How to avoid hard work at CLA

I'm so clever. I conveniently scheduled two workshops on Friday, so I could dodge booth setup duty. So I was sitting around listening to a librarian from San Diego talk about cool books for boys while the rest of those poor folks hauled PALs and boxes and set up the booth. But seriously, although I did feel guilty about not being around to help with the heavy lifting, I did make good use of the time to attend a couple of worthwhile two-hour workshops put on by CSLA (the school library side of the convention). The first was called "Scary, Gross and Enlightening Books for Boys." The presenter, Deborah Ford of San Diego School District, was full of good ideas and intriguing suggestions. I now have several more books I have to read and lots to add to the next order I'll be submitting. She also shared a lot of ideas about both collection development and quick activities that can encourage boys to read. She's a school librarian, so her advice was geared toward schools, but some of it would translate well. I won't go into great detail (you can read about some of her suggestions and idea on her blog: http://deborahford.blogspot.com/) but I just though I'd mention a couple:
1) Involve men as much as possible: I think we're doing pretty well there, with me, Wess, Allen, etc. all working on the children's desks.
2) Make things into competitions: Boys love to compete, so even simple things like "let's see which table can clean up and put their books back first--ready, set, go!" can motivate them.
3) Pair fiction and nonfiction: many boys love to read nonfiction, and it's sometimes easier to sell them on a fiction book if they've picked out a nonfiction book on a similar topic.
Anyway, lots of good stuff in this presentation.

The second presentation I attended was a thinly-veiled sales pitch for Demco mending products, conducted by a representative of the company. It was also a really worthwhile two hours. We're constantly fixing books on the bookmobile, and I learned some great techniques and tips. I think I finally found a way to fix our "Genius" World Records books so they won't fall apart every third checkout--and that alone was worth the price of admission. As part of our goodie bag, we all got a mending instruction DVD. If anybody wants more info, or would like some truly compelling evening viewing, let me know. It's not available on Netflix. . .

So I apologize to everyone for not showing up for the unloading and setup, but I learned some great stuff and when I came back to the booth in the afternoon, it looked fantastic!