In 1989, a joint conference with the Idaho Library Association took place in Coeur d’Alene, with reporter Helen Thomas as keynote speaker.  CANS Across the Border had its first official meeting.  During the year, the Collection Development Interest Group surveyed more than 1400 libraries in the region to assess the status of collection development efforts and policy planning.  The Management Interest Group compiled a comprehensive handbook of job descriptions, and the PNLA Interest Group Handbook was completed.  Two of the association’s most popular services saw record numbers, with more than 60,000 ballots cast in YRCA election and more than 20,000 Jobline telephone calls received.  A reading of conference sessions available that year provide a strong picture of the times: Atheists, Ayatollahs, and Wicked Owl Eaters; Literature of the Extremist Right; Life After Sweet Valley High; Homeschooling; Teaching Research Skills, CD-ROM, and AIDS Policies.

The early 1990s saw the association again in transition.  Indeed, much of the work of the association in the last decade of the century had to do with identifying the role of PNLA would play in the future of the region.   Membership decreased after the highs of the 80s for a number of reasons.  In 1966, the American Library Association, in its own restructuring efforts, removed regional representatives and with it their chapter status, allowing only state organizations to participate in ALA, sounding a death knell for many regional associations

As a result of this report, the evolution of the association as we know it today in both structure and electronic presence began.  The PNLA mission statement and strategic goals were rewritten.  Conference sessions focused heavily on providing continuing education opportunities for library staff at all levels, taking on such issues as technology, diversity, electronic access, cooperation and collaboration. 

As automation and technology changed the workplace, it also changed the organization. The jobline was made available electronically for the first time in 1997.  Initially an electronic list, the service eventually became part of PNLA’s web presence.  Developed to provide continuous membership and conference information for members and non-members by Boise State University’s Gloria Ostrander, administered by Elizabeth Felt of Washington State University and hosted for a time by WLN, the PNLA website debuted in 1997.

The 1998 annual conference at the Bell Harbor Conference Center in Seattle threatened to push the association into a fiscal crisis before ALA provided $5,000 in emergency funds.  Discussions about creating and funding an Executive Secretary position, an interest of the PNLA Board of Directors since the 1960s, were put on a long-term hold.