It has been nineteen years since I started out on a journey in the great stacks of literature, and it has been the most fascinating trip.  I had recently moved back to Massachusetts with a new family after having spent ten years in New York City as an actor and theatre director.  I was looking for a way to be close to children and yet maintain an interest in the arts.  I found exactly what I was looking for in the Children's Room at the Lawrence Public Library.  For the next ten years, I worked with the best colleagues who genuine cared about the unilateral access to information and literature.  I realized that being a librarian brought out the best in me: I sang all the songs I learned as a child, read the latest fiction with school children, worked side by side with librarian Holly Turner to create multimedia experiences for a very diverse population, and helped to create a bilingual family literacy curriculum under a Barbara Bush Foundation grant.  My husband and I formed Fegan's Pocket, a storytelling troupe that has travelled all over New England.  It was this experience, and the encouragement of my colleagues, that sent me off to Simmons to pursue my master's degree in library science.

 

In a short time, I began work in the public schools as a library media specialist.  After one more year in Lawrence, I became library teacher at Amesbury Elementary School for students in grades Pre-K through 4.  The environment was electric with the creativity of classroom teachers and being part of the specialist team that integrated so many areas of the curriculum into art, music, technology, and foreign language was invigorating.  Other librarians in Amesbury were, and still are, committed to improving the whole child initiative through literacy and our long-range plan with NMRLS is an example of the excellent collaboration efforts of our team.

 

While in Amesbury, I became a board member of Amesbury for Africa, a United Nations Sister Cities organization.  Together with Amesbury Elementary teacher Deb Welch, we were able to fundraise and complete the Ebussamba School Library in the village of Esabalu, Kenya.  From the start, the two school communities worked to build the library brick by brick, one chair at a time, and finally completed the structure in the summer of 2005 at which time I traveled with AFA to train the school librarians.  Since then, several universities in Kenya have started offering library education classes as professional development for teachers.  AFA is now working on a literacy project for young women who have just completed high school, but have a year before they can attend college.  It will be another exciting adventure.

 

I currently teach at West Middle School in Andover, another community with stimulating school librarians who are beginning the long-range planning process with NMRLS.  I share my duties teaching information skills and technology to seventh and eighth graders in an innovative program that has two library media specialists combining computer skills and research as one subject. 

 

It has been my pleasure to serve on the MSLA conference committee and to chair the state bookmark contest, an event that has become an integral part of MSLA Legislation Day.  This year's event was especially meaningful in that families, librarians, students, and legislators were all in one place agreeing that school library programs are essential for student achievement.  It was a moment I cherish.  MSLA has provided me with the opportunities to share ideas with so many school librarians across Massachusetts and the country and I hope to be able to be of encouragement to other members as well.