About Us

WHAT IS RLA CE EXACTLY?

Good question!

Well, the RLA stands for Reference Librarians Association and the CE stands for Continuing Education. Our committee seeks to provide continuing education opportunities for all librarians, not just the reference type, in Northern Illinois. In the past, we’ve arranged fun and informative field trips to various libraries and archives in the Chicago area. We’ve also brought in some exciting speakers to talk about the best information resources out there and the future of libraries. Best of all, most of our speakers are area librarians who are willing to share their unique expertise.

For over ten years we’ve had programs on how to best provide medical, legal and business reference. We’ve had speakers talk about how to develop collections in Spanish, Russian, Polish, and other languages.

We’ve kept you informed about cutting edge trends such as e-books (from way back when), chat-reference (remember Answers Unlimited?), and Web 2.0 (finally a cutting edge that still cuts!). The list goes on and on.

Our generous sponsors allow us to offer these great programs. H.W. Wilson provides funding for programs throughout the year and Gale Cengage Learning provides funding for our final program of each year.