I spent Thursday and Friday at the Marlyand Library Association Conference, in beautiful (really) Ocean City, Maryland. Here are some highlights...
-A lot of warmth, a fair amount of news, and a bit of good gossip from friends from my old library system.
-Eating my picnic lunch on the beach. The conference center was
right on the beach by the Atlantic Ocean! I love the ocean off-season. And, yes, I took off shoes & socks and waded in just up to my ankles. The water was the temperature of a good cold glass of water.
-I bought awesome ankle socks to support the library association (picture below!)
-Teen Interest Group meeting was made of awesome, from making "minimal-mess" tie-die socks with permanent markers and rubber bands (my creations are with the "library-association" socks below) to getting tons of bookmarks sent by publishers.
Click on the photo for a close-up. In case you're wondering what the little red thing on the library-association socks is, it's a crab with glasses. Reading a book. You can see why I
had to get them.
-Had dinner with two former coworkers, one of whom said of Otakon, "those people are weird." "Yes we are!" I replied proudly (he's retired boss of our computer geeks *and* a science fiction fan so he knows weird from the inside).
-The after-dinner speaker was
Rafael Alvarez, former reporter for the Baltimore Sun and an excellent storyteller, not to mention the kind of library advocate that warms the heart. I bought his book
Storyteller, and have read three of the short stories so far--excellent. I recommend him to
-Closing workshop was on Laughter Yoga. Seriously fun and helpful for stress reduction. Which is important as my job is still in question. I do have two interviews for available jobs elsewhere in the county next week, though--both in Health and Human Services (not a huge leap from public librarianship, especially the job helping low-income people with financial information and processes...)
