Last weekend I got to go to ALA Midwinter Meeting in Boston!e
The first $500 toward the cost was paid by a scholarship from the Friends of George Mason Regional Library for staff to go to training. I’m very grateful!
At the conference I learned lots of things, met fascinating authors, got to attend the Youth Media Awards, and sent home 101 books!
I was so blessed to be able to go!
So — It’s kind of a funny thing. I got on ALSC’s Grants Administration Committee as a way of doing my time in hopes I’d be considered a good candidate for the Newbery Committee some day. After two years on the Children and Technology Committee, I did two years on the Grants Administration Committee — and this year I’m committee chair.
The funny thing? I’m really enjoying it. Yes, it is tough to evaluate the different applications. (Fortunately, it’s not all up to me. We’ve got a committee for that.) But hearing what people are doing in their libraries helps make me excited about being a librarian. And touching the lives of children.
And now I get to help generous people give money to help that happen for other librarians in other libraries. And that’s a blessing.
I’m doing a program once a month where I put out a whole lot of board games and card games that build math skills — and ask only that parents play with their kids.
Today, again, it was just beautiful. 25 people came. Parents were clearly enjoying the time with their kids and kids were learning and having fun both. And it just did my heart good to see it.
It’s a blessing for me to get to have a small part in touching families in this way.
Today a big blessing happened when I was working on the desk in the Virginia Room.
She wanted to know if Thomas Jefferson Library was the same library that had once been located in a townhouse in Jefferson Village Apartments.
I told her I’d call her back, and ended up finding the information quickly in a book on the history of the first 50 years of Fairfax County Public Library.
Yes, Thomas Jefferson library started in the back of a barber shop and moved to an apartment in Jefferson Village Apartments in 1954. They used every part of the apartment. There was a picture of bookshelves in the bathtub! In 1962, they moved into a more traditional library building.
But the heart-warming part came when I called the lady back. She said that library in Jefferson Village Apartments was a “life-saver” and made a huge difference in her life. She started going on and on about what good work we do in libraries. (I think she’s going to be arranging to give money to Thomas Jefferson Library.) It was a nice little reminder that libraries change lives and sent me on the rest of my day smiling.