The SurRural Librarian

I recently asked the VSLA listserv for recommendations of author visits. Here are the names people sent, I’m pretty excited to see if we can get a great speaker to come work with our students.

Jim Arnosky
Gary Bowen
Simon Brooks
Matt Christopher’s son, Dale.
Mordicai Gerstein
Steven Gurney
Kathleen McKinley Harris
Beth Kanell
Natalie Kinsey-Warnock
Peter Lourie
Debbie Miller (from Alaska, visit VT annually)
Susan Milord
Won-Ldy Paye
Tracey Campbell Pearson
Jan Reynolds
Leda Schubert
Phoebe Stone
Steve Swinburne
J & P Voelkel
Doug Wilhelm
Storytellers Tim Jennings and Leanne Ponder

I was also clued into this helpful Directory of Performers & Speakers from the VT Dept. of Libraries

Which in turn reminded me of the importance of the institutional knowledge of the school librarians in my state. So many of them are going to be retiring in the next 5-10 years, and I’m terrified by the thought that I am in the next generation of “leaders” and I still have so much to learn!

I’ve been pondering the focus on professional development for school librarians lately through the planning for conferences I’ve been peripherally involved with. I present on techie issues, and I really enjoy it. But what I really need for my own p.d. is much less techie and more human-related. I’m afraid if we continue to focus so much on wikis, blogs, yadda yadda - we’re going to need a whole lotta help dealing with issues like censorship, collaboration, working with parents and early readers - all the human to human work we do.  Librarians with 25 years of experience will be leaving the profession soon, and I want to connect with them before they do!