Thanks to the grant from Prairielands, I was able to attend the annual Association for Rural and Small Libraries conference in Springfield, Massachusetts from September 11-14.
One of the highlights of the conference was being able to see members of my cohort from the Rural Library Network cohort from Save the Children and Berea College. This fellowship was formed in late 2021 to work to improve reading levels up to 3rd grade. The fellowship was a two-year project that ended in 2023, but my cohort members and I keep in touch and very much enjoy sharing ideas in person when able.
Another highlight was presenting for the first time at a conference. I gave a presentation about our library’s partnership with our local Farm Bureau, which was very well received. I had many people come to me after the presentation (and throughout the remainder of the conference) to tell me how much they liked the presentation and that they were planning to contact their local Farm Bureaus when they got back home. I was really glad to have been able to share that information in a national conference setting.
I went to some interesting sessions, like how to use local lore for programming. The librarian leading the presentation mentioned they have several “Bigfoot experts” living nearby (alas, we do not), so it might be a little hard to replicate, but it was fun to learn what they did.
Other sessions included one on preparing for book challenges, and I was pleased to discover we had already done all the things they had suggested. While I didn’t come away from that program with anything new, I came away with a sense of pride in our library and our library staff that we are prepared and knew to be prepared before anyone had to tell us to do so.
Overall, it was a great conference. Next year is in Albuquerque, and I am hopeful I’ll be able to attend that ARSL conference as well. Thank you for the opportunity!