Talk tables are great for the intimacy they provide and the chance to really collaborate and network with colleagues. There was a representative from ProQuest at my table, who provided a welcome different perspective. Some other slightly unrelated great ideas that came up: a weekly short story read aloud and discussion for adults and Book-A-Librarian, a chance to meet with a librarian one-on-one for in-depth research assistance.

You can also check out Lisa’s recap of the conference on her blog.

After all the talk of abandoning Dewey and looking to bookstores as a model, Powell’s was full of food for thought. While I didn’t go to any of the sessions on getting rid of Dewey, and I’m not sure I have a clear sense of how it would work in terms of cataloging, I think the idea of making our nonfiction collections more user-friendly is essential. And even if we don’t completely upend Dewey and reorganize all our shelves, one lesson we can take away from a bookstore like Powell’s is about signage. As in, use it! Use words!

I spent a lot of time browsing the Young Adult Fiction section, and there were signs everywhere. Handwritten, homemade signs that alerted you to queer-friendly reads, signs that recommended books, signs that performed reader’s advisory. They were colorful, cute, and full of personality, and they helped you find what you were looking for. An degree of uniformity was achieved with forms that read “Recommended,” “I’m Dystopian….In a world where….” And “If you liked…you should try…”

Definitely good stuff to bring back.

Kadir Nelson, award-winning author and illustrator, had the crowd laughing at pictures he drew at five and learning from research he spent years on during his interesting and engaging talk at the PLA Children’s Author Luncheon on March 26.  (thanks to Simon & Schuster for sponsoring this event!)

Nelson opened by telling the audience the story of his beginnings as an artist.  He always thought of himself as a serious artist, even at the age of five, he considered his paper and pencil his tools, not toys.

Visits with his mother to his childhood public library in Atlantic City helped Kadir find art books, which helped mold his style, and books from the classic Lee J. Ames “How To Draw” series, which helped him with tracing and drawing practice.  Nelson shared childhood drawings (preserved by his mother) showing the evolution of his style from a very young age.

cartoon characters copied from Nelson’s math textbook

Nelson’s entry into a “create your own superhero” contest

Nelson kept drawing as he grew older, drawing his favorite athlete, Michael Jordan, and exaggerating the human form to try to use his illustrations to show feelings in his work.  Years later, he would collaborate with author Ntozake Shange on the book Ellington Was Not a Street.  Shange explained that in her work she strove to have “beauty overcome negativity”, something Nelson recognized had long been a goal of his own art and creation.

Graduating from college with a degree in illustration, Nelson spent some time developing the look of films through his illustrations.  Though he found his work on Stephen Spielberg’s Amistad particularly satisfying, he longed for more involvement in the end result of his work and he soon found himself illustrating picture books.

Still, Nelson found himself wanting to combine his more adult, painterly side with his work in children’s books.  He just wasn’t sure how.  Years ago, when he discovered an episode of the Ken Burns documentary Baseball that dealt with the Negro Leagues, he had been inspired to make a series of paintings about the Leagues.  Nelson sold them to Sports Illustrated in 1999 and had continued to make paintings in the series.  Maybe creating a children’s book about the Negro Leagues using some of these paintings was the combination he was looking for?

An editor agreed and asked Nelson who he had in mind for writing the accompanying text.  Though Nelson had many ideas, the editor mentioned it would take time to line up an author.  It was then he decided he would become the author and he dove into the complicated research process, not only conducting hours of interviews with surviving Negro League Players but reading dozens of books about the subject.  Nelson, who had admitted to the crowd earlier that as a boy he “hated” reading now found himself enthralled by his research, feeling that “it wasn’t reading, it was learning.”

Nelson shared some slides of the long, detailed research process that went into creating his 2009 title We Are The Ship: The Story of Negro League Baseball. This included process such as taking detailed notes before starting a painting; a laundry list of every detail that had to be included in each painting to make sure it was accurate, from the weather to the way uniforms fit.  The research process took seven years, from 2000-2007, but the results were stunning, his author debut winning both the 2009 Coretta Scott King Author Award and the 2009 Robert F. Sibert Medal.  The paintings from We Are The Ship are currently on a nationwide tour.

Nelson then shared with the crowd some of his newest work, including his foray into working with fabric arts in the newly released Mama Miti: Wangari Maathai and the Trees of Kenya by Donna Jo Napoli and a painting from his upcoming biography of Joe Lewis to be written by Matt de la Pena.

