For those who don’t already know, I am in fact a real life librarian, and I sometimes do librarian things like attend professional conferences. It has been my privilege for the last several years (pandemic lockdowns and social distancing notwithstanding) to attend the Texas Library Association conference, the latest of which was just held in Austin. These conferences consist of panels and presentations put on by other librarians across the state, social gatherings, and opportunities to get to know and reconnect with other librarians in a professional setting.
This year’s conference was pretty special to me, for a couple of reasons.
First and foremost, I got to present my own session at TLA for the first time this year. It was a 60-minute talk on bringing YouTube channel management programming to library users, and it brought in between 30 and 40 audience members. In it, I basically discussed the merits of bringing content creation programs to the library, the benefits they could bring to library patrons, and some best practices for doing so. I also talked about my own passion for content creation, and how managing a YouTube channel has benefited myself in the last couple of years. I enjoyed myself immensely, and would love to do similar such talks at TLA in the future. This also marks the first time I’ve come to TLA as a contributor in some way as opposed to simply consuming the content that’s there, which I think is fairly significant.
Second, I got to meet one of the writers for Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, Brittney Morris. I didn’t even realize one of the young adult authors on the panel I was attending also wrote for the game I’m most looking forward to playing this year! I went and met her after the panel, and while she couldn’t tell me about the game, she did say she was impressed with how much heart and effort everyone working on it was pouring into its development, and that she thought it was going to be a real treat to players when it’s released. I was impressed to meet her, and went to her signing line and got a copy of her book, The Jump, signed. I’ll be reading it in the near future.
Aside from those occurrences, it was just nice to walk the exhibits hall, see former and current co-workers in a more relaxed setting, and just be around a bustling convention style atmosphere. I always enjoy going to events like this, and hope to get to more of them in the future. Unfortunately, I’m sure PAX South is dead, but I suppose there’s always Comicpalooza in Houston later this year.
We’ll see… 🙂
Spidey Librarian 