![\"Welcome!](\"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/May-1.jpg\")
<\/a>I kicked off last month at the Illinois Youth Services Institute<\/a>, in Normal, presenting on Media Mentorship<\/a> with one of the co-authors of our white paper on the topic and newly elected \u201cNew to ALSC\u201d Board member, Amy Koester, encouraging everybody in the audience (and you, too!) to tweet \u201cI am a #mediamentor\u201d. Congratulations to my fellow Prairie state children\u2019s librarians who imagined and delivered a wonderful inaugural event.<\/p>\n Then I headed up several thousand feet to Denver, for the Public Library Association conference, the theme of which was “Be Extraordinary.” The week was absolutely that, and more, and you can discover some of the experiences there by looking back at the live blogging that several ALSC members did, including pictures from the awesome ALSC Happy Hour<\/a> and from\u00a0my invigorating visit<\/a>, along with our Executive Director, Aimee Strittmatter, to the beautiful Koelbel\u00a0Library of the\u00a0Arapahoe Library District<\/a>, in Centennial, Colorado.<\/p>\n I had an especially transformative National Library Week<\/a> this year by visiting 5 libraries in 5 states in 5 days! I began at the Kate Waller Barrett Branch Library<\/a> in Alexandria, Virginia,\u00a0built in 1937 and named after, as its website says, “a humanitarian, social crusader and political reformer.” Then on to a building built more than three-quarters of a century later, the beautifully modern\u00a0Silver Spring Library<\/a>, part of the Montgomery County Public Libraries in Maryland, followed by\u00a0a visit to the Tippecanoe County Public Library\u2019s Downtown Library<\/a> in Lafayette, Indiana, where the \u201cpeople chairs\u201d make for very comfy reading. Next, a stop back home at Chicago Public Library’s Hall Branch<\/a>,\u00a0where Charlemae Hill Rollins served as children\u2019s librarian many decades ago. Then it was westward to the Oxnard Public Library’s Main Library<\/a> in California, where it was clear upon entering their “Area Para Los Ni\u00f1os” that the community was having a very happy week! All of these visits to ALSC members and our libraries, along with my many others this year (which you can discover on Twitter with\u00a0#ALSCtour<\/a>) have made me even more amazed at the work we do and the libraries in which, and from which, we do it. Not to mention even more excited about celebrating these spaces at my President’s Program at Annual (Monday, 6\/27, 1:00,\u00a0Convention Center #W110A), and you can check out a quick video about it, filmed in Ms. Rollins children’s room,\u00a0here:<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n