CSLA 2008--Day 2

Today began with the first general session. These sessions are held in a large hall, so that anyone attending the conference may come and get inspired. The speaker is often not a librarian, but someone who is an enthusiastic supporter of reading and libraries. This year‘s speaker was Joe McHugh, a professional storyteller, author and public radio producer. His talk was titled Slaying the Gorgon: Storytelling and Media in the Electronic Age. In a humorous and well-paced presentation, he reminded us that we need to be concerned about who controls the stories that our young people use to build their world views.

After the general session, there was what is called exclusive exhibit time. This is time set aside so people can visit the exhibits without feeling guilty about missing sessions. I purchased some books and videos and picked up some more candy for you library science students.
Next was the first of the concurrent sessions. Out of twelve different topics to choose from, there were 4 I wanted to go to, so the hardest part was choosing which one to sit in on. I finally selected the session on a world lit reading program presented by a teacher and a librarian from the Toronto (Canada) French School. Some of the books on their list are also used in our school.

All that and it was just time for lunch.

In the afternoon I had to make some more tough choices. First I went to a session called How Science Fiction Taught Me Physics, Psychology, and History Among Other Subjects. I was hoping to pick up some ideas to share with teachers of those subjects. While interesting in other ways, the presentation didn’t include any specific details about the connection between sci fi and the subject areas. Sometimes titles are misleading. The last session I attended was exactly as described--ideas for leading the faculty in learning about Web 2.0 tools using Classroom Learning 2.0 (http://classroomlearning2.blogspot.com/). Extra credit will be given to anyone who checks out the blog and writes up a paper on why we should do some of the 23 activities as part of our class.

In the evening there were several receptions. I attended Gale/Cengage reception. There were gift bags for those who had RSVPed (oops-I forgot) and appetizers for all. In addition the company previewed their new online database.

The second reception was the President’s Reception. This is sponsored by several publishers of children’s books. In addition to a gift bag of books, we were treated to desserts and a live old-time radio theatre production directed by Joseph McHugh. It was a lot of fun to watch, because the voice actors were some of our fellow librarians.

Tomorrow: More concurrent sessions and the CYRM award banquet.