This trip was not on my official list of states to visit this year, but as I am a native Hoosier, I had to attend my own state conference. The Association for Indiana School Library Educators is an association of the Indiana Library Federation. It is much like the structure AASL has to ALA.
Most years the conference is in Indianapolis as that is a central location, but from time to time it has ventured out. This year we went to Ft. Wayne, Indiana. The location in Ft. Wayne is nice because it is so close to the Allen County Public Library and the hotel is attached to the convention center which makes it very convenient for all the conference events.
Some highlights from this year included a wonderful keynote speech by the guys from Unshelved. Even though I am in the school library world, I have the complete set of their books and many of their t-shirts hang in my closet. They were full of great laughs and it was just what I needed.
I attend a couple of other breakouts – roundtables about AISLE the organization, a legislative panel on national and local issues, eBooks and experiences at a high school level, and a great collaborative project called Coast to Coast and Beyond. I did share a little bit at the AISLE luncheon about what AASL has been working on lately, which turned into quite a long list.
But, I think what I enjoyed most about AISLE is I had a chance to say thank you to many of my friends and colleagues in Indiana who have been so helpful during my Presidency of AASL. I went to dinner with some great friends both evenings and I don’t think I had laughed that hard in a long time. We were sharing through out the conference, too, about the sessions we went to, etc. It was another great networking experience.
Now just trying to catch-up on the every increase “to-do” list! 
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