2027 Power Up: A Leadership Conference for Youth Services Managers & Staff
The Power Up Conference has brought together youth services librarians and staff from public libraries, schools, after-school programs, museums, and other community partners since 2017. Join us in Madison, Wisconsin, for this year’s conference. In addition to our keynote speakers, this year’s program will feature sessions on change management, team dynamics and team building, collection development, and more.
Registration will open in October 2026.
I enjoy how applicable and inspiring the speaker presentations were, and I enjoyed getting to spend time learning from other people doing what I do.
Opening Keynote – Chris Castro
An expert in organizational dynamics, leadership, and professional development, Dr. Christian Castro has twenty years of experience across higher education, state government, and the nonprofit sector. He has worked as a faculty member, administrator, and independent consultant, partnering with leaders, teams, and whole institutions to build the conditions in which people can work well together, and guiding them toward more effective, evidence-based practices when established ways of working no longer suffice.
He spent almost a decade at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, first directing Madison Teaching and Learning Excellence, the campus flagship program for early-career faculty, and finishing as an associate dean in the College of Engineering, where he led the college’s organizational transformation efforts in culture and climate. In addition to his academic training, he is a graduate of Harvard’s Management Development Program, a certified emotional intelligence coach, and a qualified administrator of the Intercultural Development Inventory.
He has consulted and facilitated programming for the National Science Foundation, the American Society for Engineering Education, the Professional and Organizational Development Network, and the Six Seconds Emotional Intelligence Network. His values clarification methodology was adopted nationally through the NSF Aspire Alliance.
In 2024, he founded I.D.E.A.L. Culture, a consulting firm whose mission is to facilitate human connection and flourishing in organizations. As managing partner, he coaches executives and develops leaders at every level of an organization. He also works with teams on the underlying dynamics that shape how they make decisions, handle conflict, and hold one another accountable. He teaches Leadership in Organizations for the University of Wisconsin–Madison Prison Education Initiative, where his research with colleagues, published in the Journal of Correctional Education, examines what incarcerated students themselves identify as effective teaching.
Closing Keynote – Betsy Bird
Born in Kalamazoo, Michigan, undisputed center of the universe, I grew up and promptly left Michigan the moment my legs could propel me southward. I didn’t get far. I was an English/Fine Arts major at Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana (home of recorded jazz, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise) then set my sights on Portland, Oregon. When that didn’t pan out it was Minneapolis, Minnesota. Then New York, New York.
In the midst of all this I somehow managed to get a library degree and a job at New York Public Library, eventually becoming their Youth Media Specialist (a.k.a. the person who bought all the kids’ books for Manhattan, Staten Island, and the Bronx).
I created the children’s literary blog A Fuse #8 Production and schmoozed as no one had ever schmoozed before. The result? Books for kids and books for adults about children’s literature. I am now the Collection Development Manager of Evanston, IL. Stop by. We’ll have lunch. It’ll be nice.