MSLA 2026

Swag from Scholastic as a thank you for a great Book Fair!

 I always have conflicting feelings going to conferences. I want to go and learn something new, but I often go by myself, which can be daunting. No group to lean on or hang out with. No immediate group of friends that you will automatically sit with, so you are struggling meeting others or finding a place to sit. As I struggled with these feelings about going to the MSLA conference, and struggled with what I was going to wear that was nice enough, but comfortable enough, I got a "what to pack" email. On the list was scissors, for our 1st "hands-on" session, and a note to "don't forget to pack your favorite library t-shirts!" I had found my people.

I got to the conference, as planned, for the 10am Demco Book Dr. session. I was a tad late and missed out on the Book Dr. kit (sadness), but the session was still worth staying for. While informative, it was basically an infomercial for Demco products. I already use Demco products so was interested to learn "the right" way to fix a book. We learned how to fix a book using some new products, which were nice to see and feel. Putting names to products will be helpful when I place my next order.  even though I missed out on the kit, I did win one of the door prizes and got some of the repair tape to try out. 

During lunch on Sunday, we sat by interest groups and I chose to sit with my school, to meet my professors and other students. It was nice that there were tables by school levels and various interests to sit with, so you didn't feel so alone. During lunch was the keynote speaker. One of the notable things that was said during this session was,

"Look around, even if you are feeling like you will never be up to the level as someone else, there is someone here who wishes they were at the level you are. Everyone has something to share."

Going into this with so much uncertainty, I was glad to hear this statement, and it was something I reminded myself as the conference continued. One of the other stand-out things was that we are all in this together. We are all going through the same issues and concerns. And as many speakers mentioned, things were said about lack of staff, or training, or time and many heads nodded around the room. We were not only together to learn, we were together to sympathize.   

That afternoon had similar smaller sessions - regional meetings, visiting the vendor tables and an Author Panel. It's always nice to meet/hear from authors. I just wish the "bookstore" in the conference had more works by the authors.

Manga

I was lucky to stay overnight so hit the ground running the next day. At breakfast we had speakers discussing the MSLA and AASL organizations, and then we went into topic sessions. The first session I chose on "Developing Informed Citizens: A K-12 Approach to Civics & Media Literacy", was jam packed! The session had standing room only, so I decided to choose a different topic and ended up in "Manga Your Students Will Devour". My daughter is a huge manga fan, so I was excited to see what information this session had, though I was a little disappointed because it was geared toward upper middle school and high school, which makes sense since most manga is for older ages. Though there is a lot of manga now out there for younger students and I wanted to hear thoughts about introducing it into elementary, since I have mixed feelings about that (for various reasons). 

Here are my biggest takeaways for any manga section:

• It's important to read reviews because students may ask for popular manga that may/may not be age appropriate (not matter what the age).
• Teen Rating: 7th - 9th grade
• Older Teen: 11th & 12th grade
• Weeding Manga: If you happen to be lucky with a large manga collection and are running out of room and need to weed, weed books that are not circulating. If you have a large series that isn't circulating that well, keep the 1st 5 books in the series and weed the rest. That way you will have books in the series for newcomers in the future.
• Spy Family has an Older Teen rating FYI

Power of Play

I then went to "The Power of Play in the School Library for Preschool to 2nd grade". This was a great presentation that really focused on the science of why play is good for younger kids (which well all know, even the presenters noted that). They not only focused on the science they gave some great play-based standards to justify play in our library (if/when we need them). The presenters spoke about having various options for imaginative play like train sets, dolls, and one even spoke about a doll house! Apparently the train sets were all the rage in the libraries, but they also spoke about the importance of cleaning up and all the pieces in the correct spots (this may be speaking to the choir for teachers). They also spoke about the power of creativity in plain paper, letting kids free draw and free create. They said their students preferred to do whatever they wanted with the paper from drawing pictures to creating things with tape like purses or dragon tails. Where ever their imaginations took them! 

 

The presenters had 40-50 minutes during their library time, so I would imagine play centers would be easier to do in that time. A number of us only had 30 minutes, and I asked about how they incorporate quiet reading for the older kids, and the fundamentals of reading a book for younger kids (flipping pages, etc.) They spoke about having a quiet reading spot center for those kids who want to do that. One of the presenters said they leave books at the center that might fit with that center (origami books at the paper center, books about trains at the train center, etc). 

Research in Elementary School 

After lunch we had more sessions. I went to "Research NOT Reporting: How to do REAL Research in Elementary School". Wow, this one was a lot! It was very interesting, but definitely geared toward those with an education background. That being said, there was so much great information, example research topics, etc. The big takeaways were:

• Students need to do research, but do not have to do all parts themselves at an early age. The presenter called it "Teacher managed content-rich research." Where, "the teacher clearly designates the task...the teacher provides much of what would normally be considered part of doing research e.g. task, the source from where to get information, etc." The students are then asked for observations of the materials to draw their own conclusions. The teacher then provides additional information to help lead the students to an answer (if there is a concrete answer). 
• Ask students who, what, when, where & why questions on any topic you are learning to help deepen analytical thinking.

There was so much more to that session, and my head was swimming! 

Sharpening Evaluation Skills

After that I changed gears a little bit to adjust my last sessions. I wanted to make sure I went to some diverse sessions as a number of the sessions covered similar topics. I decided to go to "Content Under Pressure: Interactive Games and Scenarios for Sharpening Evaluations Skills". This session was basically about reliable sources online. In groups we evaluating groups of 3 online sources and we had to pick the best one. These activities were geared toward middle & high school, so some were challenging! The key to these were the BEST source. Some were OK sources, but there were 2 that were superior to 1 of the sources in the group. The presenter discussed why she didn't have them pick the worst source, this was so students could discern ok sources from the best source and why. We likened the game to "2 Truths and a Lie".

Reading Pictures

The final session I decided on was "Reading Pictures: Lessons to Grow Student Visual Literacy Skills." This session was given by an art historian and tied into earlier learning about strengthening visual scanning and observation skills. She had us do an exercise looking at a piece of artwork and visually scan it for 2 minutes. After the time was up, we reported on our observations. What did we see? Why did we think that? What else did we see? She mentioned that visual scanning slows down the body and helps with mental health. She provided notes for a visual read aloud on a number of picture books, basically asking questions about the images on the pages. For older students she provided pictures that could be captioned, along with sketch notes to do with read alouds. She also gave us links for a watercolor Zentangle to try out.

There was so much information in the 2 days of the conference and there was so much to process. It was nice to get away and even though it was a lot, it didn't feel overwhelming. Though I was glad to get home.