Mid-Winter is over!

I was going to go back and “fix” typos and such on the ALA Awards I blogged, but I’m not. If you want to see the press release which has all the information you need to locate the exact award winning title, you can find it here.

The most important thing that happened on the last day of ALA Mid-Winter (Day 4) was the announcement of the ALA Award winners, so I don’t have much to add about that day. We did take a 21 stop tour of the city and I got to run up the Rocky steps and took lots of pictures which I will add to my personal Flickr page as well as the SCASL Flickr page. We had dinner at a wonderful restaurant, Moshulu and did some Power Up @ your library conference planning. Very productive dinner, I thought!

Yesterday was the travel day. Should have been very easy: leave Philly at 11:15am; get to Columbia at 1:30pm; do laundry; eat dinner; go to bed. However, nothing is every as easy as it should be, right? The day went more like: Leave Philly at 10am on different flight than original flight because original flight was cancelled; go to Washington DC instead of right into Columbia because new flight was not a direct flight but one with stops; stay in DC for 2 hours; get into Columbia at 3:oopm; stand at baggage claim for about 20 minutes before finally understanding and believing that my baggage is never coming; stand in line for 30 minutes to make a baggage claim; go home at 5pm with no baggage, (therefore, no laundry to do–which is sort of a good thing, I guess); eat dinner while waiting for baggage to be delievered to my house. Accept baggage at 9pm; go to bed very thankful that I have taken today off to do my laundry and get my regular life back in order before returning to my crazy professional world.

Conferences are great. I always learn something and now that I get to go to these national conferences with SCASL, I am lucky to get to see other parts of the United States that I would not have seen otherwise. 

Now to that stack of laundry,

VBF 

AWARDS AWARDS AWARDS !!!

And the winners are…

PS-I am SO EXCITED TO BE HERE!!!

PPS-Mo Willems is not really my boyfriend.

• John Newbery Medal honors-Elijah of Buxton; The WEdnesday Wars by Schmidt; Feathers by Woodson; winner-Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! by Laura Amy Schlitz
• Randolph Caldecott Medal honors-Henry’s Freedom Box by Kadir Nelson; First the Egg by Seeger; The Wall by Sis; Knuffle Bunny Too AWWWW; winner-The invention of Hugo Cabret by Selznick
• Michael L. Printz Award  honors-Dreamquake: Book Two; One Whole and Perfect Day; Repossessed; Your own, Sylvia; Winner-The White Darkness by McCaughrean
• Odyssey Award (new award!)…audio award- honors-Bloody Jack; Dooby Dooby Moo; Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows; skulduggery pleasant; Treasure Island (listening library) Winner-Jazz (live oak)
• Coretta Scott King Award Sundee T. Frazier (new talent); Honors-November Blues; 12 Rounds to Glory; Winner (chapter)-Christopher Paul Curtis, Elijah of Buxton!!YAY! Winner (Picture books)-Secret Olivia Told Me; Jazz on a Saturday Night. Illustrator award-Ashley Bryan.
• Theodor Seuss Geisel Award honor-First the Egg by Seeger; Hello Bumblebee Bat by Lunde; Jazz Baby by Wheeler; Vulture View by April Pulley Sayer; Winner-There is a bird on your head! My boyfriend, Mo Willems
• Alex Awards American Shaolin; Bad Monkeys; Essex County Vol. 1; Genghis; God of Animals; A Long Way Gone; Mister Pip; The Name of the Wind; The Night Birds; The Spellman Files.
• Andrew Carnegie Medal Jump in! Freestyle Edition
• Sibert Award honors-Spiders Nic Bishop; Lightship Brian Floca; Winner-The Wall Sis
• Margaret Edwards Award Orson Scott Card
• Batchelder Award honors-The cat or how I lost eternity; Nicholas and the Gang. Winner- Brave Story
• Schneider Family Book Award Kami and the Yaks; Reaching for Sun; Hurt Go Happy 
• Laura Ingalls Wilder Award 
• May Hill Arbuthnot Honor Lecture Award Walter Dean Myers
• Belpre Award –Illlustrator honor-My name is Gabito; My Colors, My Word; winner-Les Gates Black on Halloween. Author honor-Frida Long live life; Martina the Beautiful Cockroach; les gates black on halloween; winner- The poet slave of cuba

