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 2024 Keynotes & EventsThe 2024 ARSL Conference will have four days packed full of engaging keynotes and events. Keynote events will include a plated meal (breakfast, lunch, or brunch) which is included in the cost of registration.
Wednesday, September 11Meet & Greet Reception | 6:30-9:30 PM | Springfield Marriott Downtown Grand Ballroom (6th floor)
Join us for our Welcome Reception, where you can reconnect with your ARSL community and make new connections. Enjoy a selection of catered snacks and unwind with your favorite drinks from our no-host bar. You'll also be treated to an exclusive sneak preview of a new library documentary. Exclusive Sneak Preview of "Free For All: Inside the Public Library" | 8:00-9:30 PM | Springfield Marriott Downtown
 FREE FOR ALL is a feature-length documentary film (TRT 84:15) that tells the extraordinary story of how a simple idea shaped a nation, and the quiet revolutionaries who made it happen. It is one of America’s most beloved public institutions. Its founding principle is breathtaking: build a place where anyone can enter, free of charge, and encounter a universe of ideas. This new documentary film unfolds the grand drama of how America’s public libraries came to be, and the surprising - and ongoing -battles over what belongs there, who can come in, who decides, and how to define and defend our public commons. FREE FOR ALL is a rollicking road trip with director Dawn Logsdon as your guide. She deftly brings you along as she discovers lost voices of generations of library users, staff and advocates -- especially women- who have helped forge the library’s starring role in our democracy. It’s a contemporary road movie to libraries across the U.S., intercut with a wealth of rarely seen archival imagery. The film juxtaposes two revolutionary moments in the American library story – the original “Library Movement” that swept the country in the late 19th century, and the current 21st century struggle to keep public libraries flourishing and relevant in the digital age. The film is a fascinating and visually stunning mosaic of characters, architecture and stories that celebrates the diversity of the American library experience past and present, while investigating the urgent issues libraries face today. Learn more about the film and the filmmakers here. Thursday, September 12Welcome Breakfast & Keynote with Celeste Ng | 8:30-9:30 AM
Celeste Ng is the author of three novels, Everything I Never Told You, Little Fires Everywhere, and Our Missing Hearts. Her first novel, Everything I Never Told You (2014), was a New York Times bestseller, a New York Times Notable Book of 2014, Amazon’s #1 Best Book of 2014, and named a best book of the year by over a dozen publications. Everything I Never Told You was also the winner of the Massachusetts Book Award, the Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature, and the ALA’s Alex Award. It has been translated into over thirty languages and is being adapted for the screen. Her second novel, Little Fires Everywhere (2017) was a #1 New York Times bestseller, a #1 Indie Next bestseller, and Amazon's Best Fiction Book of 2017. It was named a best book of the year by over 25 publications, the winner of the Ohioana Award and the Goodreads Readers Choice Award 2017 in Fiction, and has spent over a year on the New York Times bestseller list. Little Fires Everywhere has been published abroad in more than 30 languages and has been adapted as a limited series on Hulu, starring Reese Witherspoon and Kerry Washington. Her third novel, Our Missing Hearts, was published in October 2022 in the US, Canada, and the UK, and was an instant New York Times bestseller. Celeste grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Shaker Heights, Ohio. She graduated from Harvard University and earned an MFA from the University of Michigan (now the Helen Zell Writers’ Program at the University of Michigan). Her fiction and essays have appeared in the New York Times, The Guardian, and many other publications, and she is a recipient of the Pushcart Prize, a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, and a Guggenheim Fellowship, among other honors. New Connections Lunch | 1:00–2:15 PMDon’t miss this opportunity to share (r)Evolutionary ideas within your ARSL community. At this lunch you’ll be encouraged to branch out from your usual circles to sit with strangers who have shared job roles, interests, or challenges—but they won't be strangers for long! Pick a table and refer to the guiding questions to get the conversation flowing. The Conference Committee brought this lunch back in response to requests more events to facilitate building networks and making deeper, more meaningful connections. Whether you come to Springfield with colleagues or solo, you’ll leave with new ideas to bring back to your library and lasting connections. Dine-Arounds | 5:30-7:00 PM | Offsite
