After the war ended, adult and continuing education became a growth industry across North America and the Pacific Northwest region.  Librarian shortages were acute and served to finally push wages up.  As an association, PNLA encouraged library schools to raise standards to give the profession more prestige and allure, rather than lowering them to admit more students.  Librarians from Alberta petitioned to join PNLA in 1954 and were admitted in 1955.  In 1958, Alberta briefly left to join Manitoba and Saskatchewan in the foundation of the Prairie Provinces Association but returned to PNLA in 1977.

In the 1950s, the lack of involvement by younger librarians in the administration of the association became an issue.  PNLA also took an active interest in library boards and personnel actions taken by these boards in Tacoma, Washington, and Bozeman, Montana.

In other mid-century activities, the Ford Foundation granted $50,000 to PNLA and the University of Washington’s School of Librarianship to improve library service in the area.  The proposal called for a coordinated, complete and systematic study of the entire library situation in the states and province, with an overall and goal of attaining more books and better libraries for the region.  The result of the grant would eventually become the Kroll Report which was published in 4 volumes in 1960.