I brought mom along since TLA was in Dallas this year. She came one other time when we were in San Antonio. I thought she might enjoy going again and seeing all our friends and the authors. In fact, some of our best sessions were author panels.
We started off by attending the Conference Orientation session because the DHS Librarians, Blanca and Alleasha, were on that panel.
Under normal circumstances, this would not be a session I would attend. It was mostly for first-timers, but one should always be there to support a friend. Mom and I weren't the only experienced conference goers in this session...
It was good to see all of my former colleagues who are now some of my closest friends. Lots of librarians were here this year since the conference was in our back yard, so to speak.
After the orientation session, mom and I went to two author sessions, one for Texas authors and one for YA with strong female characters. It is always refreshing to hear an author talk about his/her own work. The following day we also went to the LGBTQIA author panel, and that was the most entertaining one of the bunch. We laughed and cried all the way through that session.
Of course one of the highlights of the whole conference was listening to Rick Steves.
He makes me want to travel again. I even bought his book, "Travel as a Political Act." He made a lot of interesting points about how travelling can help us understand cultures we don't know much about or even fear.
One of my favorite sessions that was not an author panel was about Escape Kits. The speakers with the lock boxes came from the public library and the school library. It was nice to have both perspectives. Some things I took away from that session...
- how to organize a whole class around one lock-box
- creating them for general circulation after using them with a class
- if you create your own game, have someone run through it first to catch the mistakes
Another noteworthy session included another former Duncanville librarian, Gabby Brown, who is now in Rockwall, did a bang-up job explaining how her summer library program works. She is a school librarian who opens her library once a week for family programs and book challenges. There were other presenters at that session, but for my money, Gabby had the most practical set up.
Friday morning, we went to Teri Lesesne's book talk where I generated a really big list of "must order" books for next year. I snagged one at Barnes & Noble just a couple of weeks ago, and it was fantastic. I highly recommed "The Poet X" by Elizabeth Acevedo. It is a quick read, but it is powerful.
All in all, mom and I attended 11 sessions. I' m not sure if I really clicked with TLA this year because of the new perspective I have working in Mansfield. However, I do feel as if my job has been more about the books and getting students to read than it has been about technology this year.
Every day is a new adventure!
