RISE UP!-- ILA Annual Is Coming

And yes, we will all be singing Hamilton, all week. Ear worm central at Rise Up! this year. Ha.

But seriously, I love the ILA Annual Conference. I love it so much RA for All is a Silver Partner for the third year in a row. Librarians, that means you can thank me for at least 1 day of your coffee. [You’re welcome, by the way.]

I love the ILA Annual Conference because it is my state’s library conference. This is where I can go to see what my local colleagues are doing, how they are helping patrons, and what ideas they want to share with everyone-- all in one place.

You can click here for the full program book.

I know I have readers all over the country [and world- waves to my Australian friends], but I think every one of my readers, no mater where you live, can learn something from what will be going on at ILA next week, so I am going to be reporting from the conference Tuesday-Thursday next week. Look for my posts later in the day as I will overview what I did and saw. I hope these reports will give you a sense of some new and exciting ideas on ways to serve your patrons and lead you to a whole bunch of new resources.

I also hope that this inspires some of you, in other states, to share your state library conference experiences with me and my readers in the future. Contact me if you are interested.

But first, here is a quick preview of the things that I am involved in that are happening at the conference next week:

On Tuesday, October 10th I will be honored for being an Illinois Library Luminary at the annual awards luncheon.  I will also be celebrating the 2017 winner of the ARRT sponsored Readers’ Advisory Service Award, Debbie Hoffman from Warren-Newport  Public Library. Please click here for the press release with all of the details.

On Thursday, I will be on a panel talking about my experiences as an elected official:

And later in the day I will be hosting and moderating a panel on diversity:

Please note, Sonali Dev will be staying to sign books after this program. We will have a limited number of copies of her most recent book for sale, but she will also sign your personal or library copies of any of her books.  ARRT is the sponsor of this program and we intend for it to be “Part 2” of our ongoing conversation about diverse books which we began here back in June.

But those are just the things I am involved in personally. I am most looking forward to learning from everyone else, and then reporting back to you.

If you are going to be at ILA, stop me and say hi.