PaLA Annual Conference

I was fortunate to spend Monday at the Seven Springs Mountain Resort for the Pennsylvania Library Association Annual Conference.  I find conferences invigorating, exciting, and fun!  I love to learn about new ideas, programs, and concepts and seeing so many of my fellow librarians excited about what they do, excites me as well!  Although I wasn’t able to stay for the entire conference, I was able to hear a wonderful presentation from the director and marketing director of the Cuyahoga County Public Library about re-imagining public library programming and promotion.  I think promotion/marketing is something very difficult for many libraries and I was excited because many of things being discussed we already do and our online newsletter is opened by a relatively high percentage!  But, it never hurts to hear it again, and learn what others are doing.  I’m constantly reminded about customer experience and am trying to figure out how to relay this information to my co-workers so they really look at it more closely.  Positive experiences make all the difference in the world and it’s important for us to remember that!

I was also able to go to a conference session on weeding.  Weeding is often overlooked, but drastically needs to be done in my library and in many others.  For those unfamiliar with the term in the library world, weeding removes material from the collection that is out-of-date, no longer used by the population or is falling apart.  Many libraries have a specific amount of space available for materials and in order to add some new material, older material must be removed.    I’m hoping that with the information that I now have gathered we can begin to create a weeding plan to help us manage our collection and space better.

To jump up on my soap box for just a minute, I’ve been a part of the Pennsylvania Library Association since I began working almost six years ago and it’s truly amazing what I have been offered as part of the association.  I was a graduate of the PaLA Academy of Leadership Studies (PALS) in 2010, I’ve been to numerous conferences both annual as well as workshops in my region and the surrounding areas, have met some amazing librarians from around the state, received awards for my work, and recently was honored with the support to attend the ALA Emerging Leaders Program.  If you’re a librarian in Pennsylvania, why wouldn’t you be part of the association?

The best thing about conferences is catching up with fellow librarians from across the state.  And seeing the excitement that people in our profession have for literature, their communities, and the profession as a whole.  We used to joke in graduate school that none of us were becoming librarians to be wealthy – and we definitely are not wealthy in the typical sense, but I have a job I love where I can’t wait to learn more, do more, and offer more to the people that I serve in my community and I think that makes me pretty rich 🙂