PLA Blog

Okay, here’s why I love ALA. Keep in mind that I’m shy and also still very new to the profession.

While waiting for the shuttle to take me from the airport to my hotel, I met Judy Luther, a former academic librarian in Florida, now working as a library consultant in Philadelphia. It seems that sometimes you have to fly across the country to meet your neighbors.

After check-in, I had lunch with Nancy Hinkel, a publishing director for Knopf Books for Young Readers at Random House Children’s Books. If you want to find out which public libraries are doing really cool stuff, talk to a publisher or a vendor. They work with a lot of libraries every year, so it takes a lot to impress them. Fortunately, it seems, a lot of libraries are doing impressive stuff. I hope to write a post on that later.

After registering, I went to a WebJunction party where I met up with PLA Blog coordinator, Andrea Mercado. Andrea introduced me to a soft-spoken information professional at the University of Kentucky who, like me, is a recent library school grad who’s married to a yoga instructor (I wish he had business cards, because I’m spacing on his name); Walt Crawford, who was every bit as kind and thoughtful in person as he seems in his blog; Howard Besser, who’s doing fantastic work at NYU in film and video preservation, and who just landed a landmark grant from IMLS; and Roy Tennant, who’s helping to do the kind of stuff at OCLC that I’m really, really glad is happening at OCLC. In my little checklist of Things To Do at ALA, I’ve got a dot next to “Figure out how to expose the Collingswood Public Library’s records in WorldCat at a price we can afford,” though I’m hoping that dot becomes a check by Tuesday. Added to my to do list: become very familiar with everything the amazing Karen Calhoun writes on her new OCLC blog.

After WebJunction, I ate dinner with Andrea, Steve Roskowki, LJ’s Library Paraprofessional of the Year, ALA Council member Heidi Dolamore, and Laurel, a way-cool Oregon-based librarian and fellow Drexel alum. Along the way, I also ran into some of my favorite colleagues from Penn and Temple, and a colleague at PALINET who’s been helpful in helping me get my bearings at Collingswood.

Again, this isn’t a post about how I’m so popular and cool, because I’m neither; no one’s going to be dropping my name on their blog or with their colleagues. The point is, through conversation which each of these people, I learned how I can be a better librarian and how Collingswood can become an even better library. And the conference is really just getting started. This all took place a day before the opening general session. I cannot wait to see how the rest of the conference goes.

Hi, everyone! I’m Anne Heidemann, Children’s, Tween & Teen Services Department Head at the Canton Public Library in Canton, Michigan. I’m a member of YALSA’s Outreach to Young Adults with Special Needs Committee, and an outgoing member of ALSC’s Membership Committee. I’m also a member of PLA and LLAMA. Today I attended a YALSA preconference, and here are my impressions.

Got Tweens? Serving Younger Teens & Tweens

A YALSA Preconference
ALA Annual Conference, Anaheim CA
Friday June 27, 2008

——

The Basics: Who are Tweens/Early Teens?

Booktalks:
Encyclopedia Horrifica
Stanford Wong Flunks Big-time
Millicent Min, Girl Genius
So Totally Emily Ebers

Lisa Yee brought her peep, Peepy, with her (as she usually does), and introduced him to the crowd (look for photos on her blog in the next few days). She reminisced about when she was a kid and she used to look for books with cracked spines to know that they were enjoyed by others. She also looked at the check-out cards to see who else had enjoyed them, and often found that her own name was there, because she checked out the same books over and over.

Before writing books for tweens, Lisa wrote ad jingles (Pass the Old El Paso - that was her!). Before that, when she was in middle school, she kept a very secret set of journals that were very serious and dramatic. She told us about a show called Mortified, where people get up on stage and read from their tween- and teen-hood diaries. She decided she wasn’t going to audition for that show but she did read us an excerpt as an illustration of how awkward you feel as a tween, how you feel that nothing is quite right with your appearance and your body. A lot of this stuff is funny, but when she writes, she tries to include the sad, scary stuff as well as the funny things. With the help of her editor Arthur Levine, she realized while writing from a boy’s perspective, that she was writing too much about feelings - boys don’t really talk about their feelings explicitly. Boys communicate, of course, but not in the overt ways that girls do.

