PLA Blog

Others have already given great overviews of the opening session with John Wood, so I won’t go into that.  I did want to share some of my personal gleanings that I plan to share with my library.  Much of what he says can translate into how we can/could/should ? serve the poor in our local neighborhoods.  I’m from Columbus, Ohio, but I’m sure many of you deal with similar situations.

Points I gleaned: 

• He strives to have “the heart of Mother Theresa and the scaleability of Starbucks” - great tagline!
• Education is a hand up, not a hand out.
• Involve local people, especially parents, to increase the likelyhood that your work will continue after you’ve moved on. You can only help people who want to help themselves. Have you read Bridges Out of Poverty yet?
• Literacy is a long-arc proposition
• We need to find a way to get beyond the “they should do something about that” mentality.
• Have an intense focus on results - GSD - Get . . . you know . . . Stuff Done - what gets measured gets done
• Dream big - go big or go back home

Oh, and did I mention how great a job he does at telling the story? The story of mothers walking down a 2 mile mountain to carry 110 bags of concrete on their backs. Stories of children mashing the “stage” when he opened the boxes of books. Stories of children who are helping to write some of the very first pictures book (ever!) in their local language.

Leaves me thinking “Daddy, will you help me buy a yak?” But seriously, I think our yak is our service, and with nearly 73% of Cols City School children on free or reduced lunch, we have our own huge gulf to cross (and sometimes our own rickety bridges). He’s got some great BHAGs (big hairy audacious goals).

And what about the Big Hairy Audacious Questions? Here are mine:

• What can we do to really get our local parents or teachers or community leaders involved in leading Ready to Read workshops?
• What barriers do we still have that keep us from GSDing, and how do we break them down?
• And, because it’s been a long day and I didn’t really get much dinner, when is my delivery guy going to arrive with my Mostaccioli?

Wow.  I’m impressed!  I didn’t think I would be, but the keynote speaker at the opening session, John Wood, impressed the heck out of me.  He was a fantastic and engaging speaker, and with a cause like Room to Read under his belt, his presentation ended up being a truly brilliant 90 minutes.  And even though he was talking about a much grander goal; bringing literacy and books to developing nations, I couldn’t help but feel proud that I’m in a profession that does much the same thing, if on a slightly smaller scale.  I’m sure most of us who work with the public have had those moments where we realized that we have just provided a service that ended up being to that patron, more than just the simple answering of a question.  so John Wood’s experience and his ambitions helped to remind me why I stick with this sometimes frustrating job, and even why I can get all “advocatey” about public libraries.  One of the comments to my last post mentioned that they felt PLA was a way to “recharge” and I certainly felt that way today after the opening session.

And after that “opening” came the opening of the exhibit hall.  I took my time getting there – with a quick and very expensive stop a the ALA shop — and I was amazed as always at the wide variety of services and products that it takes to keep libraries running.  Naturally I saw tons of stuff that I could have spent hours drooling over, knowing full well that my library system would be hard pressed to afford any of it.  But one can always dream.  I think the furniture vendors are where I get that drooly feeling the most (despite being a geek).  Oh to be able to redesign a library with an unlimited budget!

Of course I had to make a stop at Baker and Taylor to get my picture taken with the cats.  Two harder working cats you’ll never meet (and trust me, I do know what I’m talking about).  a little more roaming burned up time pretty quickly, so I settled down to a quick demo of the Graphic Novel core collection product from H. W. Wilson and then finished up my first visit with a run through the publisher tables.  Still more to see, so rest assured, I will be back.

And here’s a completely unsolicited plug that I can’t resist adding.  Check out the book “He Said Beer, She Said Wine” at the DK booth.  I’ve had the pleasure to meet one of the authors of this book, and if you like either beer or wine (or, like me, both) you’ll find this book a real hoot.

Okay, one more aside.  Is it just me or are public librarians some of the most polite people you’ve ever met?  Is it because of our job or does the job just attract that type of person?  I can only say that being in a jam packed exhibit hall with hundreds of people moving about and still being surrounded by “thank you’s” and “excuse me’s” is just an amazing feeling.

Okay, back on track.  My final activities for my first day were short visits to the New Members Reception and also to a reception hosted by Overdrive.  Both were enchanting (except perhaps for the part where I ended up walking up 14 flights of stairs…but that’s a story for another time) but I must confess that even on the best of days I’m not really a “reception” person, and after a long day like today, I am even less so.  But I do understand that a large part of PLA is the networking and the efforts taken by the PLA committees and the vendors are appreciated even by those of us who are a little less social than most.  So maybe I’ll give the All Members Reception a go on Friday.  so if you see a San Antonio librarian/blogger there, doing a fair imitation of a wall flower, do come on over and say hello.  I promise I don’t bite.

 Tomorrow, the programs begin.  I am excited!