In my mailbox

Today must have been mail day for library journals; in my mailbox were the most recent editions of College & Research Library News (January 2010), American Libraries (February 2010), and ALA Graphics (Spring 2010). I've only briefly perused the titles, but there were a few things that caught my attention.

ACRL Insider provides a great overview of the journal and includes full text where available. I was particularly interested in Professional Development on a Dime and Social Media: A Guide for College and University Libraries. The Fast Facts section included interesting statistics on Missing Web References:

"According to a new case study, “the number of [W]eb citations (in research papers) has increased from 41.60 percent of all citations in 1998 to 53.32 percent in 2002. But a substantial quantity of [W]eb citations (32.09 percent) was found to be missing.”" -- Gary Pattillo

American Libraries (the February edition no less) is often geared more to public librarians, but there are always one or two things that are adaptable to the academic venue. Faces of Circulation is a particularly timely to discussions I had with our head of circulation earlier this week and the often prevailing feeling of many non-librarian professionals.

"The main point is that every position in the library is necessary to help all workers perform their job efficiently. Circulation staff are valuable to the service of a library and should be treated that way." -- Toccara Porter

The author is honest, and blunt, about reasons for penning the article and I do not disagree with her description of events at the circulation desk as I have witnessed the same. But, I have to wonder.

Late ALA Photos

One more area/topic I have been remiss in posting about is the recent 2009 ALA Annual conference in Chicago. A first time visitor, I found many things to enjoy and gawk at during my stay. On Sunday morning I escaped, had a nice breakfast at a nearby bakery, and walked from The Palmer House Hilton uptown (I think it was up) to the Inter Continental Hotel for an ERIC session. A nice walk along Michigan Avenue, one of the places I passed was a sporting goods shop next to one of a plethora of coffee shops.

With the Stanley Cup playoffs recently over (Go, Pens!), the above window display caught my eye and brought forth a chuckle.

Libraries Build Communities

Three weeks from today, June 27th, I will be participating in my second Libraries Build Communities project at ALA Annual in Anaheim, CA. What is this project?

"The Libraries Build Community project began in New Orleans during the 2006 American Library Association Annual Conference, when ALA volunteers helped with projects related to the damage inflicted by Hurricane Katrina.1 ALA members continue to volunteer to assist in cities where they meet for Annual Conferences. " - Libraries Build Communities Wiki, 6/6/08

Several projects are available and range in task from weeding school libraries to helping with Second Harvest. An email from ALA last evening provided links to selecting sites for the day. After a bit of dithering, I was not really sure how or what to location to choose, I opted for Morse Elementary School in Sacramento.

There seems to be time left for anyone wishing to participate in this endeavor to change their registration to include a day of service. For $10 you get lunch, a nifty t-shirt, a chance to meet and talk with librarians from around the country, and a great opportunity to give something back to the community. For more information check out the Official ALA Annual 2008 Wiki or the ALAO Conference site.

California here I come

After a significant amount of personal (family) and professional (waiting to hear about presenting and a conference grant) dithering and dragging of feet, Thursday afternoon I registered for the ALA Conference in Anaheim. It was not without issue, despite what the ALA conference flyer in my mailbox that afternoon touted; thousands of hotel rooms in walking distance of the Anaheim Convention Center?

I spent a great deal of time on Wednesday with Expedia, Travelocity, Orbitz, AAA, and Hotels.com researching (hunting) flights and available hotels close to my travel budget and the convention center. I cross-checked results with flight time, airlines and airports, ultimately settling on a flight and location. With the hotel available through four of the five travel sites, I decided to wait until Thursday to place my reservation (I had the wrong credit card with me at work). Imagine my infinite joy Thursday morning when the hotel in question was sold out with all five of the travel sites I visited on Wednesday.

I started over on Thursday afternoon ultimately selecting a travel package Expedia, American Airlines (shortest & least expensive flight from Columbus International Airport) and the Anaheim Plaza Hotel. In a lucky circumstance, as I was making the reservation a notice from Expedia popped up saying "good news, the cost of your flight has just been lowered" and I saved close to $100! Woo-hoo, I will take that without any problem.