The quickest way to turn off your audience is to not be authentic. Lisa read us a bit of a letter she received from a tween reader, who started out by telling Lisa that she enjoyed reading her book, but she didn’t finish it because she had an assignment, which she then asked for Lisa’s help completing. Lisa gets a lot of letters like this.

One of the attendees asked how Lisa thinks that public librarians can connect with tween boys, and Lisa said that for her son, it was getting the first right book in his hands. He needed to realize that books weren’t scary and weren’t his enemy. Books were a struggle and some kids need to know that it’s okay to put a reading-for-pleasure book down if it’s not engaging. She also makes a point of talking with him about books.

Lisa has a new book coming out for teens called Absolutely Maybe. She will be signing at Scholastic’s booth Saturday (6/28) from 10-11am and will present as part of LAYAPALOOZA Saturday from 2-3pm.*

——

Teri Lesesne, author of Naked Reading: Uncovering What Tweens Need to Become Lifelong Reading introduced and delivered a presentation on behalf of Stacy L. Creel, who couldn’t be here (she’s expecting and could not travel).
“Tween is a fluid definition: meaning that different cognitive, emotional and social developments happen at different rates in different adolescents. Some 10 year-olds may have begun physically developing while others may not see these changes until they are 13.”

Physical aspects:

* bombarded by hormones, hormonal roller coaster
* beginning reproductive development
* growth surge

Psychological aspects:

* reasoning capacities rise to new levels of complexity
* learning how to handle adult responsibilities
* ability to think about possibilities, consider hypotheses, think ahead, consider the thought process, think beyond conventional limits
* ability to use abstract verbal concepts
* ability to engage in abstract thought
* moral development evolves
* increased awareness of the relationship between the individual and society

Social development:

* expected increase in freedom
* move away from family toward peers
* likely to have friends of similar social and cultural backgrounds, similar attitudes and values
* increased importance of peer approval and acceptance
* rely on friends for everything
* more pressure from peers = greater likelihood of going along with it

Libraries are often a welcoming place to those without a place: tweens, who are self-identified as too mature for children’s area and too young for teen area.

——

The Basics II: Tweens/Early Teens in your library

Booktalks:
Beowulf: A Hero’s Tale Retold by James Rumford
The Ashwater Experiment by Amy Goldman Koss
Side Effects by Amy Goldman Koss

Amy Goldman Koss is the author of the two books above as well as The Girls, The Cheat, and Poison Ivy. Amy doesn’t like the word “tween” and has been trying to understand why we use it (her prevailing theory is that it’s an awkward word for an awkward time). (NOTE: At my library, the tweens like the word, and actually voted to name their dedicated area the Tween Scene.) She spoke about the physical awkwardness of being a tween, which clothes shopping still brings out for her, even as an adult.

She talked about the difficulty we have remembering the intensity of things that happened in the past, and how it’s crucial to find and evoke that intensity when writing for tweens. She tells her (grown-up) students to write for themselves at the age they’re writing for. She writes for “that moody, cranky, shitty little kid who was secretive, a bad student, but fearless and terrified.” She wants to write books that will entertain that girl.

Amy Goldman Koss may be signing in the exhibits at point in time (if anyone knows more specifics, please comment!).*

——

Booktalks by Jerene Battisti, Education and Teen Services Coordinator for the King County Library System:
The Clique by Lisi Harrison

Lisi Harrison did not attend a posh private school like her characters. She used her experience working with young women at MTV as her basis for the Clique girls, particularly her coworkers desire to do and wear and have whatever was necessary to be cool. She spoke about her characters and the impact they’ve had on readers who’ve contacted her.

Lisi will be signing at the Little Brown booth Saturday from 11-12pm.*

——

Teri Lesesne presented (her own PPT this time), speaking about illiteracy and reluctant tween readers. The recent/current movement of focusing on standardized test scores leads to an increasing number of young people who can’t read critically and don’t enjoy reading (but who have been taught to pass tests).

