Top 5 of #TXLA19

The Texas Library Association Conference ended on Thursday, and I am still processing all of the amazing things I learned. The conference was Monday-Thursday, and I used ALL of my time learning, connecting and taking it all in.  You can check out all my sketchnotes from the various sessions at my Beeinthebookends Instagram. I learned more than 5 things while at the conference, but these were by far the things that stood out to me.

Top 5 of  #TXLA19
1- Mindfulness 101 with James Butler and Rachelle Finck out of all the sessions I went to, this was the one that I needed the most.  Living with someone that has mental health issues, I understand the importance of needing to teach children (and adults) mindfulness.  Working in a middle school I have also seen first hand how students need help in learning different coping skills to help them through life and middle school (middle school is hard!)  I was so excited to be one of the first people in line to purchase James new book Mindful Classrooms as I plan to incorporate some of these ideas in the library next year.

2-Listening to Sylvia Acevedo keynote the first general session.  I have talked about her before as she is the CEO of Girl Scouts.  She shares such a powerful story of her own journey of being very poor to being a rocket scientist.

3-The general session with Scott Pelley.  I could have listened to him speak all day! His book Truth Worth Telling will be coming out in May. TXLA19 was his first book event, and what a masterful story teller he is.  Before he shared some of the stories that have changed his life, he mentioned that so often we are trying to find the meaning of life.  We are asking the wrong question.  We should not be asking the meaning of life, but what is the meaning of you.  In my bag.. I had packed everything I needed but Kleenexes!

4- Connecting with librarians!  Being a librarian is one of the best but also hardest job that I have ever had.  I work on a great campus, but I am still the only librarian on the campus.. so sometimes it gets a little lonely.  During the conference I was able to connect with not only Irving librarians, but also librarians from across the state that are doing some amazing things.  In having conversations, it also helped me realize that I am doing pretty cool things too.

5- The authors and illustrators. I know that these authors and illustrators realize that they are going to be bombarded by crazy librarians wanting autographs, pictures, and conversations. But that just makes them even more awesome for being so patient and listening.

Dawn and I went to watch the bats and ran into AMAZING Illustrator Chris Hsu.  He is the illustrator for The Boo Boos that Changed the World

When I found out that there was going to be a Comic book day on Wednesday, I was super excited to become Vera from Be Prepared. Even better, the author Vera Brosgol was going to be signing books!

I have now had a chance to see this guy twice! Sean Easley is the author of the Hotel Between Series. 

 6- My bonus takeaway! I feel as if I do social media pretty well, but I really enjoyed going to Steven Vrooman over social media.  I look forward to telling my library story even better next year!

I am sure that you have noticed by now, one of my favorite things to do is take selfies! I LOVED that TXLA captured this one of me taking a selfie of the Comic Day Group.

On our way out of town, we also stopped at the new Austin Public Library Central Location. All I can say.. is wow!! There were so many more selfies, so many more people, and so much more learning that happened. I can't WAIT to go back and rethink some of things that I am doing, tweak other things, and evaluate those programs that I am doing.

Did you attend #TXLA19? What were your favorite sessions?