In wrapping up his presentation, which was full of laughter and not only glimpses into the artist’s development and his artistic process, Nelson summed up his work so far as the continued effort to turn something negative into something positive and there was no doubt the crowd at the 2010 PLA Author’s Luncheon agreed he had succeeded.

This was a truly enlightening and engaging speech from one of the most influential and creative children’s illustrators (and authors!) working today.  I’m sure everyone in attendance felt, like I did, that it was a highlight of the PLA conference.

What worked
Twitter turned out to be great for getting snippets of sessions I didn’t attend. It was sometimes hard to decide which of two or three concurrent talks I wanted to go to, so it was nice afterward to be able to scroll back through recent tweets to see if anything particularly interesting (and necessarily pithy) had come out of the ones I missed. It was interesting, too, to see how many people quoted the same thought, and it was especially interesting to see what sessions Twitter users attended. There were, as you’d expect, a lot of tweets about the technology sessions, and there were a fair amount from the youth services sessions, but there were very few from the management track sessions. Make of that what you will.

What didn’t work as well
Unfortunately, the #pla10-tagged tweets seemed to mostly be people putting out ideas without much dialog happening around those ideas. That is, Twitter looked like a room full of people talking at and not with each other. I did see some short exchanges, and it’s possible that these follow-up conversations and elaborations happened in @-replies that didn’t get tagged (I know I had a few of those myself), but it didn’t seem like Twitter was being used much to build ideas or community.

My other main disappointment was that plans to have a tweet-up (an in-person meeting of Twitter users) weren’t well published and mostly fell through: one person said that only five people said they’d be there and then only two actually showed up–but I didn’t even hear about it until it was over. This missed opportunity to build community was especially sad since national conventions are such a great time to meet people you normally wouldn’t, or to finally meet people you’ve “known” online.

I’m really glad that I was twittering publicly at PLA, though. I’ve been using Twitter for almost two years now, but with a locked account and just among friends; it’s only in the last few months that I’ve created a public account and started socializing outside of my immediate circle. It added a depth and dimension and feeling of connection, both to content and to people, that I didn’t have at ALA. And from the experience I’ve gained more followers and started following some new people I wouldn’t have found without Twitter and hashtags and the conference. The complexity of what we say is somewhat limited by Twitter’s 140-characters-or-less format, but I’m looking forward to seeing more ideas and thoughts from new library friends in the coming months.

- Gretchen Kolderup
www.librarified.net

I also answered a lot of questions and it just struck me as funny that I was playing reference librarian to a convention of librarians. Just like at the reference desk, most of the questions I fielded were directional and ready reference inquiries: the ALA Store is right over there under the giant hanging sign that says “ALA Bookstore.” Yes, I can look up where that publisher is and yes you can use the conference program to decide what session you’re going to and yes you may look at this map and yes you may take anything on this table and yes I know where the first aid station is and yes I’d be happy to pass along to the higher-ups that you’re loving this conference. Even we the information professionals need a little help sometimes!

My first conference was ALA Annual last year and I found the exhibit hall there with its roving throngs of librarians, massive vendor displays, and general warehouse proportions kind of overwhelming. The exhibit hall at PLA was a lot more manageable. I also really enjoyed being able to help and connect with librarians who visited the PLA booth–I’d highly recommend volunteering for that at the next conference you attend.

- Gretchen Kolderup
www.librarified.net

In some ways, the needs of pregnant and parenting teens are similar to a lot of public library patrons’ needs: they want help with their education, with finding a job, and with entertainment. But they also have more specific needs like learning parenting skills, being put in touch with other community organizations that can help them, and just having someone in their lives that they can trust. We can meet these needs with our usual materials and services that provide for the educational, informational, entertainment, and lifelong learning needs of all of our patrons, but we can also provide a friendly staff, contact names and addresses for community organizations, and storytimes that also teach parenting and reading skills–especially by using the Every Child Ready to Read framework.

With the principles of ECRR in mind, Maryann designed a four-session program that emphasizes the six aspects (print motivation, vocabulary, phonological awareness, print awareness, letter knowledge, and narrative skills) and also explains the general benefits of reading to your baby.

The first meeting is an introduction to ECRR and provides statistics about the benefits of reading to your baby. The second meeting focuses on children’s books, choosing books for your baby, and print motivation. The third meeting covers phonological awareness and vocabulary. The final meeting reviews the first three and touches on teen parents’ reading memories and provides encouragement for the future. Each session combines storytelling and songs and rhymes and fingerplays with parenting skills that include aspects of child development.