Explore Springfield's restaurant scene and grow your ARSL community with with Dine-Arounds, one of our most popular conference traditions! Sign up for a Dine-Around at the Registration Desk or plan your own. ARSL Trivia Night Fundraiser | 7:00–9:00 pmWhat’s the collective noun for a group of librarians having a great time? Join as at Trivia Night to flex your knowledge of all things trivial, win the admiration of your colleagues, and support the ARSL Scholarship Fund! Teams will be limited to 8 people. If you arrive in a small group or solo, we’ll join you up with a larger team. We'll play two games of three rounds each. Admittance is by donation, with a suggested minimum of $10. Friday, September 13Breakfast & Keynote with Emily Nagoski – Burnout & the Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle | 8:00–9:30 am
Emily Nagoski is the New York Times bestselling, award-winning author of Come as You Are and co-author, with her sister, Amelia, of Burnout. Her newest book, Come Together: The Science (and Art!) of Creating Lasting Sexual Connections published in January 2024. She earned an MS in counseling and a PhD in health behavior, both from Indiana University, with clinical and research training at the Kinsey Institute. Now she combines sex education and stress education to teach women to live with confidence and joy inside their bodies. She lives in Massachusetts with two dogs, a cat, and a cartoonist. ARSL Awards Lunch | 1:00–2:30 pmHelp us celebrate the people who make the small and rural library community so special! All attendees are invited to celebrate the innovations and accomplishments of our 2024 ARSL Award winners, including the Solo Librarian of the Year, Equity Champion Award, Innovative Service Award, and Distinguished Service Award. We'll also recognize Library Journal's Best Small Library in America. Author Fest | 7:00–9:00 pmCelebrate the vibrant talent of authors from Springfield and beyond at Author Fest! Meet your next favorite authors, hear readings, and purchase copies of books to get signed. Stay tuned for our full author lineup and reading schedule.
Saturday, September 14Brunch & KidLit Panel: Fostering Empathy & Empowering Young Minds
Tracey Baptiste is the New York Times-bestselling author of Minecraft: The Crash and the acclaimed middle grade fantasy trilogy: The Jumbies. She has also written the middle grade nonfiction African Icons: Ten People Who Shaped History, as well as the popular picture books: Because Claudette and Mermaid and Pirate. Growing up in Trinidad, Tracey loved books. When she was three, her mother bought her an oversized, illustrated copy of Grimm’s Fairy Tales, and from that moment on, she knew she wanted to be a writer. Tracey once started her very own library in her house… and secretly hoped everyone would bring their books back late so she could collect fines and become rich. As an eleven-year-old, she was inspired by V. S. Naipaul’s Miguel Street, and read the book so many times, her brother’s hand-me-down copy disintegrated. After moving to the United States when she was fifteen, she read Rosa Guy’s The Friends, and that’s when she knew she wanted to write for kids. Hannah Moushabeck is a second-generation Palestinian American author, editor, and book marketer who was raised in a family of publishers and booksellers in Western Massachusetts and England. Born in Brooklyn into Interlink Publishing, a family-run independent publishing house, she learned the power of literature at a young age. She is the author of Homeland: My Father Dreams of Palestine (Chronicle Books, March 2023). She lives in Amherst, Massachusetts on the homelands of the Pocumtuc and Nipmuc Nations. Maria Scrivan is a New York Times bestselling author, award-winning syndicated cartoonist, and speaker based in Connecticut. Her laugh-out-loud syndicated comic, Half Full, appeared daily in newspapers nationwide for a decade, and is available on gocomics.com. Maria licenses her work for greeting cards, and her cartoons have appeared in MAD Magazine, Parade, and many other publications. Nat Enough, her debut graphic novel, was an instant New York Times bestseller and launched her critically acclaimed six-book series of the same name. Learn more about Maria at mariascrivan.com. Megan Dowd Lambert (moderator) grew up in Vermont and earned her BA at Smith College, where she majored in African American Studies and Government. She earned her MA in Children’s Literature at Simmons University (formerly, Simmons College), where she taught in some capacity for more than a decade. Her experiences as a white mother of seven children in a blended, multiracial, queer, adoptive family inform her work as a children’s book author, reviewer, and educator. Megan reviews and writes for Kirkus and The Horn Book, is a consultant with EmbraceRace: A Community about Race and Kids, and served as an inaugural member of the Curation Team of OurShelves. Megan’s books include, Reading Picture Books with Children: How to Shake Up Storytime and Get Kids Talking About What They See (Charlesbridge 2015), which introduces the Whole Book Approach to storytime that she developed in association with the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art. In 2009 she was named a Literacy Champion by Mass Literacy, and she has served on the 2009 Geisel, 2011 Caldecott, and the 2012 Boston Globe-Horn Book Award Committees.
FREE FOR ALL is a feature-length documentary film (TRT 84:15) that tells
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The Association for Rural & Small Libraries
© Copyright 2024 The Association for Rural & Small Libraries. All rights reserved.
© Copyright 2024 The Association for Rural & Small Libraries. All rights reserved.
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