ILOC 2025 Schedule
ILOC will be held on January 30, 2025 with the theme Assess, Adapt, Act: Making Evaluation Count
The webinar descriptions and speaker bios are posted below. The day of the conference, click the link below each session description to access the Zoom link.
The full ILOC Schedule, including keynote presenters and breakout speakers will be posted mid-December.
General schedule for the day:
- Morning Welcome & Keynote | 9:00 a.m. - 10:15 a.m.
- Breakout Session 1 | 10:45 a.m. - 11:35 a.m.
- Noon Keynote | 12:00 p.m. - 1:00 p.m.
- Breakout Session 2 | 1:30 p.m. - 2:20 p.m.
- Breakout Session 3 | 2:50 p.m. - 3:40 p.m.
- Evening Keynote | 6:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m.
Morning Keynote: Erica Freudenberger
Title: Measure Up! Evaluation as a Springboard to Success
Description: Evaluation is where the strategic plan comes together, demonstrating the library’s success. By establishing clear metrics, we can assess progress. Sounds dull? It’s not!
This talk will cover the why, when, what, who and how of evaluation.
About Erica: Erica Freudenberger is a creative community-builder who works with libraries to create community-led change. She is the outreach, engagement, and marketing consultant at the Southern Adirondack Library System. She formerly led the Red Hook Public Library, a finalist for Library Journal's "Best Small Library Award." She is a 2016 Library Journal Mover & Shaker. She's been an advisor to the Aspen Institute's Re-envisioning Public Libraries pilot, OF/BY/FOR/ALL, and the American Library Association's Libraries Transform Communities: Facilitation Skills for Small and Rural Libraries. In her free time, she creates bold, joyful, and experiential learning opportunities with organizations nationwide through Thriving Libraries, LLC.
Noon Keynote: Jessica Hilburn
Title: Digging Into Data: Where to Find It & How to Use It to Maximize Your Impact
Description: Data is a useful tool, but only if you know where to find the good quality stuff and how to go about implementing it in your library work. Are you looking for new ways to understand your community, grow your reach, and open up new funding avenues? Getting connected with data to back up your in-library experiences is crucial to understanding your community. You might even learn something you never knew! In this keynote you will learn about where to find high-quality data on a variety of topics related to your area. This information will provide you with grant-writing talking points and tips for how to engage with your community in new and exciting ways.
About Jessica: Jessica Hilburn is the Executive Director of Benson Memorial Library in Titusville, Pennsylvania, and the CEO of the Crawford County Federated Library System. She enjoys popular culture in libraries, true crime, and audiobooks, and she is passionate about advocating for rural communities and libraries, as well as broadband equity, information access, and community development. She is a regular contributor to Information Today, Inc. and serves as chair of her county planning commission and as an elected official on her borough council.
Evening Keynote: Kevin Unrath
Title: Evaluating your library’s value beyond cost-benefit analysis
Description: One popular method of demonstrating the value of a library is cost-benefit analysis, which looks at the financial benefits of shared resources versus the cost of running the library. While this analysis is valid and important, libraries add value in many other ways that can be difficult to quantify. This presentation will touch on four of those areas, looking at libraries as institutions of learning, community builders, keepers of history, and sustainable resource sharers. It will outline ways to inventory the qualitative benefits of the library and how to incorporate those benefits into the strategic planning/implementation/evaluation cycle.
About Kevin: Kevin Unrath is the Consultant for Library Operations for the Vermont Department of Libraries, where he helps trustees, library directors, and Friends groups make their library the best it can be. After earning his Master's in Library Science at the University of Illinois in 2000, Kevin has worked in library management and administration for the past 25 years. He's served as the director of two busy libraries, is a past president (2020-2021) of the Vermont Library Association, and organized the Vermont Library Conference from 2020-2023. When not library-ing, Kevin enjoys spending time with his family and all things disc golf and Disney. Don’t hold it against him that It’s a Small World is his favorite ride!