{"id":6117,"date":"2020-09-22T09:46:32","date_gmt":"2020-09-22T16:46:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mlgsca.mlanet.org\/newsletter\/?p=6117"},"modified":"2020-09-22T09:46:32","modified_gmt":"2020-09-22T16:46:32","slug":"nine-months-later","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.mlgsca.mlanet.org\/newsletter\/?p=6117","title":{"rendered":"Nine Months Later"},"content":{"rendered":"

Note: The following is a report submitted by Deb Schneider, M.Ed, MLIS, HonorHealth, this year’s winner of the chapter’s professional development award.<\/em><\/p>\n

If truth be told, the last time I reflected on how different \u201cnine months later\u201d would look probably dates back to my first pregnancy. An imperfect comparison to be sure as that time was filled with joyful expectation. This time, my \u201cnine months later\u201d feels more a mixture of concern, hope, uncertainty, commitment to (but mixed success with) not sweating the small stuff, admiration of and thankfulness for my colleagues, and optimism of better days ahead. \u00a0I submit for consideration that this description is an accurate summation of my 2020 MLA conference experience as well.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s difficult to remind myself of my expectations in January 2020 when I hit the submit button in hopes of having a lightening talk accepted for MLA. My worries seem small now.\u00a0 Would my submission be accepted?\u00a0 Could I convince my leadership to support my first-time attendance to MLA especially in an environment where our 2020 department education\/travel budget had been slashed to eight dollars (yes, eight)? If they said no, could I pull together enough resources and personal funds to attend?<\/p>\n

Fast forward past MLA acceptance, the emergence of COVID, lock-down, moving to remote work, conference postponement, disparities, surges, \u00a0AZ as \u201chotspot\u201d, reimagination to a virtual MLA meeting, non-clinical cutbacks and partial furloughs at my organization, \u00a0protests, a generous award from MLGSCA facilitating my opportunity to still participate, approval to attend\u2026<\/p>\n

Arrival to MLA Live Action Week. The week was packed with back-to-back activities, posters, exhibits, and choices and is a testament to the dedication of the staff and conference team for what I\u2019m certain amounted to hundreds of hours of planning and converting from the live meeting to a virtual format.\u00a0\u00a0 As an attendee, the ability to move at a click from one virtual room to another encouraged me to dive in topic after topic with few breaks and sometimes to sample simultaneously occurring topics in a way I could never have done in person. I went into information overdrive. Rookie mistake one of attending a virtual conference \u2013 this is not a smorgasbord \u2013 next time, choose well but choose less.<\/p>\n

Looking at the numbers, I feel like I was not alone in the smorgasbord approach. Some stats from the week:<\/p>\n