Tweets and Tech, a Beginning of a Conference #alsc16

Tech issues and discovering live tweeting made the beginning of the #alsc16 Virtual Institute a fun and connecting experience.

I couldn’t log in to the introduction or the keynote speech for quite some time. However, I knew that librarians would be on Twitter and on the blog. So, I joined a national Twitter conversation for the first time. If you check my handle, @jryde14, you’ll see a silly exchange between myself and other librarians sharing tech issue tea party memes. It took about 40 minutes for tech services to sort out the bugs. In that time, I had the opportunity to connect with other librarians, stay informed on the progress of the tech fixes, and was able to revisit the role I would be playing as a guest blogger.

Once I was able to connect to live sessions, I listened to two sessions covering the challenging topic of diversity in literature. The keynote speech and the following session discussing diversity of families in picture books contained thought provoking and informative direction. For example, librarians should open themselves to learn more about our patrons. We must find literature that provides a positive and affirming portrait of differences in children and families. Ultimately, we need to be able to share these books with families, acknowledge differences between each other, and initiate conversations that value different types of families and experiences. That sounds like a lot of things we need to do, but it’s what will help us serve diverse patrons. 

These are conversations we need to be having with each other, our patrons, and our communities to bring the best possible services to the children we serve. I’m sure other live bloggers will go into more detail about these sessions. This is a challenging but vital topic that touches everyone. 

For myself, I value the experience of live, virtual connections with other librarians. It’s really cool to be learning in concert with scores of librarians throughout the country. I get to connect with people without the expense of attending a conference out of town. This community will disseminate these reading lists, talking points, and fun experiences with colleagues through Twitter. That’s pretty rad.

Time to learn more from experts and each other about inexpensive STEM programs and resources.