Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Fall Conference

Our state librarians' fall conference was last week. It was, as usual, completely fabulous from the beginning to the end. I feel like I have so many friends throughout the state. It's like a family reunion. There were so many wonderful sessions to go to; some times it was hard to decide on just one to visit. A couple times, I tried to go to a session but it was completely full (fire-code-violation-full), and I didn't get to hear the speaker. I learned a lot, which is an important reason to miss school and spend lots of money. One of my favorite sessions was presented by an author named Lynn Farrell Stover. She writes library lessons that are super-fabulous and adaptable to what I do in library classes. We sat together at an awards dinner Friday night, and the conversation never lagged. She was delightful. I left the conference completely exhausted and laden down with more boxes and bags than I came with. I passed out a bunch of stuff to the students in my LIBR 310 class (and they totally loved that), but there is still plenty of conference-related work for me to do. I was in charge of evaluations this year, and I have lots of conference evaluations to tabulate and evaluate.

Monday, November 3, 2008

Me and My BFF

I am so lucky. Me and my Tomie. I sound like Rosie O'Donnell.

Saturday, November 1, 2008

Strega Nona

I got to meet someone great today. Tomie dePaola came to my town this afternoon to sign books. He has a new pop-up book that just came out (so cute!) and is touring independent bookstores and signing. What a treat.
Tomie was delightful. Simply delightful. He was full of laughter, kind, gentle, and interested in those of us in line. (I had heard stories to the contrary, but I am happy to say that I no longer will believe them or repeat them.) Truly, I feel honored to have met him. I cannot say that about many people. He is an icon, a national treasure.
I have a picture of us. It's out in my camera (which I left in my car). I will upload it tomorrow.