What a treat to attend the Association of Rural & Small Libraries annual conference in our neck of the woods! Love my How FAR Can You Go? ‘North of Normal’ cloth tote bag. The ear flap hat design is very clever! I guess the ‘North of Normal’ moniker is an official City of Fargo marketing tagline. Very good tagline, inspires one to think what a tagline could do for and be used for a library!

To have the opportunity to network with literally hundreds of librarians was my favorite part of the conference and I have at least 10 new librarian business cards to show for it. I attended a couple outside conference hours that took me by surprise and delighted – ARSL Games Night, where my eyes widened during our librarian ‘Cards Against Humanity’ game – and I went to my very first ‘Rocky Horror Picture Show’ at the historic downtown Fargo Theater with 9 librarians! In addition, it was fun to get to know a group of PLS librarians while eating out on Thursday night.

It was very hard to pick sessions during the conference with up to 7 choices per time slot! Nearly all sessions resonated with me. I sat in on – Librarian as Salesman – Bringing Trivia Night into the 21st Century with Kahoot (where you can create your own multi-player online trivia game with timer and scoring) – Hack It, Sew It, Fold It, Squish It (great hands-on lessons) – Teenagers Assemble! (a really good group presentation from Logan Utah) – How to break up boredom for your patrons – Active Stem Programs on a Shoestring Budget (starnetlibraries.org) – Digitize It Yourself (a fascinating speaker and demo) – Backpacks and Cache Boxes: Self-Directed Family Programs – and Reaching the Teachers.

The variety of author speakers was very good, all local writers – for leadership (Jodee Bock), for inspiration (Betty Gronneberg uCodeGirl), and to rub shoulders with the famous (Will Weaver, Wiliam Kent Krueger and Lorna Landvik).

Thank You SAMMIE for your scholarship program, couldn’t have done this without you!