Mid-Winter Day 3

This morning, because we had to get up so early and get to a meeting, Kitt and I ordered room service for breakfast. $75 later: I had cereal with berries and bananas and coffee and Kitt had eggs and potatoes. Could get the same meal for $10 at Waffle House! Jeez!

Meeting was all morning. Affliate Assembly and was updates and announcements and “sharing” time with others in our region. I really enjoyed hearing all of the things going on in other states. In our region is NC, KY, TN, GA, and SC (I think that’s everyone) and they are doing some wonderful things. One thing I heard again and again was that many school library associations are strands of their state associations (that would be like the SCLA being over all libraries in our state and us having a section). On one hand that seems very efficient as far as conference goes, on the other hand, I bet those school librarians sometimes get lost in the mix of public libraries and academic libraries, etc. Just like at ALA. I blogged after going to the annual conference that I felt sort of like a “black sheep” when in some of the sessions because I was a school librarian. In SCASL I always felt in good hands and supported. I wonder if they feel that way? In speaking to others planning conferences, I heard that a couple of states in our region start planning their conference 2 almost 3 years in advance. I think that’s excellent and really wish we could move to something like that. Sure, we do have a location that far in advance, but as far as speakers and such go, that “search” doesn’t start until after conference the year before because that’s when the President Elect is voted on by the membership. Perhaps I can help change that, however, I certainly do not want to end up planning another conference (the organizations that have so much time in advance to plan have their Past President plan conference). There were some library “stars” today: Keith Curry Lance, Alice Yucht, Deb Logan—all folks I read and know! They were speakers at the Affiliate Assembly. Oh the life of a nerd is so exciting, yes?

After the meeting, we walked around the exhibits some more, went back to Reading Terminal, and then listened to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. He was one of the speakers for conference and gave an excellent talk about his research and how libraries affected his life. It was awesome. The person who founded the ALA Black Caucus (Dr. EJ Josey) was there. I learned that he was also a major player in starting the Coretta Scott King Awards.

After that was dinner of what was supposed to be “real” Philly pizza…I hate to say it, but I’ve had pizza like that at home. It was good, just not different.

The evening ended with a special screening of The Spiderwick Chronicles. WONDERFUL! I loved it…perfect mix of fantasy and scary. I will tell all of my 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders to see it!

Tomorrow morning is the big awards announcement day. I do plan to bring my laptop and will either blog or twitter the awards…whatever works.

VBF

Mid-Winter Day 2

Today was good.

This morning, realized two things not so great about the Ritz Carlton=hardly any plugs! I’ve got to charge my electronics, you know, Ritz! Coffe from lobby is NOT NOT NOT good. Yes, I have a coffee pot in my room, but I’ve got some quirks about hotels and using the coffee pot in the room is one of them. Even at the Ritz Carlton.

After all that, we were on our way to the Convention Center. We had some time to kill before our 10:30 meeting so we checked out the Reading Market. What an amazing place. Any kind of food you can think of is available there. And, Penn. Dutch own some of the spaces at the market, so you can only imagine the sorts of things available. I had one of the best lattes ever at Reading Market this morning. FYI. At 10:30, we went to a Discussion Group hosted by AASL Affiliate Assembly. I am still learning about the Affiliate Assembly, but from what I can gather, it is Presidents and President Elects of state associations throughout the U.S. There were about 50 people there. We had 4 topics which we talked about with a group. Facilitators and recorders moved through the groups.

