How to use this Page

Being vegan at a conference is not always easy, but offers its own unique rewards. Since going vegan, I have often had to be more diligent about carrying around my own snacks and meals, and researching ahead of time which restaurants in a given city will work for me. On the other hand, one benefit is that going to vegan or vegan-friendly restaurants in a new city gives me an excuse to see parts of the city that I perhaps would not have explored otherwise. Searching for new vegan restaurants in a city I’ve never been in before is always a fun adventure for me.

PLA 2010 was easy, as Portland, OR is a vegan paradise. Philadelphia, while not quite as abundant in its herbivorous offerings, has had some delightful surprises so far. Blackbird Pizzeria is an all vegan pizza joint that does excellent thin crust pizzas. Khyber Pass Pub in Olde Town offers a vegan pulled pork (seitan) sandwich that even my meat-eating partner absolutely loved. The past two nights I’ve ended my evenings with a generous scoop of creamy soy chocolate ice cream from Franklin Fountain, pictured above.

There is a buzz of warm feelings following a wonderful talk from Jerry Pinkney. He conveyed his passion for nature and the lives of animals and childhood imagination in a way that was so inspiring. He feels that art and design are everywhere, in every object, and this is a concept we can bring to our work with children, who are naturally creative, inspired beings.

When a presenter says something that really speaks to me at a conference, it goes in my notebook, usually underlined, circled, and/or starred.

So far at PLA I’ve had a few of those moments. While discussing collaborating with caregivers yesterday, I heard, “We have so much in common [with caregivers]. Our jobs as librarians is to enhance and focus on those common traits to reach a greater audience and become better collaborators.” Into the notebook it went.

At the Robotix program I attended yesterday afternoon, I wrote down a quote from the audience: “Don’t be afraid of this. Look at your audience. If a six year old can figure it out, you certainly can too!” We all laughed, but it was an important reminder.

Finally, as we heard about conducting research on the effectiveness of ECRR programs, we were reminded that just because the components of a  storytime or workshop have been research-tested doesn’t mean the final product (the storytime or workshop itself) is going to be effective in your library.

Sometimes it’s the simple concepts that make you think the most.

First off, I want to say that I was gonna go to the Readers Advisory Toolkit workshop this morning anyway. Finding out the presenters were handing out chocolate was just a bonus.

An awesome bonus.

I took some time between morning sessions to explore the exhibit hall a bit more – and visit the ALSC booth! – so this blog post will have to be cut a little short. Instead of highlighting the top five things I took away from my workshop this morning, I’ve got to limit myself to just three.

Top Five Three Things:

1. Instead of asking patrons the question, “What kind of books do you like?” to help guide me (often answered with a blank stare or a shrug in my department), I will now ask children to name me 3 books they loved and 3 books they hated and why. (Or maybe just one book of each. We’ll see how it goes.)

2. Shame on me for forgetting about AV materials when it comes to blogging staff picks! I regularly recommend videos and music; why would I leave them out of my online RA? The presenters reminded us to consider reading as ‘story in every form’ – whether it be print, audio, e-book, etc.

3. I am also now motivated to not only update my departmental bookmarks, but also to include them in outreach visits.

In the elevator this morning a librarian said to me “Hasn’t this been a wonderful show?” Yes, I agreed.  Yes.  I am so happy to see librarians involved, focused, happy.  The tenor of this show is upbeat and busy!  I have had requests to buy our digital books directly, requests for travel information, and gotten some great feedback on our travel and cooking titles.  The feedback is so important to me.  It helps me to do the best job possible.

Sometimes it’s hard to choose what to attend at a conference.

Sometimes it’s very, very easy.

Are you enjoying the posts from our live bloggers?  Starting today, we have one more blogger joining our PLA blogging ranks. Offering a view from the Exhibit Floor, Cynthia Robbins is a publisher’s representative. She works as a Library Specialist and National Accounts Manager at Globe Pequot. Welcome Cynthia!

The weather might have something to do with it, but Philadelphia so far has been a treat. What’s great about this city is that everything is very walkable. Every where it seems that I go, I see blue PLA badge holders. And of course, smiling librarians.