Maryann also spent a lot of time talking about partnering with other organizations in the community. Such a partnership might be something as simple as creating a bookmark with information about the classes and good books for babies in the stuff that gets sent home with moms when they leave the hospital, but it can be as much as going to shelters and group homes and correctional facilities to do the classes. There are so many other organizations you can partner with to make these programs a success including high schools, the local WIC agency, the crisis pregnancy center, churches, the department of health, even the grocery store (advertise in the formula aisle!).

Serving pregnant or parenting teens also exists at an interesting intersection of teen services and children’s services, so it can be an interesting collaboration between librarians or departments.

There are some barriers to library access that some of these teen patrons may have. They may be balancing school and work. They may be living in temporary housing. They may be totally dependent on welfare. They may not be strong readers. They may lack transportation. They may not know what good parenting looks like. They might not even be able to get a library card without a parent’s signature since they’re underage–and what if they’ve been kicked out? Does your library have a policy that would provide for them?

Despite these stumbling blocks, this is an important demographic to reach because as they see what’s available to them and their babies at the library, they’ll come back. And Maryann’s program works: she’s not only seen these teens come back for more library services, but they’re also more likely to graduate and more likely to start reading more themselves, and their children develop better reading and language skills through the program.

What does your library have now for pregnant or parenting teens? What more can we be doing to serve them?

- Gretchen Kolderup
www.librarified.net

I’m going to be totally honest here: the half-hour meeting I had with Miguel Figueroa, the director of ALA’s Office for Diversity and Spectrum, was hands-down the best resume review I’ve ever had. He was very detailed in his advice, explained the rationale behind his suggestions, and was attentive to my concerns and the thought process behind what I’d originally written. He didn’t just give me generic resume advice or assess how well my resume matched an accepted format; he read every word on my resume and told me what I could do to strengthen every single section. He also did a really good job of helping me identify my strengths and what the most impressive parts of each of my jobs and skill areas were and how to best communicate that.

I’m going to have to set aside a large chunk of time when I get home to completely overhaul the design and content of my resume, but I feel a lot more confident about being able to put my best foot forward. It’s just a shame that there aren’t more opportunities like this available here, and that the resume review clinic was only for a few hours on one day. It’s a great service and I’m really glad I was able to take advantage of it.

- Gretchen Kolderup
www.librarified.net

The first session I attended today was Spanning the Generations: Serving the GLBTIQ Community of ALL Ages. Unfortunately two of the speakers, Nancy Silverrod and KR Roberto, were unable to make the event, but we were left in the capable hands of Allan Kleiman and Angie Manfredi. They talked about how libraries can–and should–serve members of the queer community and how queer patrons’ needs differ by their ages.

Allan told a story about reading what few materials on homosexuality were available to him growing up in secret at the library, always in the reading room and never by checking out the books. While he acknowledged that materials have improved drastically since then and that society as a whole has become more accepting of queer folk, he did tell us that people are still reluctant to ask for information on queer materials or queer resources, so our focus with adults should be making the library an openly welcoming place and making materials available without asking. We can do this by including books about queer characters in displays on other topics, by including queer authors in our book displays, by partnering with community organizations and participating as a library in pride parades, and by linking to queer resources on our library websites.

Angie addressed service to queer teens, tweens, young people, and their families. There’s been a sharp increase in the number of YA titles published recently about queer teens and the content has become much more accepting as well, but we still have a long way to go. One of the ways we can work to see more titles like these are to make sure our library buys these books (or nonfiction titles like GAY AMERICA: STRUGGLE FOR EQUALITY) or at the very least thanking publishers who make these materials and things like GAY, LESBIAN, BISEXUAL, TRANSGENDER AND QUESTIONING TEEN LITERATURE: A GUIDE TO READING INTERESTS (part of the Genreflecting series that will be published at the end of the month). She also mentioned the Rainbow List as a good resource.

Angie also talked about how one of the most important things we can do for queer patrons is to make our library a safe place. Refuse to tolerate hate speech. Partner with your local gay-straight alliance–or create one. Be supportive of openly queer teen and tween patrons. And make use of GLSEN’s toolkits.

When serving children, Angie recommended doing both overt things and working to normalize queerness. One overt way we can support the queer community through our youth service is having a Rainbow Storytime that includes stories not only about queer families but also stories about differences, diversity, acceptance, bullying, and originality. We can also include books about queer people in history and in our culture in displays and storytime because just treating queer people like everyone else sends the message that queerness is a part of our society and has been and will be and that that’s totally fine. Supporting queer families should also be a focus in our service to young people.

