The Washington Library Association (WLA) is a professional organization for

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 in the U.S. state of

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...

. It is headquartered in

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

and has 1,504 individual members and 49 institution members . WLA was founded by the

Washington State Library The Washington State Library is a government agency that operates public libraries in Washington state's prisons and mental hospitals, and maintains collections related to the state government. Based in Tumwater, it is a service of the Washingto ...

at a meeting in Tacoma on March 27, 1905. Meetings were held annually until 1909 when the first WLA was merged with the newly formed

Pacific Northwest Library Association The Pacific Northwest Library Association (PNLA) is a professional organization for the Pacific Northwest's librarians and library workers headquartered in Bothell, Washington. It has over 200 members from Alaska, Alberta, British Columbia, Idaho ...

. It was briefly organized as the Puget Sound Library Association and then re-established in its current form with its first meeting on June 30, 1932. The WLA has published an academic journal called ''Alki'' since 1983. WLA has four divisions: Academic, Public, School, and Special. WLA also has eleven interest-based sections, Collection Development & Technical Services (CATS), Children's and Young Adult Services (CAYAS), College Libraries Across Washington State (CLAWS), Intellectual Freedom Section (IFS), Leadership is For Everyone (LIFE), Library & Information Student Section (LISS), Serving Adults in Libraries (SAIL), Social Responsibilities (SRRT), WA Library Employees (WALE), WA Library Trainers (WALT), and WA Library Friends, Foundations, Trustees, and Advocates (WLFFTA).

References

External links

Washington Library Association website

Pacific Northwest Library Association
Library associations in the United States Organizations based in Washington (state) {{library-stub