I have an airline reservation with a short layover at O'Hare (wish me luck), a room reservation (walking distance to the convention center), and conference registration (made just in time to get a small advance discount) with the added Librarians Build Communities option for Friday afternoon. I will need more than one book for the flight, usually the latest Stephanie Plum novel Fearless Fourteen from Janet Evanovich, and updated tunes for my MP3 player, good thing I have Pepsi Stuff points.

I wonder if the post title should say "ready or not?"

Tags: ALA, American Library Association, 2008 ALA Conference, ALA Annual Conference, Anaheim, California

Midwinter is when?

For the last ten days I have been muttering to myself, get things ready for the first day of classes, midwinter is next Friday. Along with this mantra is the pep talk; there is plenty of opportunity to create schedules, update WebCT, move furniture to facilitate extended library hours (better left not discussed), update web pages, create the Mock Caldecott listings, contact potential new hires for the resource center, prepare the graduate assistants (new and existing) for the first week, update book reserves for professors, schedule resource center tours, post information to the blogs, make signs reflecting hours changes, and do the weekly resource center update for the student workers and GA's. Really, plenty of time. I can do this.

Now, midwinter is the day after tomorrow and though I did find my travel reservations and itinerary (Orbitz, cheaper then the roaming gnome), know when my flight leaves (mid-morning on Friday), and with what airline I will be flying the friendly skies (US Airways, sigh), I was chagrined to note that I had not investigated getting from the airport in Philly to my hotel - OR - looked at any of the meeting information beyond my obligations. I spent a bit of time this morning viciously printing from the ALA conference site and 2008 Midwinter Meetings wiki. I wasted the opportunity to take a new book on the flight by reading my Stephanie Plum novel Tuesday evening (and it was just a little baby book), at least now I may have something to read.

I am excited to be participating in the Midwinter meetings, and I am thrilled the weather is going to be early-spring-like, but my to-do list for tomorrow is expanding as I blog. Once the to-do list is toast and all is prepared, I can clear my mind and focus on the meetings. What's that song chorus; "Free your mind, and the rest will follow."

Don't get me started on packing.

ALA Award webcast

This sounds interesting, too bad I'll be either on the plane or headed to the airport when the announcement is made. I really should look at my travel plans soon.

ALA to provide live Webcast of top children/teen literary awards announcement January 14

"(CHICAGO) The American Library Association (ALA) will provide a free live Webcast of its national announcement of the top books, video and audiobooks for children and young adults - including the Caldecott, King, Newbery and Printz awards - on January 14 at 7:45 a.m. EST. The award announcements are made as part of the ALA Midwinter Meeting, which will bring together more than 10,000 librarians, publishers, authors and guests in Philadelphia from January 11 to 16."

Teens' Top Ten, YALSA

A post this morning from the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) blog details the 2007 Teens' Top Ten. This list, "the only book award list that is recommended soley by teens," has been posted on both the YALSA blog and Teens' Top Ten web site. Bloggers are being asked to spread the word regarding nominated titles and the opportunity presented for teens to vote on their favorites during Teen Read Week.

Teen groups selected the twenty five books, all published in 2006 and 2007:

"Nominators are members of teen book groups in five school and public libraries around the country Connecticut, Kansas, New Jersey, New Hampshire, and Utah selected for their experience in discussing books." - Teen Read Week, YALSA

The 25 Nominated titles are:

1. Firegirl - Tony Abbott
2. Clay - David Almond
3. Road of the Dead - Kevin Brooks
4. Secrets of My Hollywood Life: On Location - Jen Calonita
5. The Loud Silence of Francine Green - Karen Cushman
6. Just Listen - Sarah Dessen
7. How to Ruin a Summer Vacation - Simone Elkeles
8. In Search of Mockingbird - Loretta Ellsworth
9. The Christopher Killer - Alane Ferguson
10. What Happened to Cass McBride - Gail Giles
11. Hello, Groin - Beth Gobbie
12. River Secrets - Shannon Hale
13. Shock Point - April Henry
14. Bad Kitty - Michele Jaffe
15. Born To Rock - Gordon Korman
16. New Moon - Stephanie Meyer
17. Kiki Strike: Inside the Shadow City - Kristen Miller
18. Prom Anonymous - Blake Nelson
19. Maximum Ride: School's Out Forever - James Patterson
20. Life As We Knew It - Susan Beth Pfeffer
21. Penelope Bailey Takes the Stage - Susanna Reich
22. All Hallows Eve (13 Stories) - Vivian Vande Velde
23. Skin - Adrienne Maria Vrettos
24. The Unresolved - T.K. Walsh
25. Flora Segunda: Being the Magickal Mishaps of a Girl of Spirit, Her Glass-Gazing Sidekick, Two Ominous Butlers (One Blue), a House with Eleven Thousand Rooms, and a Red Dog - Ysabeau S. Wilce

I have posted about two of these titles; Firegirl and Life As We Knew It. I checked the catalog at work and we have 14 (56%) of the books nominated for the top ten list. This is when differences between public, school, and academic libraries are more pronounced. Public libraries are purchasing for their young adult patrons, academic libraries are purchasing to support the university curriculum and pre-services teachers of young adults, and school libraries are purchasing young adult titles for their curriculum and instructors. Generally speaking, a public library will have a wider variety of young adult novels to service their patrons wants and needs.

It will be interesting to see what ten titles win.

c. YALSA image property of ALA & YALSA

Tags: YALSA, Young Adult Library Services Association, Teen Read Week, ALA

ALA Conference: Children's & YA Literature Sessions

Due to poster presentations and scheduled ACRL and EBSS meetings I missed several of the author sessions scheduled during the course of the conference, most notably Judy Blume and Julie Andrews. I did attend three very good sessions, one on picture book collaboration, sponsored by the Association for Library Services to Children (ALSC), and two young adult literature presentations by the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA).

Collaborative Techniques Between Authors & Artists: The Inside Story of How Picture Books Are Created (ALSC) took place Saturday morning, 8:00 am - 10:00 am in the Convention Center. This panel discussion was moderated by Catherine Balkin of Balkin Buddies and featured three sets of well-known picture book author and illustrator collaboration partners; Eloise Greenfield and Jan Spivey Gilchrist, Eric Kimmel and Leonard Everett Fisher, and Patrick O’Brien and Kevin O’Malley. Each author and illustrator “team” fielded questions from moderator Balkin and offered not only prepared remarks on their art and writing, but also samples of works in progress. The panel was delightfully engaging and forthcoming about their techniques and partnership history. It was especially interesting to listen to Jan Spivey Gilchrist after just adding the vibrant book she co-illustrated, My America, to the library juvenile collection.

The Alex Award Winners 2007 (YALSA) session was held Saturday afternoon from 4:00 - 5:30 p.m. One of my favorite sessions last summer, I made sure to get this one on my schedule early on in the decision-making process. I was slightly disappointed that half of the session consisted of panelists reading their book talks for the 2007 award winners (especially when they were given to us in handout form), but speakers Ron Rash, author of 2007 Alex Award winner The World Made Straight, and Jeannette Walls, author of The Glass Castle (2006 winner) were definitely worth the wait.

Walls discussed how her life had changed since winning the Alex in 2006, specifically the acceptance and resiliency of young adults in regards to her memoir; where adults were horrified by her parents action in the books, teens were more understanding and willing to take the actions in stride. She recounted several touching moments where teens thanked her for writing the book and helping them understand they were not alone in dealing with this type of situation. I enjoyed hearing the update from Walls, especially after hearing her speak in NOLA last summer.

