finally blogging in

Well, since our report was due to Sue Jackson today, I finally got around to writing about my experience at ALA!

To avoid overloading you with all of the details at once, I'll break my report up into separate segments for the blog.

One thing I forgot to mention (but remembered when I read Renee's comments about Julie Andrews) was that I got to hear Judy Blume speak, but wasn't allowed to enter the auditorium because of my fussy baby! So I sat outside and listened to the whole speech on a speaker being projected into the hall!

Here's the beginning of my report:

I am very grateful to have had the opportunity to attend the Rural Library Sustainability Forum and American Library Association conference in Washington DC this June. While I had attended ALA conferences in the past, I had never done so as a small, rural library director, and was surprised at how much I learned when I approached the conference from this perspective.

The Rural Library Sustainability Forum itself was conducted fairly informally, with nearly half of the day devoted to introductions of participants from various states.

An introduction to the conference was provided, followed by a lunch, which provided time for informal networking with rural library colleagues from other states. From these conversations, I got an idea about checking out thumb drives for patrons to use to bring data from the library’s computers to their home.

All participants in the forum were presented with a technology “cookbook” (which I look forward to looking through after my library goes live on the Montana Shared Catalog).

The next part of the forum allowed for more networking through a “rural café” in which participants cycled from table to table discussing the same theme with different people. This was surprisingly useful and provided more food for thought.

Jana Ponce of the Parker Public Library in Arizona was the featured speaker for the afternoon, and she shared her experience rising through the ranks to library director (without a master’s degree) and using innovative techniques for fundraising and marketing the library (through placemat advertising and putting brochures in hotel lobbies and other tourist locations). She also offered the idea of a “talent search” – which is a database that her staff created to connect people in the community with others who had similar interests or areas of expertise. We’re now thinking about creating something like this in Stevensville.

More tomorrow!

Renee Vaillancourt McGrath