Research
Q: What makes you want to read?
A: (students K-12) being allowed to choose any book you want
A: (students K-12) having a classroom library
A: (students K-12) having the teacher read aloud
A: (students K-12) having the teacher take you to the school library
A: (students K-5) being allowed to read somewhere comfortable (floor, beanbag chair, etc.)
A: (students K-5) being allowed to buy your own book at a book fair
A: (students K-5) being allowed to participate in a reading competition
A: (students K-5) seeing the movie or TV production of the book after reading it
A: (students 6-12) having the author come to the school
A: (students 6-12) seeing the movie or TV production of the book before reading it

T-tweens need to Trust that we have fun books, tough books
A-tweens need Access to books
R-tweens need books that evoke a strong Response
G-tweens need books that provide Guidance
E-tweens need Enthusiasm for books
T-tweens need books with Tween appeal (and another and another)

——

The Info: Resources to Serve Tweens

Jon Scieszka is the author of many awesome books including Guys Write for Guys Read, Knucklehead (forthcoming), and my personal favorite Squids Will Be Squids.

Jon’s presentation was (as usual) terrific, with lots of brilliant ideas as well as hilarity. Librarians have the power to mediate the relationship between tweens and books, especially for tween boys. Tween boys are developmentally separating from their mothers, and most teachers (primary reading advocates in their lives) are mom-like figures, so that’s why reading drops off dramatically at that age. By making materials that tween boys want available and accessible, we can help.

Tween boys also need role models and while as a majority, we’re out of luck here as we’re predominantly female, we can help make male role models available in places where tween boys can connect with them. We as librarians need to embrace technology, including video games, because tween boys are interested in technology. We as librarians need not to look at things in terms of value judgments - materials are different, and that’s fine. (Totally! Like John Green said when I heard him speak earlier this year, it’s only as adults that we learn to judge things as either high culture or low culture, and we would all do well to forget how.)

Knucklehead is a collection of stories about Jon and his brothers growing up and includes his own illustrations and family photos from his childhood. Jon read some excerpts, and this book is hilarious! Hearing him read from it reminded me of hearing Chris Crutcher read from King of the Mild Frontier. I’m not going to retell butcher any of Jon’s stories here, but suffice it to say, growing up as one of six boys, he’s got a lot of fodder and really makes the most of it in Knucklehead.

Jon Scieszka’s Knucklehead will be released in the fall. He’ll be signing at the Simon & Schuster booth Saturday from 3-4pm. He’ll be signing at the Penguin Booth Saturday from 9-10am.*

——

Bruce Hale is the author of the Chet Gecko Mysteries (including The Malted Falcon and The Hamster of the Baskervilles) and the Underwhere series (including the Prince of Underwhere and the Pirates of Underwhere).

As a child, Bruce did not care for books. He loved the movies, comics, and TV, and found lots of inspiration for his imagination in those three avenues. His childhood career ambitions included pirate, gladiator, knight, and Daniel Boone. When he was around 8, their TV died, and his parents comforted and distracted the fam by reading books aloud. When his parents read Tarzan of the Apes, Bruce had an epiphany: “if this is what books about, I love books!” His father made a point of telling him that Edgar Rice Burroughs was the author, the man who used his imagination to come up with Tarzan, and suddenly Bruce realized that he wanted to be an author. His local public library became his home away from home and the librarians kept coming up with more choices for what he could read next. (Bruce actually got a little choked up telling us this - aww!)

As a teenager and twenty-something, he got distracted by several sidelines including acting, playing the guitar, and girls, but he kept running into meaningful books and getting a little closer to his goal of writing a book.

Bruce read from The Malted Falcon, and noted a number of other books he recommends for reluctant tweens, book that hook you with fantasy, action, the promise that something will happen, series, graphic novels, and books in which they see themselves. His recommendations include Captain Underpants, Matilda, Millicent Min, Girl Genius, My Teacher is an Alien, Battle of the Labyrinth, Ella Enchanted, The Lightning Thief, Because of Winn-Dixie, Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key, Animorphs, Redwall, Alex Rider, Artemis Fowl, Holes, Chasing Vermeer, Bone, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Esperanza Rising, Bucking the Sarge, and Monsoon Summer.

