Love is in the air! If you're reading this, Happy Valentine's Day! (Or Singles Awareness Day, if you prefer!) Scrolling through the archives, I have found the most timely piece of Forum history to share. From the January 2013 Forum, I'd like to take a moment and enjoy a throwback to Author Speed Dating. Much of the January 2013 Forum featured highlights from the upcoming 2013 MSLA Conference to be held that March. One highlight of the conference was the chance to participate in Author Speed Dating. 

MSLA President Laura Luker is the library teacher at Pioneer Valley Chinese Immersion Charter School in Hadley, MA. ​

Alida Hanson is the Librarian at Weston High School 
and the Professional Learning Chair for MSLA.

Laura Luker is the Library Teacher at Pioneer Valley Chinese Immersion Charter School in Hadley
​ and is the MSLA Executive Board Member responsible for Professional Learning. 

Laura Gardner is the Teacher Librarian at Dartmouth Middle School

Wendy Garland is the Librarian at Avery Elementary School, in Dedham, MA,
​and received a 2017 Super Librarian Award

From Saturday evening, May 6 to Monday evening, May 8, we could not tell you what the weather was like outside the Resort and Conference Center in Hyannis. We never once stepped foot outside for there was too much goodness going on at the 2017 MSLA Conference: Beyond the Binding. It felt like the whole world stopped while 300+ members of MSLA joined together to learn, share, and connect.

Explore this article if you were not able to attend the conference, or to just catch some highlights of events that you were not able to fit into your schedule. 

Sam Musher is the Library Technology Specialist at the Rindge Avenue Upper School in Cambridge

MSLA President Anita Cellucci is the Library Teacher at Westborough High School

​The past few months have offered  much to keep up with in the world and libraries are responding in amazing solidarity. One of the reasons that I’ve spent a good chunk of my working life in libraries is the overwhelming energy of inclusiveness.  Libraries are for everyone as this artwork from Hafuboti indicates.

MSLA has spent the past several years working toward providing the research and advocacy to support this belief.  In the last couple of years that work has been taken on by the Legislative Commission. Over the past year, it has included work on the new Federal Legislation for ESSA (Every Student Succeeds Act).  You can read about what our committee has been up to here and here. There is more work to be done and it is imperative to answer the call when the call comes for school librarian involvement. Successful Legislative Breakfasts were held this year as in past years at school libraries - getting legislators and community members into your building and libraries is an effective way to demonstrate the difference a library makes in our students lives. There are so many resources at our fingertips and when we join forces we are indeed a force.  

Library Pride!
The annual ALA conference is always an opportunity to develop librarian pride. The keynote speaker opening our conference this year was attorney Roberta Kaplan, who was instrumental in arguing the Supreme Court case that overturned the Defense of Marriage Act. Kaplan spoke to librarians on the day that the Supreme Court nationally legalized same-sex marriage, which also happened to be the start of Gay Pride weekend in San Francisco. To say there was some excitement in the city would be an understatement.  ​

However, an even greater source of library pride might have come from listening to Representative Nancy Pelosi present an award to the librarians in Baltimore, Maryland who kept their branch library open as a safe haven for residents during rioting this spring. As seen in Ferguson, Missouri last year, Baltimore librarians provided a gathering place for children, food, diapers, and computer access throughout this tumultuous period. Librarian Carla Hayden received a standing ovation when she told us, “the library was doing what libraries do.”  

Another highlight of the conference was Saturday’s opening speaker Gloria Steinem, inspiring leader of the feminist movement in the 60s and 70s. Sporting her iconic hairstyle and seemingly ageless, she urged the standing-room-only audience to commit to some form of activism throughout life and cited the accomplishments of many early American female activists who inspired her to become a catalyst for change. Her new memoir, My Life on the Road, is due to come out in October.

And as always, we spent a fair amount of time in the vendor halls getting swag to ship home to our friends in Massachusetts.  ALA swag will be part of the fun at our EdCamp event in late September. ​

I had the pleasure of interviewing Ms. MacLachlan last winter at the MSLA Annual Conference in Amherst, MA.  I heard her and other local writers discuss their writing in a fascinating panel discussion right before I talked to her personally.  

I had two general questions for her:

1. How have children books changed in themes throughout your career? 
2. What do you want to convey to your children’s audience about their world?

MacLachlan began by explaining that her writing has changed since she became legally blind; yet, she believes that all children yearn for reassurance and hope in their world, no matter when they were born.  The important themes don’t change just because the world changes.  MacLachlan continued to explain that through her writing, she wants to give children the warmth of family life and the hope of continued happiness in their lives, despite the ups and downs that all of them experience.

I mentioned that her novel White Fur Flying  was a 2015 Nutmeg nominee, and that many of my students asked me to find out if the family in her book is modeled after her own family.  She replied that she had a loving family and happy childhood, and that dogs continue to be a part of her life and her family’s lives.  

We talked about her novel The Iridescence of Birds, the story of Henri Matisse’s childhood; she mentioned how important his mother was in shaping him into the artist of his adult life.  I found her warm, intelligent, witty, and congenial; she shared her email address with me and told me that she would like to Skype with some of my students.   It was a memorable time for me!

Mary Ellen Minichiello is the librarian at the Calf Pen Meadow Elementary School in Milford.