The 2026 Urban Libraries Council Annual Leadership Forum is scheduled for September 30–October 2 at AC Hotel Las Vegas Symphony Park. The Urban Libraries Council, working with the Las Vegas-Clark County Library District as local host, presents the event under the theme “In Demand: The People and Power of Public Libraries.” The forum is intended for leaders from large public-library systems, including executives, department heads, communications and community-engagement staff, program leaders, and corporate partners that work with urban libraries.

The program addresses how libraries explain their public value, maintain relevance, strengthen staff alignment, communicate with boards and funders, and work with civic and community partners. Rather than organizing the agenda around a large exhibit floor, ULC describes an interactive format based on strategy sessions, peer exchange, field examples, and facilitated conversation. A pre-conference session examines strategic communications and community trust. The main forum continues with discussions about leadership, organizational language, staff confidence, visibility, and the relationship between library services and the communities that rely on them. The emphasis is on institutional management and public-service strategy rather than collections, publishing, or library technology alone.

Registration is available to ULC member-library staff, nonmember library professionals, and corporate partners, with different rates for each group. This structure reflects the council’s membership model and keeps library practitioners at the center of the meeting. The local partnership with the Las Vegas-Clark County Library District adds direct context from a large regional system serving urban, suburban, and unincorporated communities. The host relationship also gives the national program a local operating perspective without turning the forum into a general Las Vegas library event.

Event background

The Annual Leadership Forum is part of ULC’s continuing program for public-library executives and institutional leaders. The organization’s 2026 materials identify Las Vegas as the forum site and the Las Vegas-Clark County Library District as host, but do not publish a complete chronology of earlier Las Vegas editions. The event should therefore be described as the documented 2026 Las Vegas forum without claiming a return, a debut, or a recurring local schedule. Its role within ULC is consistent with an annual leadership meeting: the program focuses on management, governance relationships, public positioning, and the internal capacity of library systems rather than on a single technical specialty.

Location

AC Hotel Las Vegas Symphony Park is at 330 South Grand Central Parkway in the Symphony Park district near downtown Las Vegas. Marriott lists eight event rooms, more than 18,000 square feet of total event space, six breakout rooms, built-in audiovisual systems, and meeting rooms located on the same level. Those features support a forum that alternates between common sessions and smaller working discussions. The hotel shares a building with Element Las Vegas Symphony Park and sits near The Smith Center, World Market Center, and the Expo at World Market Center. The setting is outside the main Strip resort corridor and closer to downtown civic and cultural institutions, which is relevant to a conference centered on urban public-service leadership. It also keeps the three-day forum in a compact hotel meeting environment rather than a large exhibition campus.