Bruce finished his talk with examples of some letters young readers have sent him, which were funny and sweet and touching (lots of awws there). His final sentiment really sums up what several of the speakers have said today: “It only takes the right book to make a reader.”

Bruce Hale will be signing at the Harper Collins booth Saturday from 9:30-10am and at the Harcourt booth at 11:30am*

——

Booktalks:
The London Eye Mystery by Siobhan Dowd
The Willoughbys by Lois Lowry
Savvy by Ingrid Law

Ingrid Law spoke about the ways that tweens start to show the changes they experience as they grow up, and illustrated with examples read from her book Savvy. Writing Savvy, she wanted to read a book about magic (without using the word magic) because young people need to be encouraged to look at themselves and ask, “what’s extraordinary about me,” and “what talents do I have?”

She comes from a long line of anxious women and has come to the conclusion that anxiety is just imagination misused, so she decided to use her imagination to ask “what if” something good happened, rather than something bad.

Ingrid Law will be signing at the Penguin Young Readers booth

——

The Panel: Programming for tweens

Natalie Hoyle, Lamont Elementary School, Illinois

• Natalie started an audio discussion group for her students, which meets at lunch time during the school day.

Catherine Schaeffer, King County Libary System, Seattle, Washington

• Catherine is running a program called Science Alive this summer. Local university science students, a bioengineer, and several other science professionals visit the library for these programs. Teen volunteers help run the program.

Jerene Battisti, King County Library System, Seattle, Washington

• One of their branches has a tween gaming program. It started as a teen gaming program, and the teens volunteered to run the program for tweens instead.
• This summer tweens (and teens) can Read Three, Get One Free. They read three books, answer some questions, and have the chance to win prizes.
• This summer tweens (and teens) can Read, Flip, Win, which is a video contest using YouTube. Teen librarians will judge.

Mary Burkee, middle school librarian, Columbus, Ohio

• Mary displays books and other materials on table tops. She did one display of books that relate in some way to Guitar Hero, which was very popular.
• Every month she takes a group of her students to Barnes & Noble and get to pick out any books they want for the library collection. Each book is then tagged with a bookplate indicating the student who picked it out.
• She runs Free Read Fridays, where teachers can bring their students in and read for pleasure.
• She has a suggestion box and she promises her students she’ll buy any item they suggest. Empowering students is her best bet for encouraging students to read.

Jenine Lillian, University of Washington Information School professor & part-time private school librarian grades 4-12

• Jenine recommends talking to your tweens and asking them what they want/like/think. She also recommends year-round programming, no matter what type of library, to provide consistency and the expectation that there’s always something to do there.
• Her teens have been excited to share their expertise and interests with tweens (knitting and anime club members especially). They have also helped run programs including bowling night.
• She used a scavenger hunt to gather information on what her patrons liked and didn’t like about what they saw at the library.
• Her tweens did not want to do a book club, so they did read-the-book, watch-the-movie instead.

The panel fielded questions from the audience, many of which related to how to define tweens (define by age? grade? either way, what range?). The consensus of the panelists is that it will vary according to community.

Several of the panelists run tween advisory or similar groups, mostly as feeder groups for their teen advisory boards.

——

*all book signing information subject to change, error, and me being just plain wrong. Corrections are welcome in the comments!

I live maybe ten miles from the Philadelphia airport—I was through security and waiting at my gate this morning less than an hour after leaving my house—and I’ve lived in the Philadelphia area most of my life. Yet from the air, on take offs and landings, it’s almost impossible for me to tell where I am; the familiar seems completely new from thousands of feet in the air. I think it’s the shift in perspective more than the effects of speed, because jets don’t give the impression of moving all that quickly.  Looking out from my window seat, the ground seemed to sort of meander along, even though we were covering 3,000 miles in just a few hours.

This isn’t a travelogue, this is a metaphor for libraries and my relationship with them. I enrolled in library school less than two years ago, and I graduated in September. While in school, I worked at the University of Pennsylvania’s Lippincott Library of the Wharton School, then worked at the libraries of Temple and Saint Joseph’s Universities after graduation. In May, I began working as the director of the Collingswood Public Library.

