I did it again and it was fun

Here is that update I promised you yesterday about my adventures at PNLA. This morning I went to a great session covering recent award-winning books written in or on the Pacific Northwest. Here are just a few of the titles that we discussed and heard excerpts from, along with their call numbers so that you can check them out for yourself if you like:

The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate Dicamillo (J DICAMIL)

My One Hundred Adventures by Polly Horvath (J HORVATH)

Life as We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer (Y PFEFFER)

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne (Y BOYNE) (also on DVD)

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie (Y ALEXIE)

The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein (STEIN)

Full-Court Quest: The Girls From Fort Shaw Indian School Basketball Champions of the World by Linda Peavy and Ursula Smith (796.323 PEAVY)


There are many more I could mention, but it's time for me to go back and attend my afternoon classes now. Tales of a Roving Librarian awaits my arrival. Come check out these books, if you get to them before I do, that is...

What I did today

Checked in books? Worked in Web Alley? Shelved carts? Not today. Maybe on any other day, but today I was at the Pacific Northwest Library Association (PNLA) Conference. In some exotic locale on a sun-drenched beach? Not at all, actually. Right here in our own fair city, mere blocks from Missoula Public Library itself. How convenient is that?

And what is this PNLA thing all about anyway? Well, it's a chance for library staff to improve themselves by taking classes in all sorts of things from cutting edge technology to forums on radical new ideas in library management. It's enough to fairly take a librarian's breath away, I tell you. Myself, I was bombarded with a whirlwind of information on Website management and the use of Flickr in collection development, which I hope to put into use in the near future.

Was it fun? Oh, yeah! In fact, it was so much fun that I think I'll go back tomorrow and do it again. Stay tuned for an update...