Charlotte Decker, librarian at the Children's Learning Center at the Public Library of Cincinatti and Hamilton County, engaged a full house of librarians and teachers when she booktalked over 100 Books Too Good to Miss for Tweens and Teens.  (Charlotte wowed the crowd Wednesday with books for the younger crowd.)   Bookcover pics on PowerPoint accompany each enticing summary and editorial.  She includes sub-genres such as 'Bullying," "In the News," "Environmental Issues," "Steam Punk," "Art Themes," "Sports." and "Dystopic Novels."   I hope to include half of her distinguished list in my 2011 budget. 

Schools and Libraries for the Net Generation
Mankato MN Public Schools are lucky to have Doug Johnson as their Director of Media & Technology.  Find his presentation in wiki form at http://dougjohnson.wikispaces.com.  All of his stuff is on Creative Commons so we have his permission to share it with others.  It all revolved around NetGens (b. 1982-2000) and their demographics, values, and learning styles, as well as their use of information and technology. He explained that it will be easier to change the way we teach than to change the way students learn. 

Taking Care of Business
President Nancy Schmidtmann made sure this year's business meeting took place in 65 minutes in our Convention Center room.  Boxed lunches were gobbled and minutes and other handouts were read.  Sr. Mary Gallagher retired her post as editor of Catholic Library World and was properly lauded and gifted with a quilt, photo plaque, and baseball tickets!  Maxine Lucas, website committee chair, announced the new CLA website and urged us to check out and comment on the enhancements at http://www.cathla.org/newsite/ before it's officially launched.  Drexel University will extend CLA members a 20% discount on its online Library Programs!  Sara Baron gave us the recent CLA survey results and asked us all to fill out the Heritage Fund questionnaire.  The Heritage Fund will help us head to 100 years of excellence:  1921--2021.  I asked Sr. Jean Bostley, SSJ, "How many folks registered for the CLA Convention?" and she answered, "65, but there were 150 total librarians registered for NCEA.  We'll work to recruit those 85 non-members!"  The Academic section has officially changed its name to Academic Libraries, Archives, & Library Education. Chapter and Section Committee chair Annette Thibodeaux reminded us to book our room at the Hilton in New Orleans for April 26--29, 2011 asap since the Jazz Fest happens that weekend.  Laissez le bontemps roulez!

One last run through the Exhibits scored me some freebie Abbey press booklets for teens and adults, as well as the World Book "Cite It Right" posters with citation examples based on the new MLA 7.  Thank goodness my roommates Eileen and Julanne are driving home Friday and have room for this flyer's excess Convention schwag! 

Now to meet Kathy Steves, Eileen Franke,  Julanne Good and Sara Baron for supper at the Foshay...
  
 

Closed Auditorium doors couldn't keep this girl from seeing her favorite radio man from up north--Garrison Keillor!  I made it in--phew--only to have to wait 30 minutes while the Twin Cities' Community Gospel Choir praised God in song, bringing us to our feet with a spirited version of  "O Happy Day!"  The multitudes in the auditorium and the overflow ballroom were warmed up now.  Garrison came on singing too--only a more traditional hymn that gradually grew funnier.  He impressed us with his stories and descriptions of family life.  At 67, he has a 12-year-old daughter, and realizes how nice it is that he can deliver her five days a week into teachers' capable care.  He counts on us to educators to save him from the fate of parenthood.  Some of the pierced teens he meets look as if they've "fallen face first in a tacklebox."     He had a depressing Easter, but, as the Norwegians say, "it could be worse."  When the bard described "March" he called it the "month that God created to show people who don't drink what a hangover is like."  He mentioned the schools and churches in St.Paul/Minneapolis and his start at KSJN radio.  He urged us to "Teach your children...and teach your children to do something about nursing homes.  I'm going to in one in the next 10 years."   Ask me about his Uncle Jack story if you wish!

The Flint, MI born & raised, current Minneapolis dweller, Patrick Jones, presented a zippy, intense talk about how "Things Keep Changing:  the Flux of YA Fiction.."  The students he works with wear uniforms too--orange jumpsuits.  He works at the Juvenile Detention Center.  He sees kids who formerly read no books, now like reading.  Surveys show how they go from believing that they're bad readers to believing that they're good readers.  Patrick's books offer mirrors to their readers.  They are trying to answer the big adolescent question, "Who Am I?"   They start to find mirrors. When young people read books they see into the head of another.  They have empathy for others.  Literature allows kids to experience empathy.  When this happens, things change.  I can't wait to bring his books Things Change, Nail, Chasing Taillights, Cheated, and The Tear Collector to my students and see how they connect, feel empathy, and find answers on their journey from who they are now and who they want to be.

Regina Medal Luncheon
The fifty-second annual luncheon at the Hilton's Rochester Room honored Gail Gibbons--author/illustrator of 160+ children's nonfiction titles!  Her talk later at the Convention Center was overflowing--and her booksigning line long.  My lucky nephew Godson Noah will soon know more about baseball, seeds & plants, dinosaurs, and frogs.  Next year they hope to have book sales close to the talk and signing too.

Information Literacy:  The Bridge from High School to College presented by Minneapolis academic librarians Donna Nix, Janice Kragness, and Marianne Hageman can be found at http://www.stthomas.edu/libraries/presentations/documents/BridgingGapNCEA2010.ppt
Core articles used for their research are: 
Islam, R.L., & Murno, L.A. (2006). From perceptions to connections:  Informing information literacy program planning in academic libraries through examination of high school library media center curricula.  College & Research Libraries, 67(6), 492-514. Retrieved from http://crl.acrl.org/
and
Zoeller, K., & Potter, C. (2008, June). Library instruction and resources across the education continuum:  Assessing the relationship between western Montana high schools and the University of Montana.  Poster session presented at the meeting of the American Library Association, Anaheim, CA. 

