As we dedicate our careers to keeping libraries strong, it’s important to find a community to support your professional journey.
Core: Leadership, Infrastructure, Futures is a community of library workers in the core functions of leadership and management, metadata and collections, and technology.
The Core community focuses on cultivating and celebrating the collective expertise of library workers through community building, advocacy, and learning.
Do you work in one or more of the following Core library roles?
We invite you to join our Core community today to connect with peers and colleagues who can help you in your job and career.
Leadership and Management
- Administration
- Assessment
- Buildings and Operations
- Human Resources
Metadata and Collections
- Acquisitions
- Cataloging
- Collection Management
- Electronic and Continuing Resources
- Preservation
Technology
- Coding/Development
- Digital Libraries
- Emerging Trends
- Linked Data
- Systems Administration
- Web Services
Benefits of Personal Membership
Find Community
- Build professional networks and ties to advance the goals of your profession;
- Build collective capacity to address increasingly complex and interrelated challenges;
- Participate in mentoring programs for student members and new professionals;
- Advance advocacy programs for core functions at the regional, state, and federal levels.
Share Expertise
- Free membership in specialized sections and interest groups;
- Opportunities to contribute your expertise in a meaningful way through participation on committees, presenting webinars and courses, authoring publications, and more;
- Share experience and build lasting methods for workforce development with the ALA, Library of Congress, OCLC, and other organizations as a representative from Core;
- Be featured as a guest contributor for our blog, Core News.
Enhance Your Career
- Free access to our e-Forums and archived content of past webinar recordings;
- Discounts on high-quality continuing education webinars and courses;
- Discounts on online and in-person Core special events and preconferences;
- Discounts on all Core publications, including resource guides, monographs, and three diverse journals.
Benefits of Organizational/Corporate Membership
Partner with Core and become an Organizational Member to unlock access to valuable professional resources to help your staff.
Benefits of Organizational/Corporate membership include:
- Discounts for group registrations for Core online courses, webinars, and preconferences;
- Discounts on Core publications.
Please note: Your organization must be an organizational member of the American Library Association (ALA) to join Core. The membership rate listed above does not include the price of ALA organizational membership. View Information about ALA organizational dues.
Annual Dues
- Regular member: $70
- International member: $40
- Non-salaried member: $40 (furloughed, unemployed, retired, or earning less than $30K per year)
- Student member: $30 (plus our student members receive free registration for all Core webinars)
- Organizational member: $200 (does not include personal membership benefits for organization’s staff)
Please note: You must be a member of the American Library Association (ALA) to join Core. Membership rates listed above do not include the price of ALA membership.
Learn more about ALA dues or contact ALA Member and Customer Services at 1-800-545-2433. Staff will answer your questions and help you select the right membership type to get started. You can then join any of Core sections or interest groups (or all of them) for free.
There are two ways you can join Core:
- Join online.
- Call the ALA Member and Customer Services team at 1-800-545-2433.
If you have questions regarding membership dues or becoming a member, please contact the ALA Member and Customer Services team at customerservice@ala.org or 1-800-545-2433. Staff are available to assist you Monday–Friday, 8:30am – 4:30pm Central Time.