I thought, before all this began, that I knew libraries pretty well. As with driving, food, and website design, when it comes to libraries we all think we’re experts. Of course, I had more to learn that I could imagine, and library school was a great place to start. I’m particularly grateful that Drexel’s faculty helped me apply what I already knew (I’ve worked as a web developer, fundraiser, and nonprofit manager) to our profession, a field that seems to meander along, and yet manages always to cover a tremendous amount of ground with startling rapidity.

With that in mind, I’m attending this year’s Annual so that I can do my job better. Like our colleagues in Borough Hall, at the Police and Fire Stations, and in Public Works, our job at the Library is to make Collingswood a better place to live. So I plan to talk to Tim Spalding about his ideas for revamping classification, because Dewey may not be the best choice for everyone. And to colleagues who are implementing faceted interfaces for their catalogs (Collingswood will be rolling out a Scriblio-powered website in the next couple of weeks). I want to talk to the folks at LibLime and those who are using Koha to see how it might help us deliver better customer service. And I definitely plan to talk to OCLC about exposing our records in WorldCat; Aaron Swartz has already agreed to include our records in the Open Library, with links back to our catalog once our Scriblio instance permits us to produce stable URLs, but I’d love to let people who are interested in our collection access it from as many sites as possible.

Of course, that’s just the beginning. I have a lot more planned, and I also hope to be open to the sort of serendipitous moments that ALA fosters. For those who are following this blog from Anaheim, please say hello. And for those following it from home, let me know if there’s anything you’d like me to investigate on your behalf.

If you could ask Jamie Lee Curtis a question, what would it be and why?

I have been granted the distinct pleasure of interviewing Jamie Lee Curtis after she speaks at the PLA Preisdent’s Program on Monday night, and posting the interview to the blog (in text format). Since the interview is for you, our readership, we at the PLA Blog thought it would be fitting — nevermind just super keen — to gather some questions from our audience.

Please click on the “Leave a reply” button at the bottom of this post to leave a comment with your question, as well as your name, title, and library, if you’d like us to quote you. Tell us what you want to know!

PLA is now accepting applications for PLA Results Boot Camp 4: Intensive Library Management Training. This five-day immersion program will be held Oct. 20-24 in Cleveland, Ohio, and will cover strategic planning, data-based decision-making, effective resource allocation and other topics related to management training. By the end of the workshop, participants will have the skills needed to develop and implement a strategic plan in their library, including identifying community needs, understanding the new public library service responses and writing objectives that will measure their progress toward achieving their strategic plan.
Early-bird registration rates will be offered through July 15 and are $645 for PLA members, $745 for ALA members and $845 for nonmembers. Registration through Sept. 22 will be $695 for PLA members, $795 for ALA members and $895 for nonmembers. Discounts will be offered to multiple applicants from the same library.
Application to the program is competitive, and all applicants will be notified of their status within two weeks of applying. Multiple applications from the same library must be submitted at the same time in order to qualify for a discounted group rate. All applications must be received in the PLA Office by Sept. 22. Registration and more information about the workshop can be found at www.pla.org.

I had the best time at PLA.  The best!  I was having so much fun, in fact, that I didn’t even finish blogging until I had been home for two days.  It took that long to recover!  I must say, my first PLA was a resounding success, leaving me with the desire and excitement to implement all I learned.

Thank you to everyone who attended for being so nice and polite and friendly to me!  And thank you to all the presenters for making my eyes sparkle with possibilities.

Thank you, John Wood, for showing us how simple it can be to make a difference.

Thank you, Nancy Pearl, for being my rock star and being so gracious about my giddiness.

Thank you, Sarah Weeks, Brian Selznick, Avi, and Pam Muñoz Ryan, for a phenomenal preformance.  I could watch your Reader’s Theatre every day.

Thank you, Paula Poundstone, for making me laugh until I had to leave the room or make a mess on my chair.  Thank you, also, for making me the envy of pretty much everyone I know.  Because I got to see Paula Poundstone and they didn’t.

