Attended by 156 early birds participants plus 25 walk-in registrants from the United States, Canada and the Philippines, the 2007 Association for Rural and Small Library Conference in Columbus, Ohio was a success.
The conference started with The Librarian of the Year, Mary Baykan, who discussed the public’s view of the library and other descriptions on how to maintain such library. Stephen Abram discussed the hurdles every librarian encounters from budget to focus on perfection. Also he tackled the future of rural libraries using the rapid changing technology and how to do about it so that it can become user friendly. The Joy of Computing: A Cookbook for Small and Rural Libraries, a project under the supervision of Barbara Gersh is such a useful one to help the librarians with their library works. The most interesting testimony of Jim Rancillio on Outreach in Rural and Small Libraries is so fascinating on how he himself unselfishly devoted his time from the scratch to the now very vast collection he has nowadays. The way he negotiated from the higher authorities to give him financial assistance was such a bold step.
All the topics discussed in this conference will serve as guidelines in the creation of rural libraries in the Philippines. Also, some of the participants are willing to give their helping hands to make such rural library projects successful!
The next conference will take place in Sacramento, California on September 2008. Sure enough, more and more constructive information will be shared by the very reliable resource persons.
Leave Your Comments