Rash began his portion of the program with an anecdote about his grandfather. As a child, he often went to his grandfather requesting a book to be read and the stories were fantastic, yet never the same. As he grew older, he realized the lack of story continuity was because his grandfather could not read, he was telling the story through pictures. Rash never forgot the magic of his grandfather’s storytelling. In this same manner, the afternoon session highlight was, when in storytelling tradition, Rash read a chapter from One Foot in Eden to the audience. It was a powerful rendition that held us enthralled with both the story and the author’s eloquence. You could have heard a pin drop in the room during the reading and when at the chapter’s conclusion he stopped, the collective sigh by a disappointed audience was indicative of being left wanting more. (This morning I requested a copy of the book so I could read it myself!) An extra perk for this session was a copy of the 2007 Alex Award winning title, The World Made Straight. It’s one more book that I have started reading.

The final children’s and/or young adult literature session I attended was Trend Setters in Teen Literature (YALSA), Sunday morning, 10:30 am to noon. This was a multi-pronged gathering featuring Holly Keolling, editor of the soon to be released (August) third edition of Best Books for Young Adults, and two separate panels of young adult authors and editors. I was most interested in Keolling’s portion of the session as she discussed different trends in YA literature and how they have changed since 2000. Specifically mentioned were the feminization of literature (even graphic novels), the maturation of teen readers and the topics they are attracted to reading, the current trend of adult authors writing specifically for the YA field, and the growing international flavor of YA literature. This morning I located an article Koelling mentioned during her presentation, “Ten Things that Tick Me Off!” by Peter D. Sieruta (Horn Book Magazine, March/April 2005). It’s an interesting statement regarding children’s literature trends from a reviewer’s point of view.

The window for conference posts is fast closing. I have one more ARC finished, ready to blog about, as well as Janet Evanovich’s Lean Mean Thirteen that I devoured on the plane (and finished in my hotel room Friday evening - before reading again). I’ll blather about the tech services session I attended on my other blog and post about ARC’s as I finish reading them over the next few weeks.

Books, books, and more books … isn’t life grand? It reminds me of a sweatshirt I have somewhere in the depths of my closet; so many books, so little time.

Tags: ALA Conference, YALSA conference sessions, YALSA, Children's literature, YA literature

LOC: A web album

What librarian's visit to Washington, D.C. would be complete without a trip to the Library of Congress? Not mine! The LOC blog posted great opportunities for ALA attendees, among them the chance to visit the main reading room in the Thomas Jefferson Building after hours on Friday (5 - 7 pm). I had to miss my scheduled tour of this facility on Monday afternoon due to a session conflict, but I was not going to miss a chance to visit the LOC.

After arriving early Friday afternoon, taking a quick walking tour around the Capitol building area, and winding my way through the seemingly endless registration line (to pick up my badge), I met a friend and took advantage of the LOC open house. We boarded one of the ALA shuttle buses to the Hyatt on Capitol Hill, near my lovely lodgings at the Washington Court Hotel, and walked the four or five blocks to the LOC. As is often the case, before arriving our group had expanded to over a dozen librarians looking for the same building!

Descending on the Thomas Jefferson Building we were told there was a spill of some sort and the designated entrance was not accessible. Instead, we crossed the street and entered through the main building and followed our guide through the underground tunnels into the other building (very cool). As the pictures show, the building is beautiful and was only surpassed by the graciousness of the librarians who worked late that evening allowing us to tour and answering legions of seemingly unending questions about their facility and practices.

• Thomas Jefferson Building
• Library of Congress
• LOC Blog
• Librarians to Converge on DC

Tags: 2007 ALA conference, ALA, Library of Congress, LOC, Library of Congress, Thomas Jefferson Building, LOC blog

I'm baaaaack

Today's horoscope mentioned the creative side of my nature would be satisfied with something as simple as paper and pen to jot down thoughts. I'll create a blog post instead.

My first conference topic will be air travel. I enjoy watching airplanes; seeing what different versions are capable of doing, marveling at the actuality and sheer genius involved behind them flying, captivated by talent necessary to fly one of them, and most often being thankful I am not inside of one. For me, air travel is basically limited to attending ALA and ACRL conferences, this latest trip being a specific instance. I arrived safe and sound, with my luggage, both to and from the ALA conference in Washington, DC.

