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Rural Libraries in Washington D.C.
I am excited to announce I have been selected to attend the American Library Association’s annual conference in Washington DC at the end of June. I will serve as one of five Washington state representatives attending the Rural Library Sustainability Forum, which will bring together over 150 rural librarians from around the U.S. to discuss challenges, strategies, and opportunities for the future of libraries in rural communities. The Forum is a culmination of the Rural Library Sustainability Project which included workshops and an online community built by over 4000 rural library staff from 42 states around the country. WebJunction, an online community for library staff, partnered with state library agencies on this project which is funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. We meet the criteria of a rural library for this project because our service population is less than 25,000. Not surprisingly no rural library faces the exact same challenges; however we do have many in common. Technology, staff training, outreach, advocacy, and funding are difficult areas to keep up on for rural libraries. Opportunities to network, share ideas, and brainstorm are invaluable. In addition to the Rural Library Sustainability Forum, I will get to attend other sessions and events at ALA. This conference includes more than 2,300 meetings, discussion groups, programs on various topics affecting libraries and librarians and is attended by more than 18,000 librarians, educators, writers, publishers, Friends of Libraries, trustees and special guests! This will be my first time attending the ALA annual conference as well as my first time in Washington D.C. Although my time will be full with the conference I’m hoping to find a little time to sneak away and visit the Library of Congress. I’ll be sure to report back on this after my return at the end of the month. Thank you to our state library, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and WebJunction for this wonderful opportunity! For more information on this project go to: http://webjunction.org/Rural.
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