AISL Day 1!

As Day 1 of the AISLATL conference winds down, I want to share with you some highlights, but I don’t want to limit it to just my voice. I will share with you some moments that stick out to me, but even better, I want you to hear the voice of other Board members.

Living in Upstate New York, I honestly haven’t seen the sun in weeks. Landing in Atlanta, I laughed as I heard other ride share passengers complaining about how cold they were. It was mid 60’s and sunny. It has only gotten more beautiful from there. We spent the first half of the day today at the lovely Marist school. In a true moment of serendipity, I sat next to a new person on the bus, the lovely Lia Carruthers, who ended up being a mentor I had been matched with. Lia is the library whisperer. She has energy to spare and has set up two libraries, one in Utah and her current library in New Jersey. My notes are copious.

At Marist, I attended a great session on creating an interactive research tutorial using tech to flip information literacy lessons and then finally, I got to attend a Dave Wee session. We want more Dave Wee! Dave introduced a fantastic worksheet to guide our thinking when setting goals and approaching colleagues, anticipating challenges, and planning our elevator pitch. My bus buddy to the Coca Cola museum was another new friend, Lisa from Toronto, who inspired me with talk of her school’s service trip to Tanzania and filled my notebook with ideas on how to create a boy friendly library (has anyone heard of botcubes?) I need fidget cubes, play doh, and legos people, STAT! I could go on. Today was awesome. I can hardly wait for tomorrow.

Now, some thoughts from other Board members on their Day 1:

Each year as the time for our annual conference approaches, I am excited but I also generally wonder if this is really the best time to be away. There is always so much to do and many items to cross off the to-do list before I can leave Dallas. This year was no exception, in fact the last couple of weeks have felt especially busy and full. At the start of each conference however, I am always reminded why I continue to venture to the host city and engage in this exceptional opportunity for professional development. I am so grateful that I can identify AISL as my community—I also feel so honored to be a part of this talented, fun, and intelligent group. I learn something from each session and every encounter. Yesterday, after I had gathered my luggage and made my way out to the curb to get a cab, I immediately spied a few familiar faces and was welcomed in to share a ride to the hotel. I think this was my defining moment and explains our group’s appeal—I had found my people! Thank you Atlanta for organizing this family reunion! I look forward to two more days jam packed with experiences and know that I will take so much with me back to Ursuline.
-Renee Chevallier

I am loving this conference and the hospitality of our hosts! Marist has a beautiful campus.
I thought the board books discussion was a highlight. I appreciated the option of moving between the book choices and how quickly we were able to shift from critical analysis and pedagogy to getting to know each other. I left looking forward to continuing several discussions in the morning.
Outside of the library world, watching the whale shark feeding was amazing.
-Christina Pommer

I got a charge out of the interactive research tutorial session this morning. I am not a particularly engaging speaker, and I always have more to say than a middle schooler’s attention span would allow. So this was a great idea to get the point across without causing my audience to fall asleep!

-Kate Patin

It has been an exceptional day of meetings. My big take-away was the concept of the “No paper research paper project.”  I took copious notes on the concept and execution. The ‘aha’ moments for me were faculty collaboration, teaching research skills to freshmen, and “good quality source material is NOT FREE!”
-Tinsley

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