Saturday, June 28, 2008

Friday Conference Fun

Attended 2 great events tonight. The first was the "Many Nations, Many Voices" program put on by the Office of Diversity. Over 10 Native Americans from both the U.S. and South America read their poems, discussed aspects of their lives and careers, read excerpts from their books and/or performed for us with drum, guitar and song. The highlight of the evening was a very funny talk given by Sherman Alexis, author of "The absolutely true diary of a part-time Indian." It was a very inspiring event.

Later on that evening, I "crashed" the party for Camila Alire given in the vice presidential suite by Jim Rettig, ALA president elect. The place was absolutely packed with Camila well wishers. She greeted each of us with a hug and I mingled about the room. There was an open bar as well as lots of sweets and snacks. I renewed acquaintances with Mary Ghikas, Senior Associate Executive Director at ALA. She and I had a rousing time on the rural libraries tour at the recent AASL conference, and have been in e-mail contact ever since. We always make a point to look for each other at midwinter and annual.

There seemed to be hundreds of people there, but we all fit in the enormous suite and balcony with a lovely view of the city from the 19th floor. The AASL presidential trifecta (Cyndi, Ann & Sara) was present, as well as many of my fellow Spectrum Scholars, presidents and friends from REFORMA and ALSC, as well as some of my Simmons professors, including GSLIS Dean and Chair of the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners Em Claire Knowles and Luis Chaparro.

The Spokane Moms are in town to receive their well deserved award tomorrow at the AASL Presidential program, and were warmly greeted with many coming over to shake their hands with gratitude. They were very personable and humble over their great achievement in Spokane, as well as funny and friendly conversationalists. They kept telling me how they thought that we school librarians have the hardest job they know and that we deserve to be recognized as much as possible for the work that we do. Ran into Bob Roth (MSLA) and Sandy, fellow members of the AASL Legislative Committee.

What a night! It's 4:19 Am Eastern time, and 1:19 AM Cally time. Have to be up and about very early in the morning for the official beginning of conference and the opening of the exhibits. More tomorrow!

No comments: