Hundreds of information professionals from around the world gathered in Cleveland, Ohio to attend the Special Libraries Association’s 2019 Annual Conference and celebrate the 110th anniversary of the association’s founding.

The conference featured three general sessions, more than 100 education sessions and business meetings, an exhibit hall with 100-plus vendors, awards presentations, networking events, tours, and social gatherings. The conference was punctuated by a cake and champagne reception in the exhibit hall recognizing the 110th birthday of SLA, which was founded by John Cotton Dana.

The education sessions spanned a wide range of topics, befitting an association whose members gather and manage information for use in businesses, law firms, government agencies, colleges and universities, nonprofit organizations, and other “special” settings. Session titles included the following:

• The Secret Sauce: Where You’re Probably NOT Looking to Find Your Competitive Intelligence;
• Creating an Information Center of Excellence: What the Best Information Teams Do; and
• Post-Master’s Residency Programs: Fostering Success and Diversity in Librarianship.

Two of the three general sessions featured keynote speakers. At the opening session, on Sunday, June 16, Leon Logothetis, a stockbroker turned adventurer and author of two books on kindness, shared stories and lessons of his travels across the globe. At the closing general session on Tuesday, June 18, Safiya Noble, an associate professor at UCLA, discussed her work on racist and sexist algorithmic bias in search engines.

At the general session on Monday, June 17, Hal Kirkwood moderated a discussion about the information professional of the future with the deans of three schools of library and information science:

• Kendra Albright, Kent State University (Ohio);
• Jon Gant, North Carolina Central University; and
• Sandra Hirsh, SanJose State University.

Conference attendees also had the opportunity to participate in tours of the library and archives of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, Cleveland’s premier museum.