October 20-26 26 marks National Friends of Libraries Week 2024. This annual celebration (est. 2005) is coordinated through United for Libraries, the library Friends and trustees arm of the national American Library Association. BIG NEWS: MALF is pleased to share that the Governor’s Office has also - for the first time - officially designated October 20-26 as Friends of Libraries Week in Minnesota!

Congratulations to the Friends of the Pelican Rapids Library, newly announced as winners of the 2024 Evy Nordley Award for Best Project. Synopsis – Even as adults, we've all dreamed of stepping into rich worlds from…

Are you attending the Minnesota Library Association conference on October 24-25? If you have some flex time while in Rochester, the MLA conference team would greatly appreciate if you could spare it for one or more volunteer shifts. Needs run a wide gamut: silent auction help, wayfinding assistance, room hosts, registration support, and set-up and tear-down support. Most shifts require only 50-60 minutes. Remember: Many hands make light work!

Thanks to the more than 100 of you who turned out (or for a virtual event, perhaps we should instead say tuned in) for MALF’s fall conference, Saturday Splash. We fit a remarkable amount of content into two hours and hope that you enjoyed hearing and learning from Friends colleagues – as well as from our tremendous keynote presenter, Kao Kalia Yang.

What do you call it when a Friends program creates a brand-new revenue stream, draws residents into the library for their first time, and costs the organizers $0 to implement? In the case of the Austin Friends of the Library and their 2023 fundraiser “Puttin’ in the Stacks,” it feels all-too-appropriate to term that rare achievement a true "hole in one."

In an average year, more than 6,000 people descend on Falcon Heights for this one-day celebration of the book, which is coordinated by Rain Taxi. It’s no wonder why. More than 70 presenting authors and nearly 100 exhibitors will offer a jam-packed day of booths, panels, and other programming geared towards readers (and aspiring writers) of all kinds.