Golden Gate Bridge equals opportunity, Lucasfilms Studio equals creativity, Kwame Alexander giving the Newbery Award acceptance speech equals diversity, persistence and excellence. Three powerful ingredients all coming together with thousands of librarians and their very different populations, settings and most importantly in my opinion, different points of view.
What will have changed when we leave? Libraries? Librarians? Us?
I come to this from the perspective of a public librarian..a children’s instructor and research specialist to read from my name tag. What do I need from this conference to feel more empowered? Who is here who can inform me? Inspire me? Give me a new view of what I do?
I’m about to hop on a plane and risk finding out. I expect to meet people from all over the world and especially from all over the U.S. I am always amazed at the different job descriptions of librarians depending on where they work on the planet. So good to talk to people outside your own system and your own way of doing it “right.”
What do I bring to the conference? What can I share with others that they might take home for themselves?
My answer to that question is this: I believe it’s time to focus on “Who is the reader?” I think we can move our profession forward into the 22nd, 23rd, 24th centuries and beyond simply by becoming tuned into WHO the reader is. I am talking about how they are wired.
We all hear about the different types of intelligence. We all hear about the different types of learners. Over the past 20 years I have come to see different types of readers…and they are looking for books that mirror their internal wiring diagram..and their personal situation.
What if we all went home and looked at each “customer” and asked the question..Who are You? And then, what if we could “know” what books that “type” of reader would love? Find those books that open the door to a lifelong love of reading.
I hope we talk about it…and I hope we get really, really good at it…it would be an amazing gift to give every child and even every adult in our library world.
Kary Henry
Thank you for this very thoughtful piece. Even though I’m not at the conference, I really like how you’ve framed the questions on who inspires us/informsus and how can we inspire and inform others or even ourselves.