My map reading skills must be rusty because I keep getting lost on the skyway. I should have packed a compass!

I walk fast, desperately trying to look like I know where I’m going, but before long I’m down on the streets.

Hi, I’m Michael May. I’m one of the adult services librarians at Carnegie-Stout Public Library in Dubuque, Iowa, which is about five hours south of Minneapolis by minivan. My colleagues and I are driving up this afternoon.

This is my first PLA conference and I am excited. I wonder if Minneapolis resident and award-winning novelist Louise Erdrich will talk about Books and Islands in Ojibwe Country, her personal account of travels through Minnesota and Ontario.

In one eloquent passage, Erdrich describes how Ojibwe poet Al Hunter reacted when his community was suffering from terrible poverty, alcoholism, and despair: Hunter urged his community to build a library. A library full of books, Erdrich explains, contains “wealth, sobriety, and hope.”

I’m looking forward to the conference programs, exhibits, and sight seeing. Hearing from people like Louise Erdrich, however, is what I think will make PLA worthwhile.