The Utah Library Association (ULA) is a professional organization for

Utah Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to it ...

librarians A librarian is a person who works professionally in a library providing access to information, and sometimes social or technical programming, or instruction on information literacy to users. The role of the librarian has changed much over time, ...

and library workers. It was founded on June 8, 1912, in Salt Lake City & County Building in

Salt Lake City, Utah Salt Lake City (often shortened to Salt Lake and abbreviated as SLC) is the Capital (political), capital and List of cities and towns in Utah, most populous city of Utah, United States. It is the county seat, seat of Salt Lake County, Utah, Sal ...

. The initial founders were Esther Nelson, librarian of the University of Utah; Joanna Sprague and Julie Lynch of the

Salt Lake City Public Library The Salt Lake City Public Library system's main branch building is an architecturally unique structure in Salt Lake City, Utah. It is located at 210 East, 400 South, across from the Salt Lake City and County Building and Washington Square. His ...

; and Howard Driggs, library secretary of the State Board of Public Instruction. Ephraim G. Gowans, Department Chair for Anatomy and Pathology in the University of Utah Medical School, was ULA's first elected president. ULA was initially part of the Utah Education Association and split from them in 1915. At ULA's first conference in 1913 there were 46 members, by 2012 there were approximately 1,000 on the ULA membership list. For the first 13 years, annual ULA conferences were held in Salt Lake City, in conjunction with the LDS fall conference. ULA has been a charter member of the

American Library Association The American Library Association (ALA) is a nonprofit organization based in the United States that promotes libraries and library education internationally. It is the oldest and largest library association in the world, with 49,727 members a ...

since 1913 and was a founding member of the

Mountain Plains Library Association The Mountain Plains Library Association (MPLA) is a non-profit organization based in the western United States that promotes the development of librarians and libraries by providing educational and networking opportunities to members. Modeled ...

. ULA advocated for the establishment of the Utah State Library in the 1950s; the library was established with state support, the last state library agency created in the United States up until then. ULA published ''Utah Libraries'' (formerly the ULA Newsletter, est. 1938) from 1957 through 1990.

References

External links

Utah Library Association website

Cache Valley Library Association website

Mountain Plains Library Association website
Library associations in the United States Organizations based in Utah {{Library-org-stub