Last Thursday morning I arrived at the airport in record time, cleared check in and all of its glory in less than half an hour. The plane itself was a small one, only three seats wide (two on one side, one on the other) and it could be said that I was riding shotgun, seat A1. It was odd being able to see into the cockpit and I was torn between awe that it was so tiny and wonder, would I get thrown off of the plane for taking a photograph? My dad was in the air force and a short quiz often follows any air travel. I am probably one of the only people who actually looks at the safety handout stowed in the seat because it details the type of plane. But, I digress.

After we were all collectively settled in our seats ready for take off, the pilot informed us there had been a slight "melt down" - his words, not mine - at the control tower and they lost our flight plan. He had to resubmit and get the results before leaving. This announcement was followed by the assurance it would take less than fifteen minutes. Sure enough, ten minutes later we were told the flight plan was a "go" however, we were now the twelfth plane in line for take-off and it would be another fifteen minutes before departure. Then he said not to worry, he would be able to "make up" the time in the air. Uh-huh. Guess there was a good tail wind because we arrived very close to our originally scheduled time.

Today the annoying Super Shuttle was scheduled to arrive at noon. To my shock and dismay (insert sarcasm) pick up was forty minutes late and I was still in DC at 1:00 pm. Less than thrilled with the prospect of long lines and missing the plane, I was relieved to arrive at BWI around 1:40. Check in was a breeze, but getting through security took another forty plus minutes. I arrived at the gate right as boarding was to begin, but when the plane was late coming in from Newark I actually had opportunity for a caffeine and chocolate bar lunch. Half an hour later we boarded without incident, I again had lovely seat A1, pulled away from the gate, and stopped next to both an AirTran and Southwest airliner. Seems there was a thunder cell at the end of the runway and take-offs were being aborted until it moved out of the vicinity in fifteen or twenty minutes. Off went the engines and a quick glance out the window showed planes to the left and planes to the right, all lined up waiting. When the cell cleared out, we were only fifth in line (sure beat twelfth) and ended up being only an hour late. No big deal for me since the stop was my final destination, however there were passengers meeting connecting flights that were not so lucky.

Tomorrow, a quick list of ARC's I grabbed from the exhibitor's area. Posts about particular sessions I attended and my poster sessions will follow at the beginning of next week as I will be out of town Thursday through Sunday.

ALA bound

I have finished my pre-conference necessities shopping, strategically placed several outfits on my bed in preparation for packing this evening, and last night was able to make plans to meet a friend at the convention center tomorrow evening (yikes! tomorrow already) so we can go to the LOC, visit the main reading room, it's open from 5-7 pm specifically for ALA attendees, and "do" dinner. After looking at the preliminary program guide on Tuesday, I have to reiterate what I posted on another blog; one of the main reasons I like going to ALA as opposed to academic librarian specific conferences is that ALA has program opportunities for everyone.

At ALA annual, I get to feed my inner-geek-librarian at technology sessions, my inner-child-librarian with children and YA literature sessions, and my inner- teacher-education- liaison librarian with academic sessions on education librarianship and EBSS committee meetings. Case in point, here are several sessions I am interesting in attending:

• LOC: Main reading room open Friday evening 5 - 7 pm
• Can Blogs be Trusted?
• Picture Books for Older Readers - OR - Alex Award Winners 2007
• Stories for a Saturday Evening
• Trend Setters in Teen Literature
• Book Cart Drill Team - OR - Blogs and Related Technology
• ALSC Poetry Blast

Add to the list my aforementioned EBSS meetings, poster sessions, and visiting the exhibit hall and I will have little time to peruse DC in tourist fashion. It's been years since I have visited the area and I would love to see the new memorials. It is a given I will change my mind once, twice or three times when I get the actual program and begin the decision making process. But that is part of the whole, one of the best sessions I attended last summer I went to because the session I really wanted was cancelled ... worked for me.

Here's hoping my posters and I make the plane on time tomorrow morning. I am grateful the airline changed my departure time from 7:30 am to 8:45 am. Be sure to say "hi" if you get to either of my poster sessions! And, unless I get an uncontrollable urge to blog from one of the computer stations at ALA, this will be the last post until July 2nd.

