I am very grateful to Jenna Pontious, Branch Manager at La Sierra branch and literacy coordinator for the Riverside Public Library, for this guest column on the 2017 California Library Association Conference. Thank you Jenna!

This year, the 2017 California Library Association (CLA) Conference was held in my home turf of Riverside, CA from November 2-4. Since the event was held in the city with the library system I work in, I (along with 21 of my coworkers) was able to have my conference fees covered by our FOL group.  It was my first time attending CLA and it was a rewarding experience. I volunteered to work the registration desk for 4 hours for pre-conference, on Thurs. Nov. 1. I met a lot of fellow librarians and vendors, and was able to see a lot of old coworkers too. I ran in to these same people throughout the conference, so it was great way to network and see who made it in. I also volunteered to be a session monitor for 3 hours on Saturday, Nov. 4, where I was in charge of 6 rooms. Session monitoring consisted of checking in with the speakers, making sure their surveys got filled out, turning in the surveys, and contacting the building/tech services if the speakers encountered any problems. I got a nice sampling of the workshops that afternoon, like volunteering away your library fines, a reading ambassador program for kids, and I got to hear a bit of the State Librarian’s speech. In the exhibit hall, I spoke with our credit card system rep, Comprise, tried out Occulus, a virtual reality head set, and attempted to win a marshmallow catapult contest with my coworker. Sadly, only 4 out of 8 marshmallows connected with their target. The Headshot Truck generously donated their time to take free headshots, which I took advantage of. All in all, the conference was great for networking, professional development, new ideas for programs and services, and promoting issues like social justice and equality.