Thank you to everyone who smiled at my exuberance and told me that my excitement was infectious.

Thank you for reading this blog.

And most importantly, thank you all for being librarians.  I’ve never known a nicer people!

Flew in from Indianapolis yesterday, took the Light Rail in from the airport and checked into the Westin (it was so easy.)  Since this is my first major conference in the library field, I was surprised to see how easy it was to recognize other library professionals.  You know the stereotypes of how we look (think Nancy Pearl inspired action figure) but I think it is in more how we carry ourselves, a sense of competency.  (OK- more like we know what we are doing or if we don’t, we don’t mind asking someone).

Finally found free internet access - hotel was 12.95 per day - and am sitting here surrounded by people reading and responding to email.  I am so excited to see the presentations and will report more later.  I do think the nifty PLA blue tote bags are a tad heavy, I guess they are full of goodies.  Next time, I’ll check in early and then edit the contents of the tote before I go the convention.  Live and Learn.

Nearly 200 people are registered to attend the PLA 2008 Virtual Conference (everyone who attends the PLA 2008 conference in Minneapolis can also log in now to participate, or later to gain access to the archives), and so far, everyone seems to be really happy with it. I was recruited to “host” the conference, which really means a cheerful welcome message at the beginning of the day and chatting with the attendees during the “Virtual Happy Hour” at the end of the day (sans cocktails, sadly). It’s been a hoot so far. The Learning Times crew has been doing an excellent job of keeping everything together and moving!

The Adobe Connect interface that the attendees see isn’t much different from the interface that the presenters see (click on the screenshots for a larger view complete with interface notes):

Here you mostly see the areas for slides and chat, but normally you could also see a floating list of attendees. Live, on-the-fly polling, white boards, co-browsing and desktop sharing is possible with the interface, so it really adds to the interactivity of the experience. So far, getting the presenters ready for their sessions has been really easy: put on the headsets, show them the interfaces, and off they go. We’ve had a few problems with streaming audio and video simultaneously, but I think that might actually be an internet connection problem in this case.

Speaking of interactivity, one of the best examples is the Inside the Author’s Studio sessions. Yesterday, Nancy Pearl donned a headset and spoke directly with Virtual Conference attendees for a full hour, taking questions directly from the audience and answering them.

Since the Adobe Connect interface can be altered on the fly to meet the needs of the presenter, Learning Times set her up with a a “Questions for Nancy Pearl” chat box that was separate from the General Chat. That way, attendees could still talk amongst themselves, and Learning Times could pass along links related to Nancy’s comments — for example, she mentions an author, they go out and find the URL of the author’s site, and post it to the chat — and Nancy could focus directly on what people were asking her.

It’s really a nice setup.

Today’s session was especially interesting, because we experienced a typical conference problem: a presenter who doesn’t/can’t show. I still haven’t heard what happened with those presenters, or what the plan is, but in a pinch they needed someone to fill a slot. Since I had mentioned the PLA 2008 Twitter experiment to the Virtual Conferencees, hoping they would also share their thoughts using the #pla08 hashtag, and there were many librarians who instantly had questions, I was called in to pinch hit with an impromptu presentation about Twitter. Overall it was really interesting, and I think most attendees got something out of it. I know I got about 12 new Followers on Twitter for my time :). It also led to a really interesting chat discussion about using Twitter and Meebo for reference, the idea of roving reference, single service points, and more, and I’m glad we recorded all of it for the archive. Who knows, maybe you’ll all see me as a future PLA presenter at some point.

Virtual Conference attendees: be sure to sound off in the comments here!

Thursday was an ambitious day for me, I set out to accomplish a lot.  Here’s a few things I did and a few thoughts those things provoked.

From 8:30-9:45 I went to the “Why we Borrow” presentation, based on Paco Underhill’s “Why we Buy” book.  It was a decent presentation, but I found myself sitting there (actually standing, the joint was packed) wondering why libraries find it necessary to get big name consultants to tell us stuff we already know.  At no point in time did the speaker say anything about library patron behavior that surprised me or any other librarian in the room.  What they did do was provide some nice metrics and visuals: the best way to dress up and validate any mundane findings.  Nice showmanship Envirosell.  I bought in on the “dot-density” map.  Librarians, lets get better at measuring things and displaying the results well, then we won’t have to hire these guys, we can just read their books.

