Hey there. Welcome to my modest experiment in a new forum for communication for the South Portland Public Library (by no means is this "new" for the world in general, just new for us...). My intent is for this to serve as a sort of information clearinghouse for anyone interested in following along.
The real motivation to get this rolling now is that I wanted to have an efficient way to communicate with folks back home while I am away from the library.
Why will I be away from the library? Well, the Friends of the South Portland Public Library
are making it possible for me to travel to the American Library Association conference this year. This is a huge annual conference,
being held this year in Anaheim, California, from June 26 to July 2. In recent years, the conference has attracted over 7,000 exhibitors and well over 20,000 attendees. At this point, I know of approximately a dozen other librarians from around Maine who will be attending this year, including Maine Senate President (and Director of the Freeport Community Library) Beth Edmonds. There are currently over 300 programs and events scheduled and I am pouring over the schedules trying to fit in as much as possible!And, despite the logo, I will NOT be surfing.
If you're interested in seeing the range of program offerings, please give the ALA Annual Conference site a look.
One highlight of the conference for me - and something that's more personal than professional - will be on Monday, June 30, when my wife Rachel (Children's Librarian at the Thomas Memorial Library in Cape Elizabeth) will be presented with the Public Library Association's "EBSCO Excellence in Small and/or Rural Library Service Award" in recognition of the "Lonely Books Club" program she developed. There is one winner of this award, nationally, per year and I am extremely proud that Rachel's work has earned it this time around.
In addition to what our respective sponsors are putting up for the "professional development" part of this trip, we're taking the opportunity to also add on a few days - at our own expense - for a little bit of vacation too. Given that the conference is quite literally based across the street from Disneyland, how could we pass that up? Rachel's mom (who lives in Albuquerque) will meet us out there to provide childcare for our daughter while we're sweating it out in conference sessions and, "after work" we can all enjoy some time together.
My intent is to provide updates on the conference as the week progresses - both for anyone who cares to look in to see what I'm up to, but also as a tool for me to reflect on after the conference is over. If this works, perhaps this can continue as an ongoing communication stream for the library.
If you're at all interested, please check back often or subscribe to the RSS feed!
