From its earliest years, PNLA recognized the need for cooperative resource sharing in the region.  Long before the philosophy of resource ownership was replaced by that of access, the predominantly small collections and budgets of libraries in the Pacific Northwest meant cooperation to develop the library resources of the region was a necessity. 

In 1940, built on an initial $35,000 Carnegie Corporation grant, the Pacific Northwest Bibliographic Center (PNBC) was established, to be housed at the University of Washington. Wholly self-supporting by 1945, when the Carnegie grant was exhausted and WPA funds that were used to staff the Center were cut off, PNBC served as a model of resource sharing and document delivery in the region and the nation for more than 40 years.

Another significant achievement for PNLA was the creation of the Young Readers Choice Award (YRCA) in 1940.  After receiving a letter from Seattle bookseller, Harry Hartman asking the association’s readers “endorse a juvenile book with an excellent story,” the Division of Work with Children and Young People created just such a prize.  The first YRCA winner was Paul Bunyan Swings His Axe, by Dell McCormick.   The YRCA is the longest continuing activity of any PNLA division and one of its most popular, each year drawing tens of thousands of votes from Pacific Northwest children and young adults across the region.

As PNLA continued to grow into a mature organization, a significant reorganization to create a more democratic method of electing officers and conducting association business dominated the attention of the members.  Although what would become the Mountain Plains Library Association was still a few years from formation, Utah librarians petitioned to leave PNLA in 1941, reducing the PNLA region to only five areas. 

Conference sessions show the impact of the war on libraries.  Gas rationing, government regulated travel, and restricted lodging as a result of World War II led to cancellation of the 1943 conference, for the second time in the association’s history.