Our topics were:

1. How do you recruit people to serve on your state board?

I’m not really sure that we have a problem in South Carolina. Of course, I have never been in the position of finding people to serve on the board. Perhaps when I am President, I’ll notice that it’s an issue. Ideas for recruiting include hosting meetings online, offering “carrots” such as conference registrations and hotel stays. Ida talked about the SCASL Leadership Academy.

2. What is your state doing to implement/roll out the 21st Century Standards for student learners?

These standards were “rolled out” at AASL in October. I was surprised that there were folks sitting at our table who were not aware of this…considering the crowd. Anyway, seems as though most people have not done anything YET. There was a lot of talk about how we need to correlate these standards to state standards, which of course we do! Gail Dickinson, who is on the task force for the standards will be coming to our conference and I think a couple of other folks mentioned that people on the task force are coming to their conferences. I want to somehow get a copy of the standards in everyone’s hands. Yes, they can print them. But, will everyone go to the AASL website and do that?

3. How do we get started on rolling out the 21st century partnership?

This kind of confused everyone. While the 21st Century Partnership sounds wonderful and yes we agree with what its trying to do (teach students to be working adults…skills they need to succeed in the world), we wonder if it isn’t all too much. Our new standards, this partnership, ISTE standards. What do we really want to stand behind and push?

4. How is your state association using Web 2.0 resources?

My favorite! Of course, this is where I have links to go and visit to see what others are doing. CT seems to be doing a lot. Their association newsletter is posted online. They have a wiki that is open to the world. SC was the one with the most 2.0 “things,” but that’s because I enjoy playing. I would not say that our 2.0 “things” are being used in the best way possible. I would like to change that, but of course there is a learning curve and you can only do so many things at one time.

I thought all discussions were very interesting and I have a lot of links and state associations to take a look at now.

After the meeting, we went to the Exhibit Hall where we got our pictures taken with Senator Obama and Rocky Balboa. For real.

Of course, Obama was a cardboard standee and Rocky was an impersonator. Those pictures, I promise you, will be posted soon.

A trip to the spa was next and now it’s time for bed! Big day tomorrow….stay tuned!

VBF

Mid-Winter Day 1

A Few Philly Facts: 

1. They know where their car horn is!

2. No one seems to really know how far away I am from the “Rocky” stairs. Perhaps I should just put my librarian skills to use and look it up.

3. The Convention Center is a little confusing, however, I am very directionally challenged.

Today! My flight was delayed only a little, considering it was raining in Columbia AND in Philly. Some S.C. folks who flew later in the day were delayed much longer (in fact, we were all supposed to be here by now and they still aren’t here-it’s 4:30). Yesterday, I was hating myself for booking such an early flight (7:15am). Today, I am very happy with myself for booking an early flight.  Got to Philly. Checked into the RITZ-CARLTON. How did I end up here, you may ask? ALA opens housing online and it fills up very fast. By the time I went to book my hotel room, they were all full and I was put on a waiting list. One day, ALA sends me a message that says “your rooms are reserved at the Ritz-Carlton.” I am a very happy conference goer! This place is one of the nicest I have ever stayed at. I know this bed is going to be more cozy than my own bed and that NEVER happens in a hotel! Pictures will come later.

Check in and registration went smoothly.

Went to a panel/open forum about the new NETS*T. These are technology standards for teachers, saying what they must know to teach their students. The forum was an opportunity for ISTE to hear thoughts, ideas, suggestions, etc. from ALA/AASL. I thought it was going to be an open forum about the new NETS*S…comparing them to the new AASL standards, but I misread the press release. My fault…still a VERY interesting time talking with others in my field.

Now, getting ready to attend the Exhibit Hall grand opening and dinner. Will post more tomorrow!

VLB

Mid-Winter!

Tomorrow I leave for ALA Mid-Winter…I hope to be blogging regularly while I’m there. I do have a “new year’s resolutions” post waiting in draft form…hope to post that soon too.

The life of this “library goddess” is a busy one!

 Have a wonderful weekend and I hope to entertain you with posts from Mid-Winter!

VBF