Allan encouraged us all to support our queering efforts by tying it to our mission (queer patrons definitely fall into the “underserved populations” category) and making it integral to our library service. He finished up by talking more about partnering with local organizations in the queer community and by pointing to successful work in specific public libraries (especially the San Francisco Public Library’s blog Queerest. Library. Ever.) to support and engage the queer community.

Angie has compiled a list of resources for serving queer youth at delicious.com/youth.lgbtqia to get you started, and Allan emphasized the importance of taking what we learn back to our libraries, so I tell you: go forth! Queer your library!

- Gretchen Kolderup
www.librarified.net

Beloved by children, librarians, and the entire world for sixty years, Beverly Cleary’s Ramona Quimby calls Portland, Oregon home.  I know without a doubt one of the reasons I am a librarian today is because I loved books so much as a child and so much of that love existed thanks to the works of Beverly Cleary.  I can so clearly see in my mind’s eye Ramona stomping up and down Klickitat Street on her coffee can stilts.  While in Portland, I couldn’t miss a chance to finally see the REAL Klickitat Street!

If you’re not flying out until Sunday and have some time to fill on Saturday afternoon, it’s easy to visit Ramona’s World.  Here are step-by-step directions on how you can make the voyage.  The trip is a fast one and should take you no more than 30 minutes, round-trip.

Start at the Oregon Convention Center.
Head north on Martin Luther King Blvd.
Turn right on Multnomah Street.
Take the 73 bus on North 33^rd Ave. towards Sunderland.
(one adult bus ticket is $2.30 one way, or you can use a valid TriMet pass.)
Exit the bus on the Grant Park stop.  On your way towards the park, look out your left side window on NE 33^rd to see Beverly Cleary Elementary School!

In Grant Park, you’ll find three statues: Henry Huggins, his dog Ribsy, and Ramona herself.  There are plaques on the ground commemorating Cleary’s works and featuring quotes and you’re almost certain to find children playing with and interacting with the statues.  Just like the books, children recognize friends in Cleary’s characters.  On my visit, a toddler couldn’t be pried off Ribsy, who she was pretending to ride around.  “He’s her favorite, we come every day,” said her smiling nanny.

From Grant Park, walk up 33^rd Street approximately five blocks to the famous home of the Quimby family: Klickitat Street.

My visit to Ramona was a reminder that it was a librarian (Beverly Cleary) who wanted to tell the truth about children who helped me find my place as a librarian.  While you’re at PLA, make sure you take some time in-between all the programs and exhibits to think of the person/people who helped you get here in the first place!

(special thanks to my navigator, Erin Waller, Director of the Saline County Library System.)

In short, they broke down the type of openings and opportunities that will likely be available in the next ten years, ran down some resume and cover letter information, and finished off by talking about the interview process itself. While much of it was geared towards getting a director’s job, I think non-potential directors could learn a lot as well. The speakers gave the sense of the type to skills and experience that would be best to highlight, but they also talked about the type of work that you would be asked to do as a director. This may have discouraged some in the audience while at the same time engendering sympathy for current directors and the work that they do. Definitely, another skills set.

Last night, over wine and four types of crepes, I was discussing being a manager with friend from middle and high school, who also holds a management position in libraries. We discussed some of the pressures like being cool under fire with patrons and how so many of the people we work with have great customer service skills. From the homeless man wanting information about Olympic Sprinters from the 1960′s to stay-at-home mom’s that demand fantasy books for their children that don’t have magic, we felt like our staffs were great at handling it all. We felt fortunate to work with staff and be in a profession that was so good at adopting a public persona that rarely gets flustered. This is to say, they are great at faking it. Faking it when we are tired. Faking it when we have to deal with personal issues. Faking it when we don’t bring our A-game.

You may be asking yourselves, what does this have to do with becoming a director? It was the second part of the “faking it” discussion that will bring it home. We discussed how faking it with patrons/customers/members was faking it down. As a group, we are great at that, but sometimes lack the ability to fake it up or to the side. This is what seems to separate those that take on more managerial positions and those that struggle to either get those postions or hold them. I guess this is a way of saying, you have to be professional with everyone in your organization. It doesn’t mean not being yourself. It just means being your professional self with patrons, other staff, and everyone in your administration. While you can pick up how to do a budget or develop a strategic plan, being professional is what people really want. If you are bright,skills come easy, attitude doesn’t always so much.

Now, I’ll get off my highhorse, and say it again, great presentation.