Library goodness

A little quiet on this blog this week as I was away at a wonderful conference - the Ontario Library Association Superconference in Toronto. It was a great time, very inspiring and lots to learn and to ponder from the library world.


I was able to attend an illuminating session given by Dr. Hoi Cheu from Laurentian University on the topic of Bibliotherapy. Dr. Cheu was an entertaining speaker, and referred to the work of Dr. Joseph Gold a few times - since I've just read both of Dr. Gold's books I found that very useful for me. I like what Dr. Cheu said about language/reading and symbolic alphabets changing the brain -- we have evolved to a level of sophistication because of the ability to read symbols. Thus librarians have a job to preserve the knowledge of humanity by keeping people reading and able to comprehend and use the full capacity of our many languages.


There were also other great sessions: ones on running events, on setting up writer-in-residence programs, ones about library advocacy (see the Speak Up! for First Nation Libraries campaign for an amazing example, if you are a library employee, trustee, board member, Friends member or general supporter, it is inspiring).


One of the good things about going to this conference is getting so re-energized about library work - there are so many possibilities even in this time of gloom and doom about the future of reading.



Well, enough about my work life -- I was also able to read a few books on the train & in the evenings ... one of which was another Penelope Lively, which I'll be talking about soon. I also picked up one of the Canada Also Reads novels which I haven't read yet, and which is an unusual choice for me (it is all in 2nd person narrative so we'll see how that works out for me). I also discovered that another of the Canada Also Reads books, Fear of Fighting by Stacy May Fowles, is available as a free download until the end of March, if you'd like to get a look at it. A great chance to read one of the selections easily!