The overall experience I had at Fall Creek Falls was great; loaded with valuable information and speakers/teachers who taught many things such as, core values, organization, team building, leadership, professionalism, discovering our brand,  the history of the library & were we are going in the future, long term planning, and  taking time to care for our self, so we can be a positive example and an effective leader. I met many new associate directors and managers that all influenced my life and career in some way.  The speakers and teachers Heather Lambert, Don Reynolds, Kia Jarmon, and Cathy Self were all stupendous.  I have taken much home with me.  I hope to gain new friends of our library and to build community.   

What I Learned from my Group's Topic and another Group's Topic

Today I learned I need to plan more in detail and write it down in an organized fashion!  I learned exactly how to do that and how to put a team together, along with needing strategies for solving team conflict.  I learned about having control in my library, but to not be controlling by empowering my staff and having plans and a vision.

Today was full of fun games & activities and lots of learning.  My kind of day because I love both!  During one of the activities we were instructed to meditate on our breathing and then meditate on a memory of a work experience that brought us happiness.  I immediately remembered a little girl that was in my second grade class when I was teaching.  She was having trouble with reading and because her mom worked night, the only support she really had after school was her very young uncle who did not want to help her with reading.  I was trying differentiated teaching strategies, small group, one on one conferencing, but she was not having the progress I wanted her to have, so I decided to let her choose a partner to read with every day several times a day.  One day, all my students were partner reading while I called one student at time up to my desk for one on one conferencing.  She came running to my desk and shouting, “Ms. Todd!  Ms. Todd! I can read!  Listen! Listen! I can read!”  She then proceeded to read her book to me.  As I was meditating on this experience tears just swelled up in my eyes.  This is why I am a librarian.  Reading opens up new worlds, experiences, confidence, and knowledge so anything becomes a possibility.  I reflected on one my goals at LPL, which is to help parents and guardians help their children to get ready to read or become better readers and the thing is, this can apply to all ages of people.  I then remembered how I have always collected books and loved reading ever since I was a small child.  One may not be able to physically travel abroad due to different circumstances, but they can travel abroad through a fiction story, a nonfiction book about a particular country they might be interested in, or through the World Wide Web by using a library computer.  So many possibilities…  I was inspired to keep my focus on my goals and to create a long range plan for LPL, so that our resources continue to help patrons reach their dreams and goals so they may experience all that life has to offer them.

My "I Am" Statement

I am a person who cares about your education and life successes.  I am here to offer resources that will help you reach your life goals.

What Changes I Would Make to Improve My Professionalism

I am going to use the Pomodoro technique to manage my time more efficiently to accomplish the tasks at hand.

Someone Special

Lani, the director of Hendersonville Public Library in Sumnor County, Tennessee, is someone who really cares for the community of Hendersonville.  She has many goals for the library that will benefit all citizens of Hendersonville.  After coming to visit Tennessee with her husband, they were inspired by the beauty of the mountains and moved here with their two dogs, a rescued pit bull and a soft coated terrier, from New Jersey.  Lani has a Bachelor of Arts in History specializing in classical history.  She is multilingual and, in addition to English, speaks Latin and Ancient Greek.  Hendersonville Public Library is a class five, which means she leads a full staff of  seven full time employees and ten part time employees.  I am impressed.  Long range planning and project managing are among her many qualified skills, but what she likes most about being a library director is when customers tell her the library has been an asset to them.  This tells me Lani sincerely cares for the citizens of Hendersonville.  Her future goals are to increase circulation by 3% per year, increase card holders by letting the community know about the services of the library, and increase active partnerships, such as the school board, seniors, and other organizations of the community.  When Lani is not serving her community, she is knitting, gardening, or walking the beautiful landscapes of Tennessee with hopes of traveling to Italy one day.

First Day of PLMI

It was a great first day at the PLMI!!!  By the way, PLMI stands for Public Library Management Institute.    Heather Lambert, Lynette Sloan, and Don Reynolds were today's speakers.  Heather spoke about the difference between being a leader and a manager.  I loved the games Heather had us playing.  She really knows how to keep my attention and keep it fun.  Don is very comical and read many quotes and even a children's literature book to get his points across.  Lynette spoke about the history of the library and how the first ones began along with how they have changed through the years.  It would be great to find a book truck at my local junk yard.  What a great find that would be or maybe Mike on American Pickers will come across one on his show.  Maybe I will send an email to be on the look out for a book truck in Tennessee.  We finished the day by putting leaves on the library tree, which each leaf had something special about each of our libraries.  I will take a pic tomorrow and post the "Great Library Tree."