Next I headed over to the 21st Century Library Design program, and I was looking fwd to hearing Kimberly Bolan speak but guess what:  I got kicked out cause the room was at capacity!!! I did my best to nestle in on the floor real close to a row of librarians with lots of bags and packages, but alas I was discovered and ejected from the game.  Booooooo.

Lunch was awesome because friends and I went back over to the cafe at the Walker Art Center for a killer sandwich.

In the afternoon I went to hear James Keller, the marketing mastermind from Queens Public Library.  Yeah, I come all the way to Minneapolis from Brooklyn so that I can hear a guy who lives next door to me speak.  Whatever.  Anyways, he was good, but it was a little alarming in some ways.  Librarians, we have to remember that these marketing bigwigs work for us- not the other way around.  When Keller started talking about how to create a marketing plan it sounded frighteningly like the overall strategic plan an executive director might want to come up with for their library system.  Marketing and communications departments exist to help public service folks do their jobs.  Don’t be fooled by glossy flyers or hot air balloons with logos on them.  We run the show, not them.

Later on I went to a web design for rural libraries talk that  had to leave early because i felt like I was actually un-learning eveything I had learned about good web design and information architecture.

The evening got fun: went to the Library Journal “Best Small Library in America” dinner.  Chelsea MI won the honor, and everyone was in good spirits because of the free good spirits being offered.  hahaha.  My colleagues and I actually drove past Chelsea MI on the way to Minnesota.  After the LJ party we went to some bar where the Hold Steady were rocking the place.  There were librarians all up on the stage getting crazy.  Good stuff.

OK.  Enough yammer, time to go experience Friday.

I wasn’t planning on spending all my computer time at the convention center at the wireless location, and have found that the internet connectivity at the hotel (Doubletree Suites) is less than satisfactory.  I’m sitting in the lobby writing. Had to ask another laptop user which network she was using.  I love my little Apple and it generally connects without my even noticing.  Not here.My name is Melissa Malcolm. I have never blogged before but want to try it at the library so hope that this experience will help with that.    I’m a new library director in Gloucester, VA, which is on the “Middle Peninsula”.  It’s rural and beautiful and I love it.  I’m a bit discombobulated, though.  I woke up at 3 am yesterday for a very early flight.  Left my cell phone somewhere so got another one.  (We survived without cell phones at conferences years ago–could I do it again?  Didn’t even want to try.)  I’m walking around with a broken foot–don’t ask!–and have been  dozing since the walk to the public library yesterday.  Lying on my bed, but also through a program this afternoon. I wonder if anyone noticed?Last night I attended the FOLUSA author reception, which has become one of my favorite events at ALA and PLA conferences.   I have an autographed copy of a memoir (can’t remember the title–it’s up in the room) by a young Hmong woman.  Her brief talk was moving and enlightening.  Remember Garrison Keillor talking about the Hmong and Vietnamese young people in his library in St Paul?  The future of our country, I think he called them.My favorite program today was Susan Hill Pieper’s on library web pages.  I’ve heard her before and enjoy her common sense, her enthusiasm and her self-deprecating sense of humor.  I’ve seen web pages that are pretty and have little real content.  I prefer those that may not be the most sophisticated but that help library patrons find what they need to know.  Susan’s at Paulding County, Ohio is one of those.  The suggestion that I’m going to follow is to work on building a historical postcard collection.  Scan those cards and get them on the web.  Your genealogists and history buffs will love them.I’m enjoying my visits with the exhibitors too.  As my new library has an unfamiliar (to me) automation system and utilizes different methods of ordering materials, I’ve taken the time to look at the new (to me) products and procedures, and talk to former vendors and jobbers about setting up new accounts.  Not too soon, though.  I’ve seen a few pursed lips at suggestions I’ve made for changes in procedure and I don’t want to find out what they mean, exactly.Let’s hope that I have a better grip on this whole process tomorrow and can post without a struggle.