American Library Association (ALA) President Cindy Hohl called the first Council meeting of ALA’s 2025 Annual Conference and Exhibition in Philadelphia to order at 10:06 a.m. on June 28.
The hybrid Council rules (CD#5.2) and agenda (CD#8.4) were adopted. The minutes from ALA’s 2025 LibLearnX Conference in Phoenix (CD#2.2) meetings were approved, and the minutes from the May Council meeting (CD#2.3) were approved.
Preceding the start of Council I, during the ALA–Allied Professional Association (ALA-APA) Council meeting, Emily Drabinski—ALA-APA immediate past president—presented an action item (ALA-APA CD#8) to amend the ALA-APA Bylaws to effect the dissolution of the ALA-APA Council as part of ongoing efforts to streamline governance processes. The motion carried, with 125 yes votes, three no votes, and one abstention. ALA-APA Council will be managed by the ALA-APA Executive Board with delegation to ALA-APA committees where appropriate.
The first Council I presenter of the morning, Committee on Organization Chair Kim DeNero-Ackroyd, delivered a report and presented three action items (CD#27.1). The first action item to discontinue the Committee Associate Program passed 135-1 with two voters abstaining. The second action item to dissolve the Planning and Budget Assembly carried 131-3 with three voters abstaining.
The third action item sought to reunify the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC) and the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA), for financial reasons as well as overlap between the two organizations. The motion passed 125-3 with one voter abstaining. The ALSC/YALSA Joint Executive Committee recommends that dissolution of YALSA take effect in 2026.
Christina Rodriques, chair of the ALA Conference Committee (CC), presented a report and action item (CD#44.1) requesting an extension from 2025 to 2027 for the Resolution to Achieve Carbon Neutrality for ALA Conferences (CD#53)—passed in 2021—to allow Conference Services time needed to evaluate the feasibility and financial impact of absorbing the cost of carbon offsets into the cost of doing business for Annual or provide CC time to investigate alternative options. The motion carried 138–7, with one abstainer.
ALA Policy Manual Revision Working Group Cochair Brian E. C. Schottlaender delivered the committee’s report and an action item (CD#40.1) to adopt the committee’s revisions, intended to clarify and enhance readability, to ALA Policy Manual, Section A. The motion passed unanimously. The Council also voted unanimously to adopt several action items pertaining to specific sections of the ALA Policy Manual that emerged from the working group’s activities.
In closing announcements, ALA Associate Executive Director Melissa Walling reported the numbers for this year’s Annual Conference, which, she noted, had exceeded its budget goal: 14,000 total attendees, including 614 exhibitors and nearly 8,000 paid registrations. Of these, 2,537 are first-time attendees.
Concluding the meeting, Hohl invited to the podium “someone that I would like to introduce you to”: newly-appointed ALA executive director Daniel Montgomery, who praised the conference and thanked councilmembers for their service. Hohl adjourned the meeting after Montgomery’s comments, at 11:33 a.m.
