Volume 273
Issue 10
03/09/2026
For the first time in a decade, the Texas Library Association returns to Houston for its annual conference, to be held March 29–31. TLA leaders anticipate welcoming 4,500 attendees—including library professionals, 200-plus authors, and more than 220 exhibitors—to the George R. Brown Convention Center.
“The city of Houston is incredibly excited for us to be coming,” says TLA executive director Shirley Robinson. “We’re partnering with Houston Public and Harris County Public Libraries, as well as many of the other library organizations.” She adds that the gathering brings members from far and wide, and provides an economic boost to its host city. “We’re lucky in Texas that we’re able to move the conference around to four or five major metropolitan areas.”
Valerie Prilop, TLA’s 2025–2026 president, is thrilled to bring the show back to her home city’s walkable downtown area, close to light rail. “Houston has a reputation of being car centric, but there’s a lot within blocks of the convention center,” she says. “When the weather is glorious, the park is full of people picnicking and playing, so it’s a nice part of the city for people to see, especially if they don’t get to Houston very often.”
Prilop collaborated with conference planning cochairs Kate McNally Carter and Brandi Grant to develop 2026’s slogan, “Cultivating Community, Thriving Together.” “Texas is huge and diverse, and our members are in small communities, urban communities, different-sized schools and universities, and special libraries,” she says. Regardless of where they’re coming from, their careers, or their identities, she wants convention-goers to “find courage and joy and celebration and comfort in the conference and in being with each other.”
For the branding, the conference team envisioned a mosaic representing Texas and a branching tree grounding attendees. “People are learning and growing, or need support and strength,” Prilop says. “The tree has deep roots, it’s strong, and it offers shade and comfort, so it’s a beautiful reflection of the theme.”
From the more than 400 submissions received during the call for presentations, conference planners selected 240 education sessions representative of that variegated membership. “We’re aligning those topical areas with who our members are, in terms of percentages of library types and specializations,” Robinson says. “We’ve created a broad array of content through that approach, looking at it from the lens of our membership composition.”
“The programs that made it into the final program latched onto the theme of community and thriving,” Prilop adds. TLA will also offer meet-and-greet opportunities for all, including a “Caffeinated Connections” social on March 29 to orient first-timers, in response to positive feedback on the 2025 convention’s networking sessions.
Education will address AI policies, collection development, vendors filling the void left by the closure of Baker & Taylor, and Texas legislation. In December, the Supreme Court declined to hear Little v. Llano County, leaving patrons’ First Amendment rights suspended in public libraries across the Fifth Circuit’s Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi jurisdiction. In addition, Texas Senate bills 12 and 13 have gone into effect, requiring libraries to review books for indecent content before purchase, clearing the way for school library advisory councils, and vacating policies of diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Robinson contends that Texas librarians are by nature resilient, yet says SB 12 and 13 have been “massively disruptive.” She adds, “Some school districts haven’t been able to order books yet for the school year, and there’s confusion about the most effective way to incorporate the bills.”
“Some school districts have systems in place,” Prilop notes. “But in smaller or more rural ones, it’s been difficult for the librarians to know what process they should use to get books on the shelves or how their administrators would like to handle things.”
Robinson says TLA’s conference is well-timed, taking place in the interim between legislative in Texas. “We’re doing data collection to gather not only the anecdotal stories of the challenges but also hard facts about the differences between the time before these laws passed and the current state.”
Above all, Houston will provide a space for “educating our members and making sure that they’re connecting and supporting each other,” she notes. “Valerie and her cochairs and conference planning committee have worked so hard, and we’re excited to see it all come together—it’s going to be great.”
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