Things I Love about Conferences:

Before I begin my conference favorites, let me take care of a few housekeeping things….

I have found that working full-time, finishing up my graduate degree with two classes this fall, trying to have a semblance of a social life, and keeping up with this blog is not always easy, as you have experienced from my absence in the past few days, but they are all things I love and are all important to me.  So, that being said, I’ve missed my blog and am excited to be writing today!

Also, you may notice that my blog has been getting a facelift recently, and that is all due to my amazing boyfriend – photographer and designer extraordinaire.  You can check out his work at www.kjbethel.com  He also designed my business cards, which if I do say so myself, are genius, more on that at a later timer.  And if you’re viewing my blog, I also have a twitter account and an about.me page (something I only just learned about last week).  Take a look around and let me know what you think of the new look!

So back to my conference favorites, I just got back from the Pennsylvania Library Association (PaLA) Annual Conference held in Gettysburg, PA this year.

1.) I love being around people who are as passionate as I am about libraries, books, and literacy.  It is so rejuvenating.

2.) I love connecting with librarians that I am now beginning to recognize from past conferences and with librarians within my own county as well.

3.) I love to learn about all the amazing programming ideas that people in libraries across Pennsylvania are providing for their patrons.  Even the smallest libraries are doing amazing things for their communities!

4.) I love hearing author talks and getting a chance to meet them afterward.  Authors are kind of like rock stars for librarians and it’s so interesting hearing their stories about how they got started, where their ideas come from, and learning more about them as individuals.  I got a chance to listen to Matt Phelan speak (winner of the Carolyn Field Award) and although it was the second time I’ve heard him speak, it was still just as interesting and you should definitely check out his book, Around the World.

5.) And this year, I was so honored to receive a Best Practices Award for our program, Yoga Story Time: Stretching Your Mind and Body.  We were able to get to the Awards brunch, listen to author Eric Wight (so funny and interestingly enough has an About.Me page!) and I also got to talk about my program during a poster session.