Bridgett's ALA experiences

ALA 2007 Annual Conference Experiences by Bridgett Johnson with many thanks to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Webjunction and the Montana State Library for making it a reality.

Arrived at BWI rode to Hilton Washington in a black Town Parke limo- like car and treated like royalty. The trees along the freeway were amazing.

We stayed at the Hilton Washington and had a view of the city, the pool, blooming magnolias and streets from the 4th floor. Thursday was spent getting orientated around Dupont Circle, the Metro.

Friday, we figured out buses and went to The Rural Sustainability Forum.

The Forum was very well done and gave us some very helpful strategies for conducting our own meeting environments. I wrote on my evaluation though, that the introduction part was good but it would have been better before the actual work part of the Forum. It could have started earlier so there would have been enough time for it.

The world café strategy is going to be a very useful one to work with the staff, board, community groups and commissions. We will be getting on board with the MaintainIT project, their cookbook will be fun to try.

I also suggested that the Forum like this should take place the day before the conference started. Like on Thursday in this example. There seemed to be a lot of sessions on Friday that would have been interesting to go to.

Tech Atlas has given us a great tool in our computer management and it is really useful. I used to rely on our commercial tech person to help decide what and when we should update our technology. With TechAtlas, I am getting better at making those decisions on a regular basis for our library.

The evening get together was fun too. Networking with others from the Forum was a lot of fun.

Saturday: I went to Books and Babies session, the information gained there will help us to develop an early literacy program for our library.

Bringing in the Boys session was rewarding in the concepts and directions that it sent us.

The next session I went to was Word of Mouth Marketing is Everybody’s Job. The speakers were great, their ideas workable and relevant . One really good idea I took away is to get information to realtors and apartment managers about your library.

Then I went to Getting What you’re Worth Salary Workshop. It included the results of the ALA-APA survey of rural library workers and the interesting work that the Vermont public libraries did to improve their salaries.

Trit trot to Washington: The Whys and Hows of Using Rhymes, Songs and books for Early Literacy programs was a lot of fun.

At the Opening General Session Senator William Bradley spoke and I am so glad that I was able to listen to him. I was floored by the things he said in a good way a wake up call as to what is really going on in our government and policies.

Sunday: Started out very early with Breakfast with YA Authors. I met with some notables authors and had about 15 minutes discussion with about ten of them. It was a great breakfast.

The Prime Time Family Reading Time sounds so great. We are going to try to get a Vista Volunteer this next budget year so that we can try out this program and the Read to Me program.

I really wanted to listen to Judy Blume but I went to Libraries Prosper with Passion, Purpose, Persuasion: A PLA toolkit. It was a good session but unfortunately the toolkit wasn’t available yet but it was important to get it on our radar.

Robert F Kennedy really transformed me. I had never heard anyone ever speak up about the administration and what games the government and media are playing in our world. It was a real eye opener. There were too many good sessions in this time block but it was worth listening to Mr. Kennedy.

At 6 I attended the 2007 Newbery/Caldecott/Wildrer Banquet. Wow was I impressed. The calibur of people that are writing excellent literature for young people is amazing.

Monday started bright and early with Raising Readers again giving us more ideas on enticing reluctant readers with great books and authors. This had several award winning authors who were terrific and very open about why they wrote what they wrote. I even won a book to read which was very good, “The Schwa”. But I missed the Forum ending session but this was a worthwhile session for me.

Julie Andrews was an inspirational speaker. There was a little too much on her past efforts and there could have been more time for her to speak.

Raising More Money: Sustainable Funding for Your Library had a terrific speaker, Terry Axelrod, and I would like to see Montana get her to talk to us. She represents the Benevon Company for nonprofit fundraising strategies.

Tuesday, my family and I took part in the Libraries Build Communities project. We went to the Marting Luther King JR Library and cleaned very old illustrated works of literature. We discovered number 31 of a limited print of Caldecott’s Illustrations as well as many other first editions. We didn’t actually get to see the vault where they were stored but our group cleaned about 1,000 rare and valuable books. It was a great experience.

Besides getting to fit in all the exhibits with great new ideas for libraries, the networking with all the librarians and publishers and authors was amazing. It was a very busy conference. I feel so fortunate that I was able to go and I hope that the ideas and information I gleaned from the conference will help Montana in planning some great programs that will help us to grow and make our best better.