One of the nicest things about having PLA in Philadelphia is the Reading Terminal Market. It’s so close to the convention center and has a ton of great lunch options. After seeing so many people on the exhibition floor, I have really enjoyed running into them again at the market. We all have to eat, right?

Tonight we have the ALSC Happy Hour from 8-10 at McGillin’s. I’m really looking forward to seeing all to of the new and returning ALSC members (and friends) outside of the convention center. Philadelphia has been a great host and hopefully McGillin’s will continue that tradition! Thanks Philly!

How many acronyms do you think I can fit in one headline? As with any library event, the possibilities for acronyms are endless. All the acronyms represented at the panel I just attended deserved equal mention in the title, since they’re all equally important to a children’s librarian.

“Has your library been infected by the STEM disease yet?” was the question that kicked off the Every Child Ready to Read: Fun With Math and Science panel, and the answer as far as my library is concerned is “yes, yes, yes!” Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math programs are sweeping the nation, and this panel presented on ways to incorporate STEM into programs for the youngest of patrons, especially 2 – 5 year olds.

Using ECRR techniques that most children’s librarians are already familiar with, you can incorporate STEM activities like sorting, matching, sequencing, and proportion into all your early childhood storytimes. Through a judicious use of counting songs, stories that follow a sequence (for example, a story about how to bake a cake), and simple activities like playing with proportional wooden blocks, your library can take advantage of a current educational trend (and the funding and good press that goes along with it)!

Am I the only one who references Breakin’ 2 whenever confronted with the 2nd edition of something?

I definitely acquired a copy of the 2nd edition of Every Child Ready to Read a few months ago. And even though I have taken it out of its shrink wrap – and even assembled it! – I’d sort of put that big scary binder on the back burner until today. But now that I’ve attended Every Child Ready to Read in Action, I am much less afraid of the prospect of conducting an early literacy workshop of my very own.

Top Five Things:

1. All of the downloadable slides and notes for the ECRR workshops are editable.  Which is great if you’re like me and like to inject your own style into things. (Though I would try to leave my movie quotes at home. I would try valiantly.)

2. Workshops are flexible beasts. Adapt to your audience, your space, and your technology.

3. When presenting the historically hard-to-remember 6 skills (can you name them? I can’t) to her workshop participants, one presenter made them into a flannel board house, with each skill representing a piece of it. Cool, right?

4. Having children write out their own name tags (even if their accompanying grown-up does some handy subtitle work) is a great way to incorporate one of the amazingly easy-to-remember 5 practices (Talk Sing Read Write Play! So much easier!) into your programming.

5. The GeekDad books. I never knew about these until today!

How to boil down a 75 minute conference workshop into a shortish microblog post? I thought maybe a list of the top five things I took away from each workshop would be my best bet, so I give you the John-Cusack-in-High-Fidelity-inspired Top Five Things.

First session of my day was Social Media and Your Marketing Plan. Top Five Things:

1. Develop a social media policy. I know what you’re thinking. I know because I wrote it in the Notes section of my conference program. It goes something like, ‘Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh! Not another policy!’ But seriously, this one is a good idea, because it allows you to be thoughtful about your social media efforts and concentrate them where they’ll be the most useful. Decide which platforms you want to use and what kind of content you’ll use it for.

2. Develop a schedule for your content. I know I tend to post only when I feel like it, but if you plan out what you’re going to post and when you’re going to post it, you’ll be providing a consistent flow of content instead of letting three weeks go by before you realize, ‘Gosh, I haven’t blogged in three weeks!’ (And when I say ‘you,’ I mean ‘me.’)

3. Feel free to drop a social media tool if it isn’t working for you. More isn’t necessarily better; the key is to be able to use a few of them really well.

4. Have a crisis plan in place for ‘when social media goes wrong.’ Because even though that’d be a great title for a 50s-style pulp novel (the cover alone!) nobody would want to actually experience it.

5. Be aware of disruptive technologies, including visual pinboards and QR codes (or as I like to think of them, those funky squares). Here’s a handy link to the slides from this portion of the presentation.

