This year was filled with highlights and a few lowlights – but why dwell on the latter? The most important thing for me this year was learning with, and from, my friends, peers and colleagues. Some are librarians, some administrators, others teachers or “civilians”: my professional life has been made richer by knowing them. Note that I’m not using the overused acronym PLN or PLE, because I think a less jargon-filled world is a good thing.
The Year in Learning
2011 started with a bang, as I attended ALA Midwinter in San Diego to work with a committee or two and start planning joint presentations. March brought Computers in Libraries in DC, June was the College Bound Students and Independent School Librarians day in Boston (posts here and here), ALA Annual in NOLA (posts here and here), and the conferences ended with AASL in Minneapolis (posts here, here, here and here). One of the lovely things about our digital age is that I could “attend” conferences from the comfort of my home – January’s Educon (for the second year, virtual wasn’t as good as being there) and the SLJ/LJ E-Book Summit in October. Other travel opportunities took me to Seattle, Atlanta and to a few local (NYC Metro area) schools – it’s always fascinating to see what others are doing in their schools).
2012 promises to be equally interesting, with travel/conferences already planned for Dallas, Philadelphia, Chicago and Anaheim!
The Year in Sharing
This past year was particularly filled with presenting and publishing, both of which are really useful tools for me in sharpening my thinking and questioning my ideas. So many thanks to my co-presenters for their inspiration, and to audiences of peers for allowing me to blather on about Collections for Today and Tomorow: How “e” to Be (CIL/March), Rethinking Reference Resources (SWBOCES/April), Making Lemons from Lemonade (ASLA/June), Disaster Preparation for School Librarians, From Gutenberg to Glogs…, and Best Practices in Library Websites for Teens (all ALA/June), E-Thinking in Independent Schools (TEC/July), From 140 Characters to 10 Pages (YALSA/August – login required) and Books, E-Ink and Databases (AASL/October). It was also a particular honor to write for EdTech (Checking Out the E-Library).
Here in cyberspace, the following blog posts attracted attention:
- The Role of Reading
- Not Drinking the Kool-Aid
- You Want Irony? #AASL Gives You Irony (note: they’ve “fixed” the problem)
- The Right Tool for the Task
- “I Should Just Retire”
- Curated v Collected
Enjoy the look back… and stay tuned for whatever 2012 brings.
Venn Librarian 