My Day at the OLA Superconference

Nicole, Myself, Spiderman, & Sarah at the OLA Superconference

My day began super early with waking up at 3am. Diet Coke was definitely my friend that day! Between 4 and 4:30am, I picked up fellow UWO students Nicole, Nariel, and Sarah, and off we went to Toronto. We arrived at 7am on the dot and began volunteering right away for the Ontario Library Association (OLA) Superconference, which was held at the Metro Toronto Convention Center. My volunteer tasks included putting session evaluation forms on chairs, assisting at the registration desk, handing out promotion bags, and giving out directions. At noon my volunteer shift ended and we where free to roam the conference. Sarah, Nicole and I went to Lone Star for lunch, which was a nice break from standing and running around all morning. At 1pm we went to the Poster Session where we saw our fellow CLA member Courtney. She was there presenting her poster on building a library in Costa Rica. Then we decided to go and explore the vendors expo. We looked for over an hour at all the booths and got some great resources (like YA Booklists) and swag (I got a great pair of bright orange head phones for the gym). Nicole, Sarah and I are all part of the CLA UWO Student Chapter, so during our vendors visits, we did some networking in hopes of finding some possible speaker candidates and individuals to partake in our networking event in March. A genealogist librarian was gracious enough and agreed to partake in our upcoming networking event. Yes, Networking actually works! After our browsing of vendors we lined up to receive a 5 minute massage. After being on your feet all day, the massage was amazing, needed, and was worth the short wait. We then met with Jim Brett (from OLA and UofGuelph), and discussed his upcoming CLA events at the UWO in March. Jim has agreed to put on a CV writing workshop and Mock Interviews for MLIS students, so we discussed details, booking rooms, and participants numbers. We then looked at the OLA store. That is where I found Glee TV show posters, bookmarks and thought, what a great prize/reward/incentives for teen reading and teen programs! At 3:45pm, Sarah and I went to the "Picture Books Aren't Just for Storytime Anymore" session while Nicole went to the OLA lightning round session. When going to this session I though, how can this session be beneficial to Young Adult Materials? Marilyn Willis from Whitehots Canadian Library Services was the speaker for this session. She discussed how picture books promote critical literacy as viewers interact with the text. She stated how picture books can be powerful as they can create in depth discussion. Here, I learned how picture books gives the reader a service, such as getting them to think about what the author is trying to say. For example, Marilyn showed us the picture book "The Lunch Thief." This picture book can actually apply to a teenage audience. The storyline of "The Lunch Thief" is how a junior high school student keeps getting his lunch money stolen from this particular male bully. At the end of the book, you come to realize that the bully is stealing his lunch money because his family is poor and they are not able to provide him with a lunch. This picture book was geared for a young adult audience as it explores respecting differences and acknowledges poverty in the community. I really enjoyed this session because it gave me more of an in depth view of how picture books (including wordless picture books) can be beneficial in getting messages across to different audiences. For example: the book "My Uncle Martin's Big Heart" by Angela Farris Watkins and Eric Velasquez. Thi is a great book for Black History Month, and "Mirror" by Jeannie Baker is a great wordless picture book for understanding cultural differences. After the session Sarah and I decided to go to the Whitehots booth and try and see if Marilyn Willis would be willing to speak at our university and/or partake in our networking event. She gave us her card and is looking forward to us contacting her with more details. On our way out of the vendors expo, that is when I probably had the highlight of my day. A very eager man (probably a hired actor) was dressed up as Spiderman and was taking photos with individuals. Nicole, Sarah and I got out photo taken with him as our proof of attending the conference. His eagerness and character portrayal brought us all laughing, which is what I needed to end my long day. At about 6pm we decided that our time at the conference has come to an end so we left for London. After dropping everyone off, I got home at about 10pm. It was a long and educational day and was worth waking up at 3am. When reflecting back on my experience at the conference, I thought how much fun it was and how much I would of loved to of been able to participate for the entire event. Hopefully next year I will be able to go for the entire conference and hopefully eventually be a speaker. I think that would be a great personal goal. I will bring in some of the catalogues/booklists/magazines/brochures I got from vendors that are YA related to next Thursdays class, so feel free to take a gander. I had fun looking at them, especially the Glee one!