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.