I arrived yesterday to attend the Oklahoma Conference – my first state that I planned on visiting during my President year.
I thought I would give you some highlights of the conference.
I was greeted at the airport by Barbara Ray and her friend Carla, and that evening was the beginning of their conference – the OLA Banquet.
Oklahoma Banquet was a delight. Not only did I get to see Roy Degler get surprised on receiving an award (more on that later), but I got to hear S.E. Hinton speak.
She was delightful. She received an Honorary Sequoyah Book Award. She said she is constantly be asked by teachers how to get their kids to write. And she said more than once, to know how to write, you just need to read! You write by reading. One of her favorite authors is Austin. She has read and reread Emma so many times just fascinated by Austin’s ability to write. She also said that you don’t want a true writer within your class because that is all they will ever want to do. We then were graced with several fun stories about the making of her books into movies. We were all thrilled to hear all the different tales of how she was involved in the making of the movies especially the Outsiders. Do you know that she first wrote the book Outsiders when she was 15 and in high school? There was nothing like her the book she was writing at the time. She wrote the book so she could read it. It was a pure joy to listen to S.E. Hinton talk to us.

Tuesday: Opening General Session – keynote speaker Joe Janes from the Information School of University of Washington. 

What a dynamic and funny presenter.  His talk was “Rethinking the Library,” and he stated some very interesting thoughts throughout the presentation. Here are some highlights:

The “library is the heart of the University.”

We now have their attention and it can be of use.  So, this is the time – what are you doing about it to keep their attention?   We have to make the case that we are more important than others – departments, sections, etc.  

He asked, “What does it mean to be in the library?”  It matters where you are in people’s mind not physically in the library.  You want to be in the “minds of your community” members.  “A library reflects and helps a community improve.”  Library has to be a serving all presences like Twitter, Facebook, etc.   A good library has to be “somewhere & everywhere.”  We have to be better online.  We have to be more compelling, higher quality than what you do in person.   We got to be better competitively with the other alternatives.

“Why re-think library?”  Everybody else is.  

 The “word library is power.” 

“Where do you get depth in a flat world?”