A quick break in the action: Conference time!
I'm giving a presentation at the Lake Superior Libraries Symposium
I’m such a fan of conferences! I encourage everyone to go to conferences in your specialty. You can find other people who do the things that you do, worry about the things you worry about, and who will celebrate with you about the good things happening around you!
Today I’m at the Lake Superior Libraries Symposium, at the University of Minnesota, Duluth campus. It is so beautiful up here! And this library is absolutely gorgeous! These smaller conferences are fun, because you not only get to hear from a diverse group of people, but you have time to meet and chat with people - and then to go back to work equipped with all kinds of ideas and new contacts.
“This year’s theme, “Persevere: Carrying on Our Mission,” invites attendees to share and strategize on some of the difficulties facing our profession amidst increased financial and societal pressures, new technologies, and a polarized political environment that targets libraries.”
At a prior job, I wrote and produced podcasts on assorted library topics. We did two episodes on conferences, and I think the information there was evergreen - so check it out if you want some ideas or encouragement to go to one! (It was called Linking Our Libraries)
This library is beautiful, even on the outside! That rounded area is lovely, and makes a nice statement that this library is not merely here to be a dull place on campus - instead it’s designed to be a sparkling jewel in this very nice campus!
I love games in libraries! We have some in our library, and I’m a believer that giving patrons the opportunity to do some fun things in the library is the way to hook them. Then you can spring all the good learning and information literacy skills you also have there! (insert diabolical laugh and rubbing of the hands)
Look at this beautiful space! This is on the first floor, and you can admire all of the nice tables, the books in their lovely shelves, and those huge windows! Making this space so tall really give it a beautifully imposing air. I could definitely get some good studying done in this environment!
Sorry, as always, about my terrible photographic skills! But I love to see this kind of hanging art! I’m standing on the second floor, looking out across the vast expanse of space. This is a “talking” floor, for students who are working with others (or just can’t stop chatting, I guess!). It also has space for microfilm - the storage and reading it. And there are offices for all sorts of librarians down that wall, by the sign that says “Research Help.” There are some classrooms in the back of the floor. Follow along the wall to the left, and keep going toward the sign that says Securian Mathematics Laboratory. (My presentation is there! And so are a lot of other cool presentations! So much great information here today!)
Globes! I’m always so happy to see see globes and maps in the library! When I was just a young and inexperienced library student, I worked in the American Geographical Society Library, at the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee. I was a lowly shelver, but really learned a ton and spent most of my time being goggled over all the cool things they had in the collection.
“By the middle of the twentieth century, the AGS had compiled a cartographic collection that held items such as maps, atlases, globes, a library with an internationally focused monograph and serial collection, and a burgeoning photograph and film negative collection. Following World War II, these collections comprised more than 500,000 items. The collections have thrived at UWM and today, the AGSL consists of nearly 2 million items including maps, atlases, globes, photographs, monographs, serials, and digital geospatial data.”
I once was shelving a map of the original thirteen colonies. I paused to take a closer look at it, as I often did (I was a very slow shelver because I kept stopping to read!). And I realized that it was a British naval map, from 1776 - a tool used to help the British to subdue those rebellious colonists! I nearly had the vapors and had to sit down.
They also had a lot of different kinds of globes - and it was wonderful to admire them! They kind of imprinted on me, and now every time I see globes in a library I have a lovely feeling of rightness with the world.
And they have plants! There are a lot more of them than this adorable little fellow enjoying their pot and their space. You know I’ve already rhapsodized about my love of library plants - they make it feel like a happier place. (Admittedly, my plant-related expectations are now kind of exploded forever after visiting the Reno, NV library. I literally cannot imagine any library topping that for sheer volume of plants!)
If you are going to be in Duluth - and you SHOULD be in Duluth at some point! - stop by the campus. Visit the library! Gape in happy awe at all the nice things here!