Mass for Deceased CLA Members
4:30--5:30 pm in Room 205D at the Convention Center
Rev. Kenneth O'Malley, O.P. took us on the road to Emmaus again in another excellent mass for about 30 of our CLA brethren.

Dead Sea Scrolls and St. John's Bible
2200 year-old and brand new works were on display at the Science Museum of Minnesota.  Your intrepid blogger along with 500 other pilgrims motor-coached through the Bon Jovi concert traffic southeasterly to the excellent museum by the Mississippi.  We waited in line for the  Mediterranean feast foods, paid for our wine, and walked up and down the musical steps, and gazed upon the shards of the ancient settlement known as Khirbet Qumran.  In 1947 a bedouin shepherd follows the trail of a missing goat into a cave near the dead sea east of Jerusalem and discovered the first of the scrolls.  (Note: A goat was also involved in the discovery of my favorite beverage--coffee--although this happened in Yemen.)  Radiocarbon testing and paleographic research confirmed that the scrolls dated to the centuries between 250 BCE and 68 CE. 

Modern scribes led by Donald Jackson in his Welsh scriptorium and  St. John's University's Hill Museum & Manuscript Library are almost finished with this magnificent work!  The seven folio-sized works together sell for $145,000.  We mere mortals may purchase the five completed affordable versions from amazon for approx. $50 each.  The artwork blends the traditional with the modern styles--somewhat reminiscent to one of  this book nerd's favorite book artist of the 80s and 90s--Nick Bantock. 
Completion date for all 7 volumes is set for Christmas 2011.  Stay tuned!




 

  

The word overheard in the Sky Water restaurant...
At 2:30 pm today Sarah Palin has a Tea Party in the Minneapolis Convention Center.  I believe I'll have more coffee please...
Thank God I'll listen to Garrison Keillor from 9--10:15 am this morning. 

Hurrah for public transport!  Light Rail and the free bus dropped me near the downtown Hilton on 11th Street and Marquette.   Since there were no clean rooms in the inn I stashed my stuff with the bellhops and walked the space station-like walkways to the Convention Center.  A quick scan of the barcode on my Convention registration printout and I was in!   Hundreds of folks were already seated in the adjacent ballroom.  After a few minutes I realized they were watching a screen--not a real person.  Determined to find where the real action was taking place, I strode purposefully around to the Auditorium, found a rare, vacant seat down in the front left, and took in the humorous Father James Martin, SJ's laughter list--10 reasons joy, humor and laughter deserve a place in life and teaching.   From 2--3 pm he signed his books and dvd that I purchased--The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything (Harper, 2010), My Lfe with the Saints (Loyola, 2007) in print and dvd.  I snapped up the second-to-last copy of  My Life... from the Loyola booth. 

Before the booksigning I, along with 42 others, furthered our knowledge of Preparing for and Facing a Challenge in our School Library thanks to Helen Adams.  Now an online instructor at Mansfield University, she had worked for years in public schools and has been very involved with ALAs Office of Intellectual Freedom.   Her books include Ensuring Information Freedom and Access to Information in the School Library Media Program  and Privacy in the 21st Century:  Issues for Public, School, and Academic Libraries  --both from Libraries Unlimited.   Did you know that in 2001--2008 there were 3,736 book challenges, and that it's estimated that only 20% of total actual challenges were reported?  ALA will announce the "Top 10 Challenged Books for 2009" in May 2010.  The first "Choose Privacy Week" is May 2--8, 2010.  Students have a right to check out what they want and to research the topics they want.  Helen asked us to bring these ideas home:  *Begin preparing for a challenge NOW!  *Create/revise selection process with review process.  (She highly recommended our CLA publication Developing the Library Collection:  a Workbook of Polices and Resources available from http://www.cathla.org) *Use strategies to overcome self-censorship *If a challenge occurs, seek help.  Contact me if you wish to learn more about Helen's great presentation.

Helen Adams and Annette Thibodeaux reunited at the High School section breakout session!  They  discovered that they had both volunteered in Spring 2006 to help rebuild the New Orleans school library of Our Lady of Prompt Succor.  The seven of us in the group discussed future newsletter topics to promote the 2011 CLA Convention in New Orleans.  We'll get the word out early about the high school/young adult program and offer Friday school/library tours.  Since CLA celebrates 90 years of existence in 2011 we also discussed our part of the CLA Timeline (like NCEAs).  We may also create a bookmark to promote the Katherine Drexel YA writer award winners since 2002 and the Certificate of Merit YA award winners from 1966--2001.

Opening Awards Dinner
 The Rochester Room was abuzz with CLA members mingling with drinks from the bar and books from Red Balloon bookstore.  I was honored to sit right next to our YA author Katherine Drexel award winner Jacqueline Woodson, and across from one of my heroes--the 2006 Drexel winner Patrick Jones.  Oh what a night!   It was great that we honored California high school librarian Maxine Lucas with the Mary A. Grant Volunteer Service Award.  Father Virgilio Elizondo was the 19th recipient of the scholarly Jerome Award, and Bari Colombari, senior research editor, accepted the Aggiornamento Award for Oregon Catholic Press. 

Kudos to the Wisconsin Chapter for being such excellent site organizers for this 89th Annual Convention in Minneapolis.  
  

Keep track of the hippest happenings at the National CLA Convention in Minneapolis, MN.      Garrison Keillor, Patrick Jones, and Doug Johnson look out, here I come.  Bring on the flights, hotel, exhibitors, workshops, lunches, dinners, old friends and new!  Please feel free to ask questions or make comments along the way.