In 1969, only ten years after becoming a state, Alaska officially joined PNLA.

In 1970, due a number of economic and political factors, PNBC became a separate legal entity before finally closing its doors in 1983.  PNBC served as a model of resource sharing and document delivery for over forty years.  As library service patterns changed with the development of bibliographic utilities represented by OCLC, RLIN, WLN and others, the role of PNBC was also significantly altered.

Automation, technology, accessibility and communication were the topics of the day.  An experiment took place in 1972 when the association held three traveling mini-conferences.  With Billings, Boise, and Vancouver, BC serving as host sites, each conference focused on interpersonal skills, lead by communications experts Charles Hosford and Sue Buel. Although evaluations were favorable, turnout was low, PNLA lost a considerable amount of money, and the experiment was never repeated.   Indeed, stretching shrinking library dollars became the main focus of PNLA in the late seventies, both at conferences and at individual libraries across the region.

Continuing professional education as a goal of the association was strengthened during this period.  The constitution was adjusted to specify that no more than one-third of any conference meeting could be composed of business; the remaining two-thirds had to be planned for workshops, seminars, and preconferences.   Conference sessions throughout the seventies focused on management techniques and automation and technology issues.

In 1974, the annual conference was scheduled for Fairbanks, Alaska but the gas crisis intervened in conference plans.  The conference site had to be changed to Burnaby, BC and the British Columbia Institute of Technology. 

The association spent a great deal of time during the seventies trying to find a way to fund an Executive Secretary position.  With membership and conference attendance in the hundreds, the work of the association took an increasing amount of time for association officers. 

Other signs of the times: In 1976, the conference was in Eugene and featured Watergate’s John Dean as keynote speaker.

President Rod Waldron noted that PNLA should consider its mission as being an instrument of leadership in preparing the profession.

By the late seventies, another popular feature of the association was also in full swing – the telephone, staffed by UW library school students.