Boston Public Library at PLA

Posted by NNLM Region 7 on March 18th, 2020 Posted in: All of Us, Funded Project
Tags: Boston Public Library, funding, professional development, public libraries

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This is a guest blog post from Elissa C. Cadillic, the Training Coordinator at Boston Public Library. Elissa received a professional development award to attend the Public Library Association (PLA) Meeting in Nashville, TN February 25-29, 2020.

Thanks to a professional development grant from NNLM, I was able to attend PLA 2020. While I’ve been to ALA, this was my first PLA conference and I enjoyed the experience.  My first workshop focused on Cultural Humility, learning what it is and how it varies from Cultural Competence.  I’ve been looking for different ways to provide quality and effective training opportunities on diversity and this workshop gave me a good starting point.  Understanding that normal for one person may not be for another opens up lines of communication and hopefully leads to acceptance.   One of my favorite parts was listening to a conversation with Stacy Abrams.  So inspiring! The rest of the week I attended various workshops on Opioids in Libraries, Onboarding, Customer Service, the Changing Role of the MLS, and in a look ahead to Dudley’s kitchen space, a program on Culinary Workforce Development.  In my opinion I think the best exhibitor was from Edible Education who demonstrated a fully working interactive kitchen cart and has a nutrition-based education guide including recipes and a hydroponics unit, “Little Farm”.  I did get to spend some time wandering around Nashville listening to some great bands and visiting the full-size replica of the Parthenon and the Tennessee Woman Suffrage Monument in Centennial Park.   I’m looking forward to using the knowledge and experiences and applying them in my work.

Elissa C. Cadillic