ARRTCon 2019 Recap, Thank Yous, and Content Access

Yesterday the Adult Reading Round Table hosted our every other year, full day RA Conference-- ARRTCon. Click here for the schedule and details.

We were at literal capacity and had people drive from as far away as Columbus, OH and Central Indiana to join us.

To the right is a picture of that crowd taken from the back of the room by Steering Committee member Emily Vinci during Library Reads Executive Director, Rebecca Vnuk's Keynote address to start the day.

Which reminds me, I want to begin by thanking our sponsors, Library Reads, Sourcebooks, and NoveList. All sponsors provided us with presenters for the event at no cost to ARRT. Sourcebooks provided a Book Buzz [handouts will be available to all online] and brought enough ARCs from across all adult genres and nonfiction for everyone to take at least 3 home. NoveList not only sent someone to present about using themes in the database, but also paid an honorarium to our guest author, Gabino Iglesias.

Speaking of Iglesias, to say he knocked it out of the park would be an understatement. I was receiving texts and DMs during his talk from ppl in the audience praising him. To the left is the Tweet I did of the title of his keynote and a picture of him beginning that address with a reading from his book Coyote Songs.

Now to the recap of what happened at ARRTCon. I have created a single search link all of the Twitter activity during the day. Click here to pull it up. And remember you do not need to have a Twitter Account in order to view the Tweets. Taken together they serve as notes for the day. Please note however, there were 3 times during the day when there were 3 breakout sessions going on at the same time. That could make the conversation during those times, a experienced through Tweets, a little more confusing

ARRT has also created a page listing all of the presentations and break out sessions with a place to link the handouts. As of right now, not every presenter has turned in their slides, but mine are up for my presentation: #Own Voices for All Readers: Incorporating EDI Values into Readers' Advisory Service.

Save the link, or you can visit the ARRT Programs page anytime to find it later. We are hoping to have all of the slides and handouts posted by early next week.

I know not all of my readers could be there, but I hope that the Tweets, handouts and slide access will help you all get something out of the day of learning we presented yesterday.

And finally, I want to give a special thank you to the staff at the Naperville Public Library, 95th Street Branch, and in particular, their building manager, Ellen Conlin and the entire facilities staff who set up and took down all of the tables and chairs and made sure garbage cans we emptied and available. Ellen herself was pitching in throughout the day. Everything went smoothly and much of that is because of the help we received [at no cost to ARRT]. Thank you all.