[CALIBK12] ALA highlights: Wow

[Pilling, George]

The wow factor at ALA was the main thing. It's huge! It's eclectic! It's
fun!  Lot's of free stuff! All of us looked for our own interests, of
course.

I spent 75% of my time in the exhibits (some of the sessions I went to
were disappointing, but the exhibits never were.)
Exhibitors who specifically praised California School librarians:
Kevin Brown of BayScan - they have been really helpful to many of us
with our barcode and circulation equipment questions
Bound to Stay Bound
Perma-Bound
Scholastic Library publishing
Demco - Kim Gilton, the new rep
Follett
And others...

The author signings were great. I met many authors and saw many friends
there. 

Best technology idea:
Hack your software program so it can act like a wiki or a blog and
patrons can add book reviews to a record on the fly. I am talking to my
tech people.

The California Gaming game throughout the center was fun. School
librarians were in the lead briefly.  - we should do it at CSLA... does
anyone want to work with me on this?

The California Girls School librarian team in the Demco Library Cart
Drill Team trials. They may not have won, but they were great. 

Sally Ride's talk about girls and science. How we all unconsciously
discourage them, and what we can do to change this. 
Dr. Brazelton's speech about early childhood development. I wish I were
as knowledgeable and with it as he is - and he is over 90!

Worst moment - at the post office when a person found out that it would
cost $200 to mail a package to Macedonia and she got away before we
could take up a collection (the lines were long and fun.)


George Pilling
District Library Media Supervisor
Visalia Unified School District
5000 W. Cypress Avenue
Visalia  CA  93277
 
(559) 730-7349
FAX (559) 730-7693
gpilling at visalia.k12.ca.us
http://visalia.k12.ca.us/library
www.tucolib.net