Library Awesomeness!

Sorry about being a couple days late. This weekend ran away from me. But, there is plenty to talk about, so here is your weekly update on Monday.

Last weekend I was chillin’ with my friends at Triple Play, and a little girl came up and gave me a bear hug. For a split second I was wondering who she could be, and then her mom gave me some context as she said something to the effect of “It must be library time.” This little girl had seen me at one of the library programs and decided to give me a hug even though we weren’t at the library. I love my job!

Another cool thing that happened this week was the Idaho Library Association’s Annual Conference. There were two amazing aspects to this conference for me. First, I got to attend a SPLAT unconference. SPLAT stands for Special Project Library Action Team. Many of the techno savvy librarians in Idaho are a part of this group, and I got to spend the morning and afternoon on Wednesday just gleaning from their knowledge and ideas. I now have plenty of websites and things to look up.

During lunch at the conference I got the pleasure of hearing Chris Crutcher speak. Chris is a well known author whose books often find themselves on banned book lists. Although I’m still wondering where I sit on having some kinds of questionable content in books, hearing Chris’s take on book banning was very interesting and worthwhile. He talked about finding the truth in a story, and bringing that across in his books. Chris was an excellent speaker, and hearing someone else’s take on intellectual freedom is always interesting.

Looking back over the week I’m realizing that I had an even busier week then I thought I did. On Thursday, I got the pleasure of going to Bryan Elementary and awarding kids their summer reading prizes. Bryan set up a special program called the Bear Necessities where kids could get prizes for reading books during the summer. The Hayden Library was one of the biggest sponsors for the program, so Bryan invited us to be a part of the award ceremony. Seeing kids get excited about a free book, and a room full of parents, teachers, and students cheering for reading was a very rewarding experience.

Lastly, the youth services staff and I filmed a promo video for our Airband Awesomeness competition, which is on October 22 from 7:00-9:00. We took “Vacation” by the Go-Gos, grabbed our blow up guitars and Curious George rulers and rocked for a good two hours! The video should be up soon, and it is going to be amazing!

Looking toward this Friday, Alysun Sanders will be joining us from 6:30-7:30. As I’ve mentioned before, she will be discussing writing, being an author, and getting published. Snacks will be provided, and Alysun is really excited to talk to all of you!

Hope you can join us on Friday, and I’ll talk to you guys later.