#PLA12 Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was our keynote speaker. He told us about his fight to save the environment through clean energy and protecting our rivers and lakes.  As a children’s librarian, I was very inspired to hear about his work and passion for our future.  I thought it was a wonderful way to start the conference.

This is my first PLA and I am enjoying every minute. I am meeting librarians from all over the country who are very friendly and enthusiastic about being here too. I briefly went to the vendor exhibits.  First on my list was DK publishing because they were giving away posters and Star Wars books.  I can’t wait to add them to our collection.  Tomorrow author Ann Droyd is signing and giving away copies of Good Night iPad.  I am  hoping to get a copy!

Today at 4:00 pm the Public Library Asscociation conference,  held this year in Phildadelphia, PA opens their Exhibits.  Interested in what else is going on? You can download the complete Conference Program here. You’ll find all kinds of programs, including a wide variety of learning & networking opportunities for youth services librarians.

For the next few days, we will not have our regular, daily posts on this blog. Instead, we will have multiple shorter posts each day. To make it easier for everyone to follow the excitement on Twitter, each post will include the hashtag #PLA12.

Seven bloggers have committed to writing short “micro-posts” throughout this conference so ALSC blog readers can have a feel for what is happening in Philadelphia:

• Elisabeth Gattullo has recently joined the team of ALSC bloggers. As you can read in our blogger profiles,  Elisabeth is the Collection Development Coordinator at Darien Library (CT).
• Dan Rude is the Marketing/Membership Specialist at ALSC. He posts regularly on the ALSC blog and will bring an insider’s perspective to the ALSC blogging from the conference.
• Amanda Ellington is one of our regular bloggers. As you can read in our blogger profiles, Amanda is the Youth Services Supervisor at the Lexington Park Library in St. Mary’s County Maryland. She also contributes to her county’s Picture Book Blog.
• Jill Harris is a children’s librarian who plans to attend a wide variety of PLA sessions on the children’s track and has offered to  share some of what she learns.
• Angela Newman is a children’s librarian at Tredyffrin Public Library in Strafford, PA, who will be offering a first-timers view of PLA.
• Mary Fellows is the current ALSC President; we’re very honored to have her contributions as a live blogger during this conference.
• Shelley Black Holley is a Children’s Librarian at Southington Public Library in Southington, Connecticut who will be attending a variety of programs related to children.

We hope you enjoy these snippets of conference attendance. We’d love to know what interests you about the PLA conference. What do you hope we snap a picture of or write a quick post about? Let us know in the comments below.

ALSC will be at the 2012 PLA National Conference in Philadelphia between March 14 and March 17. Here are some things to keep in mind as we approach this conference:

ALA Membership Booth
Come find your division in the Exhibition Hall! ALSC will be exhibiting at the ALA booth (#2315) throughout the conference. Grab your Dia 2012 button or get information about the ALSC National Institute in September. ALSC President Mary Fellows will be at the booth between 2 – 4 PM on Thursday, March 15 and between 10:30 – 11:30 AM on Friday, March 16. Stop by and say hello!

ALSC Happy Hour
Join your fellow ALSC members for some food or drinks on Thursday, March 15 from 8 – 10 PM for an ALSC Happy Hour! We’ll be getting together at McGillin’s, just a hop, skip, and a jump from the Convention Center. This event is open to everyone, members and non-members. Food and drink must be purchased by the individual. For more information, contact Dan Rude, [email protected]. See you there!

ALSC Happy Hour
Thursday, March 15 @ 8 – 10 PM
McGillin’s Olde Ale House
1310 Drury Street
Philadelphia, PA 19107
Get directions to McGillin’s

Programs for Youth Librarians
Looking for programs that feature youth at PLA 2012? Check out PLA’s handy organizer of programs: http://placonference.org/programs. Set your Subject Track search to “Serving Youth” and you’ll find a list of programs that concentrate on children and tweens.

ALSC Blog @ PLA
Can’t make it to Philadelphia? Just keep coming back to the blog! Just like at Annual Conference and Midwinter, ALSC is dedicated to bringing you the highlights on the blog. We’ll be live-blogging thorough out the conference here at the ALSC Blog.