emerging topics of discussion?
  • What are people afraid of?
  • What are the conversations in the hallways, at conferences, etc.?
• Detecting local innovation
  • How are people already adapting in their work?
  • What new skills or tools are people trying?
• Creating enabling structures
  • How can you facilitate?
  • Communicating, coordinating PD, empowering colleagues, sharing information, advocating for funds, support, etc.
• Ongoing improvisation
  • Continuing the earlier 3 steps
• Retrospective sense-making
  • Reflecting, communicating, reviewing, sharing

Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement (BATNA)