Tags: ALA, ALA Annual, ALA Washington, DC

Posters or handouts?

It's a bit of a conundrum, which is more important, the poster or the accompanying handouts? As a viewer of poster sessions I spend time looking at the completed project and then quickly grab handouts I can refer to at my leisure. Chances of remembering points from every session that interests me are slim ... and none, so I rely on good handouts. Previously posted poster glee aside, I am now working on crafting cd's (easier to cart on the plane than paper handouts) for people who visit my poster session(s).


I finished the blog poster CD today; it's a single web page that includes all of the text and scaled down images from the poster as well as a webliography of links to the counters, widgets, and blog sites discussed. Naturally I had to create a web page header, design a CD label, and burn the CD's. Beyond that I checked each CD's usability (found one dud), muttered at a computer with an excessively slow CD/DVD drive, and centered labels on each CD. Luckily the muttering commenced this morning when traffic was slight in the resource center and I had students commiserating with my plight. Actually, the students in question asked me to burn them a CD so they could see the project at a later date. But, I digress.


The collaborative conference poster session CD is fifty percent completed and I will probably need to purchase additional CD-R's and labels to finish the project. Deciding how many CD's to burn and bring is another issue fraught with guesswork; I would rather run out of CD's than have too many. My main concern with the second poster session is the archived web page from the conference. When discussing the web page option we asked how long the page would remain on the university's server after the conference was over. The answer was indefinitely, but who's definition of "indefinite" will be adhered to is the question. I can say with authority that as of today the site remains and I am reasonably sure it will be live at least through the summer session.

Tomorrow I will finish the project and only have to burn a few CD's Really. Tuesday grades are due. I have a vacation day Wednesday to pack and prepare (I think) and I fly out Thursday. Where has the month of June gone?

Update - next morning: I forgot to mention my fruitless journey to locate CD labels . First the university book store, then a local drug/convenience store and finally the hated WalMart in town. Zip. Nada. Tell me why a huge super WalMart (gag) would have every type of CD, CD-R, CD-RW, and DVD-R and not have CD Labels? Today I'll go to the only office supply store in town and hope for the best. Otherwise I won't be finished until Monday.

Tags: ALA, ALA Annual Conference, Poster sessions, Poster session preparation

They're here! They're here!

My posters were delivered this morning and they are beautiful! In between meetings to finalize budget expenditures for the end of the current fiscal year I have been annoying all asunder by asking if they want to see my posters.

Some did .... other's graciously declined (smile).

I am waiting for my boss to see the finished product before gleefully rolling them up and placing them in the traveling tube. This week I have to prepare something for handouts and probably should take a look at conference offerings, print out directions to the airport, and verify a few travel necessities. But right now, I'm positively gleeful at the completion of my posters.

On my mind ...

Right now the Blogger gods are being kind, they have ceased refusing my posts and login, and I have a few short ruminations I would like to bring to the hypothetical table. I plan on discussing them, possibly at some length, in the next few posts so this is only a teaser.

• Library Conferences: Why is it that the upcoming ACRL conference in March is twice the cost of the ALA annual conference in June and is a considerably shorter period of time? I tried for several weeks to find a hotel room so I could attend ACRL. Most of them were sold out and ones not affiliated with ACRL were charging upwards of $250 per night. After looking at the price list this afternoon, I am sorry to say I will not be attending ACRL. I was, however, able to get a great rate on a flight and hotel to attend ALA in Washington DC. The room is not in an ALA hotel, they were gone as well, but it is one block from an ALA affiliated hotel so I will be able to walk a block and catch a shuttle bus.
  
  
• New Librarians: A friend of mine recently accepted his first post-MLIS job in an academic library. He asked me last week what professional development advice I might have for him to consider and thanked me for being such a good mentor throughout his coursework. It was an interesting question and I had to give it some serious thought before responding.
  
