The SurRural Librarian

Sunday has been an on again, off again conference day for me, with a web 2.0 smackdown by Joyce Valenza and friends being the highlight. Joyce ran a swift & informative session complete with a back channel chat room for those of us who liked to be overstimulated. The wiki for the session has some great links.

Other than that, and the plethora of fabulous authors signing books in the stacks, it’s been a bust. I’ve walked out on two sessions today, both of which were supposed to feature web tools but neither of which had internet connections.

ALA, please.

There’s only wireless in one of the buildings here and my hotel charges for access, so my connectivity is spotty. I’d really, really like the speakers to have access at least. After helping the IT “support” person change the resolution on a Mac, I sprinted back down to the other building to hear Junot Diaz’s talk, but he didn’t show up. So I’ve given up on real information today and now I’ve joined the other power vampires scattered on the floor in the hallway and am simply awaiting the book cart drill teams.

(That is not me pictured getting my book signed, I wish it was. I might be a geek, but I can’t wait in a 3 hour line.)

Here's one for the other fangirls

I’ve been at ALA Annual in Chicago since Wednesday, but connectivity has been spotty outside of the west building in the convention center (don’t get me started). Here’s my attempt to play catch up.

All-day Learning for Life training got me off to a decent start for my workshops in Vermont, though I’m a little afraid of all the work I have to do.

Saturday was the official start of the conference and I attended AASL Standards for the 21st Century Learner in a Read/Write Web class room with Susannah Tamarkin. She’s got a very nice collection of materials at:
http://ithsnyclibrary.wikispaces.com and is a big proponent of wikis, Google Docs & Clipmarks – used together with kids. Nice presentation!

Next up was the ALA president’s program with Laurie Halse Anderson , Jacqueline Woodson , and Alan Lawrence Sitomer the authors showed big love to the school librarians, despite having to sit through endless announcements and even a treasurer’s report. LHA was seriously testifying to the crowd. We’ve got to step up during troubled times, the kids need us. Keep the libraries open & the stacks fresh, keep libraries open longer. Be generally awesome.

LHA and I take simultaneous photos.

I also slipped into Science Fiction and Fantasy: Uncovering the Modern World of Information, Society, and Technology through Metaphor and Imagination with science fiction and fantasy authors R. A. Salvatore, Ken Scholes, Margaret Weiss,  and Robert Charles Wilson for some interesting thoughts about speculative fiction. There were too many speakers in too short a time to get very deep, but it was provocative nonetheless.

The session “What Do I Watch, Listen to, Play, or Download Next: Readers Advisory Techniques for the Digital World” looked like they’d have a good collection of links to watch out for, but these are not yet posted.

I’m heading off to Chicago for Learning4Life Training & ALA Annual.

After this, I’ll be running Learning4Life workshops around Vermont for school librarians, one in each VSLA region. I’ll have a schedule together by the end of the summer. Learning4Life is the national implementation plan for the Standards for the 21st-Century Learner.

It’s my first time at the annual conference and I plan to blog a bit from there if I don’t get lost in what is promised to be a labyrinth of vendors. Gaming pavilion, here I come.