by Leah Hinds, Executive Director, Charleston Hub

Day Three: Monday, January 30, 2023

(Links to reports from Day One and Day Two)

My final day of LibLearnX started with a winter weather advisory for my return flight connecting through Dallas/Ft. Worth (you can’t get a direct flight to anywhere from SC it seems), followed by cancelled and re-scheduled flights. Because of this, I had to cancel a couple of meetings and miss the final day of sessions to arrive early to the airport.

The session agenda was sparse on the last day, but I would have liked to attend the Youth Media Awards, a couple of ShopTalks, and the closing session with singer-songwriter Ani DiFranco. In lieu of a direct report, I’ve gathered a few notes from the #liblearnx23 Twitter thread:

The 2023 Youth Media Award Winners were announced Monday morning at 8:00 am Central. Notable winners included:

John Newbery Medal for the most outstanding contribution to children’s literature:

Freewater, written by Amina Luqman-Dawson, is the 2023 Newbery Medal winner. The book is published by JIMMY Patterson/Little, Brown Books for Young Readers.

Randolph Caldecott Medal for the most distinguished American picture book for children:

Hot Dog, illustrated and written by Doug Salati, is the 2023 Caldecott Medal winner. The book was published by Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House.

Coretta Scott King Author Book Award:

Freewater, written by Amina Luqman-Dawson, is the King Author Book winner. The book is published by JIMMY Patterson/Little, Brown Books for Young Readers.

A list of all the winners can be found at https://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/blogs/the-scoop/2023-youth-media-award-winners/.

This Shoptalk was titled “Innovating to Bridge the Digital Divide,” presented by Kelly Sitzman and Lisa Wells of the Pioneer Library System in Oklahoma. Their presentation described how they teamed up with OverDrive to provide a digital collection free to any user without a library card, accessible through solar-powered benches that also provide WiFi connectivity and phone chargers. I was sorry to miss this one but slides are available through the LLX app.

Some quotes from the talk with singer-songwriter and activist Ani DiFranco:

ALA has announced that next year’s Library Learning Experience will be held in Baltimore from January 19-22. While I enjoyed the meeting overall, I’m not sure I’ll be back unless there is more content focused on academic libraries. Looking forward to attending ACRL in March!