Notes from Michael Dowling, Director of Chapter Relations, on his visit to the Florida Library Association meeting.

Last week I joined over 800 members gathered at the Buena Vista Palace Hotel for the Florida Library Association Conference, whose theme 'Libraries Tell Stories.' Stephen Abrahms, Vice President for Sirsi/Dynix keynoted the conference with the sobering fact that change will be even more rapid in the future than in the past 15 years. Librarians need to focus on being able to answer 'How' and Why' instead of 'Who' What' 'When.' I was able to attend the FLA Intellectual Freedom Committee for an update on the attempt by the Miami Dade County School Board to ban the book 'Vamos A Cuba'. FLA filed an amicus brief in the case and though the U.S. District Court over-ruled the ban the School Board is appealing to the 11th Circuit Court. 'Gaming' was another hot topic at the conference. Pasco County Library System opens two of its libraries after hours one Friday a month for a Game Night. Teens and preteens love it, as do the parents.

Michael Dowling
Director
ALA Chapter Relations Office

Writing today from ACRL's 13th National Conference in Baltimore. Today (Thursday) through Sunday, thousands of attendees from academic, college and research libraries will participate in some of the best continuing education, networking and idea sharing anywhere in the library world. Over 100 exhibitors are showcasing the latest products, services, and innovations. Dozens of daily presentations in the “Cyber Zed Shed” focus on emerging technology and its applications in your library. Rich and engaging programming that touches all aspects of serving the academic community are the norm. There are 120 poster sessions on Saturday alone! 50 Round Table Topic Talks are scheduled on Friday. Very glad to be here and helping people to make connections to ACRL and other ALA units.

Can't make it to Baltimore?

You can still participate in the ACRL 13th National Conference online. The ACRL Virtual Conference, held completely online, will include live, interactive webcasts of select speakers, as well as text-based discussion boards, blogs, speaker materials and more.

This is a great idea. Sixteen live, interactive webcasts will be held on Friday, March 30, and Saturday, March 31 for registered virtual attendees. http://www.ala.org/ala/acrl/acrlevents/baltimore/virtual/virtual07.htm has all the detail on what is being offered when. Registration starts at $75.00 for students and $195 for ACRL members. See you in Baltimore, or on the internets....

Cathleen Bourdon, Associate Executive Director for Communications and Member Relations, traveled to the joint conference for NMLA & MPLA last week and files this report:

I joined the more than 700 attendees at the joint conference of the New Mexico Library Association and the Mountain Plains Library Association, March 14-16 in Albuquerque, NM. The conference co-chairs, Louise Hoffman and Wayne Hanway did a great job in offering more than 70 programs on everything from the care and feeding of your teen advisory board to exploring the deep web.

The conference kicked off with the always entertaining and thought provoking American Libraries’ columnist, Joe Janes. Joe challenged the attendees to do everything they can to make the library more central to the informational lives of their library users. He urged the SRO crowd to go where their users are –YouTube, MySpace, Facebook – and to contribute to blogs and wikis. In a gentle nudge to ALA, he stated that Jenny Levine and her blog http://www.theshiftedlibrarian.com/ are still cool, even though she’s now working for ALA!

At the awards banquet, New Mexico ALA Chapter Councilor Thaddeus Bejnar was awarded Honorary Life Membership in the NMLA in recognition of his outstanding service to the profession. Congratulations Thaddeus!

No trip to Albuquerque would be complete without a bit of sightseeing and I hiked to Old Town to check out the shops and museums. A highlight for me was visiting the Rattlesnake Museum - that’s something we sure don’t have in Chicago.

Michael Dowling, Director of ALA's Chapter Relations Officee 2007 Louisiana Library Association (LLA) conference in Baton Rouge last week and files this report:

I had the pleasure of attending the Louisiana Library Association Conference in Baton Rouge last week, to reconnect with colleagues that ALA has worked with for the last 18 months since Hurricanes Katrina and Rita devastated the Gulf region. The spirit of librarians and library workers in Louisiana continues to amaze me as they slowly rebuild.

Thanks to donations from you, ALA has been able to send $250,000 to help with the rebuilding through targeted grants. Libraries in Louisiana still need our help. Twenty public library locations remain closed, and even more school libraries are shuttered. Southern University-New Orleans Library is still operating of just one double wide trailer. To get updates on the situation and to make a donation or learn how to adopt a library visit www.ala.org/Katrina.

Nearly 1,000 members volunteered during Annual Conference 2007 around New Orleans. Click through on this banner -

to view photos of the volunteers in action. Much more needs to be done to rebuild both lives and infrastructure. Contributing to the Katrina Relief Fund will help directly affect the speed and success of rebuilding efforts in libraries across the gulf.