A letter from Jennie at the American Library Assoication conference in New Orleans:

Hi Pamie & Glark:

I wanted to write and let you know that I had the privilege of meeting Sharon Davis and her colleague Charline Longino at the American Library Association conference in New Orleans today. It was a highlight of my day today (even better than the hurricanes I had tonight!).. I felt a little funny stalking their colleague’s poster session (it was an awesome report on disaster recovery), not talking about my library work, but wanting to meet the “Dewey Donation” stars (because honestly the work they are doing is much more star-worthy to me than the fun of book shopping on Amazon!).

Sharon and Charline were wonderful and gracious, and expressed their gratitude for the book drive, and patiently talked about their post Katrina experiences. It’s overwhelming to think of the task ahead of them: rebuilding collections of thousands and thousand of books. It makes me sad to think really of how small a drop in the bucket our 1100 books are. I was impressed with their positive attitude, and felt grateful they spent time visiting with me. They are such a positive reminder of what’s right with libraries and librarianship, during a weekend I often feel frustrated with my profession (trust me – 20,000 librarians in one place can be a scary thing).

Thanks again for spearheading this effort.

-Jennie

Thanks for the letter Jennie!