  
• Conference Programs: I very much enjoyed my first national conference, ACRL in Minnesota two years ago, but was disappointed when so much of the programming was geared toward only reference and instruction. While I do some instruction on an as needed basis and contribute to reference desk duties, my basic function is not reference and instruction. There are many academic librarians who, like myself, have other areas of expertise. After attending my first ALA midwinter last January (San Antonio) and my first annual in New Orleans last summer, I found more of interest to me at a conference not geared specifically to academics. ALA has many children's literature, young adult literature, and other like sessions that are all but ignored in ACRL.
  
  
• Small librarian staff verses larger: I have been pondering my job lately, wondering if it is a good thing or a bad thing that I do not have one particular specialty area. Many education librarians in academic settings are just that, education specialists. Being the education liaison is only one aspect of my job description. Is it a good thing I have many different talents, managing a resource center, education librarian, library web master, and adjunct faculty for the college of education? Or am I missing an opportunity to specialize in one particular area? I guess time will tell.

Tags: Librarianship, Library professional development, ALA, ACRL, Library conferences

More on the higher power

In all fairness, this post could be labeled a cheating post. Earlier today I placed this information on the collaborative blog I author with another academic librarian. Since very little has been heard from Susan Patron during the firestorm of controversy I was interested in reading what she had to say about the situation. What I have posted is a very small part of the article, not interview, she wrote for the LA Times. Even though you have to create an account to read the article, it is worth the few minutes required to complete the process.

The AASL blog posted an addendum to their ALA post linking to a Los Angeles Times article by Susan Patron, author of The Higher Power of Lucky. The article, 'Scrotum' as a children's literary tool, is a response to the ongoing controversy.

"Books that offer hope to tender and impressionable readers (by which I mean all children) armor them against the confusing, frightening, numbing realities of life. My protagonist, Lucky, terrified that she'll be abandoned by her guardian, makes a desperate plan to run away with her beloved dog. I wanted to write an honest story that would fill readers with hope and let them see that even in a gravely flawed world, there are adults who will nurture them, adults — no matter how scruffy and unlikely — who have compassion and integrity. I wanted to give readers a book in which they, like Lucky, would find courage, love and empowerment.

And parents who worry about having to explain the meaning of "scrotum" can relax. Children who read the entire book will discover exactly what it means, in a context that is straightforward, reassuring and truthful. " (Patron, LA Times, 2/28/07)

Please note, when following the article link you will be required to create an account with LA Times.com to read the article.


Tags: ALA, Higher Power of Lucky, Newbery Award

New Orleans, Jefferson Parish Library Update

This morning I, and every other library who worked for a day in a New Orleans Public library last summer at ALA, received an email update/progress report from NOPL. It read in part:

"We are writing from the New Orleans Public Library to the ALA members who generously volunteered during the summer ALA convention to help New Orleans recover from the aftermath of Katrina. Whether you helped NOPL, schools, churches, or housing organizations, we hope you will be interested in our progress rebuilding our ruined public libraries."

"Late in 2006 we mailed a progress newsletter to 3000 donors and friends across the country, and we would like you to see it too. (After all, many of you literally “had a hand” in our accomplishments.)" (Email, NOPL, 2/15/07)

The newsletter in question, Rebuild New Orleans Public Library, is available online. An entire section is devoted to the work ALA volunteers contributed. Honestly? What I did was small in comparison to the day to day struggles the residents are still striving to overcome. It is encouraging to see the amazing things accomplished by everyone involved. Thanks for the update NOPL!

Tags: New Orleans Public Library, ALA, NOPL update

Posters, posters, ready to go

I picked up my complete posters from graphic arts yesterday and am mostly pleased with the results. It is great to be going to New Orleans with professionally produced works, but I'm not as thrilled with the color outcome as I expected to be. Most of the purple came out pink and the word art is brown instead of black. Luckily, all of the screen shots and text box items are true to color making the overall effect work. I wonder if there was a way to set the printer to print "as displayed on screen" and therefore giving me the correct color match. It's something to consider should we use this for other posters in the library. I'm ready to roll the laminated posters and put them in the cardboard tube for their flight. All of the CD's were burned, sans auto play, and the web page created will work well.

Ready or not ...