School library professionals from across the state came together in August for the HASL/HIDOE joint conference. The two-day event featured national literacy advocate Donalyn Miller. Donalyn is an award-winning teacher and author of books including The Book Whisperer and Reading in the Wild. Ms. Miller presented on the joy of reading, increasing student access to books, navigating slumps in reading motivation, and books for a better world. A diverse group of local library professionals joined Ms. Miller as presenters, highlighting the abundance and variety of literacy resources available to students in our state. This included Mid-Pacific Institute Librarians Nicole Goff and Dave Wee discussing strategies for source evaluation with students, HSPLS librarian Danielle Todd showcasing digital resources offered by Hawaii’s public libraries, HIDOE librarian Janice Lee sharing ideas about teaching visual literacy, just to name a few. Many of our valued vendor partners joined us to promote products and services that support student success as well as answer our questions and develop an understanding of our interests and needs. Mike Sweeney from The Library Cooperation, Courtney Mach from Swank Motion Pictures, and Elizabeth Ross from Zoobean ran sessions to help attendees make the most of their products. Infinium Interiors even gave away fun and functional library furniture to a few lucky recipients. Finally, there were exciting hands-on activities featuring maker-space tools like a Glowforge Printer and button-makers. Overall, the conference was a validating and inspiring way to begin the new school year. We want to say a very heartfelt mahalo to the committee organizing the conference for all their hard work. The committee was led by HIDOE’s Joanna Dunn and included HASL executive board members Meera Garud, Danielle Fujii, Susan Clark, and Caitlin Ramirez. We look forward to future conferences. We hope you’ll join us for another exciting professional development opportunity in November; the Hawaii Library Association’s annual conference. American Library Association president Lessa Pelayo-Lozada and UH Manoa Creative Writing professor and poet No’u Revilla will keynote the conference, which will also include an in-person social at the Bishop Museum to celebrate the Centennial anniversary of HLA. Current HASL members get a discount on conference and social registration. Visit the conference website for more information and to register.
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