Celebrating Lubuto@20: Celebrating Impact and Sustaining SLA Community Going Forward

The work of Lubuto Library Partners (LLP), founded in 2005, was introduced to hundreds of attendees at the Opening General Session of the 2007 SLA annual conference. What made this unusual was that there was such immediate enthusiasm and support among SLA members for an organization that provided public libraries, collections and services, especially focused on the most marginalized, in the southern African country of Zambia. But the grassroots establishment and ensuing development of Lubuto libraries has been guided by many special library principles and approaches, and LLP has enjoyed the support and participation of dozens of SLA members. Now in its 20th anniversary year, LLP would like to celebrate and thank its SLA supporters and introduce its work, its successes and challenges, and future plans – in a very changed international landscape - to a new generation of SLAers. We also will propose ways to keep the Lubuto-SLA community thriving into the future – and want your ideas too!