Renee M.'s fourth (and final) report

Another excellent session that I attended was on improving library salaries. The Vermont State Library developed a study with recommendations for minimum starting salaries, steps (percentage increases based on how long an employee had been working at the library), cost of living adjustments, and merit increases. I used this model to develop a plan that I proposed to our library board to create a fairer system of compensation for our library staff. The board has formed a finance committee to examine this and other issues, which will report its recommendations at our August board meeting.

I didn’t have time to do any sightseeing, but did attend several vendor receptions and shared meals with colleagues at some nice restaurants. My mother attended the conference with me to serve as a “nanny” for my infant daughter (who is still breastfeeding). I am very grateful to the Gates Foundation, the Montana State Library, and everyone who made my attendance at this conference possible. What a wonderful opportunity!

the saga continues

Third check-in from Renee M:

Another session I attended was on “Transforming Your Space.” Not all of the information in this session was directly relevant to a small, rural, public library, but one library that was featured on the panel used several strategies that could be adapted to work at my library:

• Using wall shelving to created displays using books on the walls above bookshelves
• Bright colored paint to give the library a lively feel
• Using bookshelves as “cubicle” walls to create functional spaces in the library
• Purchasing “disposable” retail furniture that is less expensive and eye-catching, even if it needs to be replaced more often than traditional “institutional” furniture
• Putting shelving (and displays) on a diagonal to catch patrons’ attention, particularly in the entryway of the library

I also learned about a state library that hosted a “trading spaces” style library remodel project in which a library was awarded a $45,000 budget to revamp their space using retail techniques. They then served as a model for other libraries that wanted to improve their merchandising skills.

Perhaps the most important thing I took away from this session, however, was a tiny detail about a library logo. The Princeton (University) Library logo, is simply the word “princeton” with the traditional library icon (of a head holding a book in front of it) in place of the “o” in the town’s name. Since my library had been toying with the idea of creating a logo using a compass (to reflect on the “North” Valley in our name), I adapted this idea to use a compass as the “o” in North Valley, resulting in the following logo which my library board approved at their last meeting:

more bits and pieces

The first actual conference session that I attended was a “dud.” The topic was financial planning for the future, which I assumed to mean the library’s future, when, in fact, it was a session on planning for individual retirement. Taking advice from one of the preconference speakers, I left that session when I realized it wouldn’t be useful to me, and spent the time exploring exhibits. I focused particularly on vendors of book trucks, library cards, and book drops – all things that my library will be purchasing within the next year (or sooner).

I attended an excellent session on Library board/Friends/staff roles with a panel of speakers who described various models of board/director relationships and strategies to encourage the Friends of the Library to work more effectively with the library board and staff. Some ideas that I took back from this session included:

• Redoing a trustee training session every time a new board member is hired (so that all will be on the same page about the role of board members versus the library director and staff)
• Looking into state laws on term limits for board members (and discussing the possibility of term limits with my board members)
• Proposing the idea of a board evaluation (to be conducted by the board or by members of the community in accordance with ALTA publication on this topic)
• Liaisons from our two school districts providing representation on the library board
• Written job descriptions for library trustees
• Circulating library journals to trustees to keep them in the loop about library issues.

Renee McGrath
North Valley Public Library
208 Main St.
Stevensville MT 59870
reneemcgrath@northvalleylibrary.org

Finally a real report

Wow was ALA fun!

The WebJunction day was informative. Meeting others with small libraries was good - and there are people with more rural libraries then mine. We shared a table with Idaho and hope to arrange a follow up with them soon.

The ALA sessions were also educational. I went to one on courier systems and met with the presenters and some vendors afterwards. Since I have spent the last year submerged in the courier world, it was neat to talk to people I had read about and read articles from. We swapped information, opinions and thoughts.

And then there was Judy Blume. Ahhhhhh..... is all I have to say. She was just great. Julie Andrews was good but I must say I'd rank Judy Blume's presentation above hers.

The exhibits were fun. It was great to walk by tables and recognize authors who were busy signing. I also had a chance to look at and play with products I had only read about like Playaways and Overdrive. Of course it makes me mourn our tiny budget even more. But if that sack of money appears on our doorstep I know what I want to buy.

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