"Education is telling the truth to students," said author and contributing editor to National Public Radio's This American Life Sarah Vowell at the closing of the Public Library Association conference in Portland today. "You have the goods," she added. "You have the places where that person can find that truth." Vowell was responding to a question from the audience about the recent flap in Texas over the school board's decision to give textbooks in the public schools a more conservative bent. Vowell noted that cultural warfare and political fighting do nothing for education but get in its way.
Reading from her book The Wordy Shipmates, Vowell shared her droll perspectives on history and what Americans have inherited from the Puritans and the founding fathers, and she turned those assumptions on their head. A gifted translator of history into contemporary vernacular, she also shared her observations about the Oneida Community in late-19th-century New York and its members' somewhat bizarre attempts at sexual liberation.
Asked what she had learned from all the historical research she has done, Vowell quipped, "It turns out I'm an imperialist," noting that "I end up identifying with the people I set out to loathe." She also noted, "The thing I like about books is learning about people who are unlike you."
Early this morning the ALA Office for Library Advocacy sponsored a session on front-line advocacy, and librarians from around the country shared stories with OLA Director Marci Merola and ALA President Camila Alire. Throughout the session, as throughout the conference, the financial crisis facing libraries everywhere seemed only to galvanize public librarians in their determination to rally community support and emerge from the recession stronger and more valued than ever before.
In a side conversation, longtime advocate and library consultant Susan Epstein noted that the unique thing about the current financial situation is that libraries are generally not being seen as the easy targets they once were. They are not being hit disproportionately in their communities, she noted; instead the cuts are tending to be more across the board or even less than other agencies.
Total attendees at the PLA conference numbered 7,725, which PLA Executive Director Barb Macikas said was a reassuringly high number, given the budget cuts that so many libraries are enduring. Attendance at the last PLA conference in Minneapolis in 2008 totaled 9,810.
Visit the Public Library Association's website for a summary of the issues and programs and for portions of the virtual conference that ran simultaneously with the gathering in Portland, including interviews with authors Mary Roach and Debra Gwartney, conducted by Booklist's Donna Seaman.