Highlights of the Upcoming NELA Annual Conference

Learn how to work “Outside the Box” to meet today’s challenges for your library. The 2010 New England Library Association Annual Conference will be held October 17 – 19 at the Holiday Inn in Boxborough, Massachusetts. Join your colleagues from across the region for this exciting educational and networking event.

For details & registration information, please visit the conference website: http://www.nelib.org/conference/2010/

The Sunday banquet program “The Joy of Censorship” is in reality an illuminating satire and at times disturbing examination of our most hotly debated First Amendment issues. Joe Raiolo, Senior Editor of MAD magazine, sheds light on the endless arguments over banned books, movie ratings, the FCC, the Patriot Act, Internet filters, the true meaning of obscenity, and more. He also reviews some of MAD’s most controversial, thought-provoking and outrageous covers and articles.

Award-winning author Janet Taylor Lisle is the speaker for the Monday New England Roundtable of Teen and Children’s Librarian’s luncheon. Her books for children and teens address a wide variety of topics, from historical fiction to fantasy adventures. Among her best-known titles are Black Duck, Forest, Afternoon of the Elves and the recent Highway Cats.

At the Tuesday Author Luncheon Marilyn Johnson, author of This Book is Overdue and The Dead Beat, paints an admiring picture of the role of libraries and their staffs in an age of information overload. The USA Today review called This Book is Overdue “a humorous, unabashed love letter to the men and women who used to toil quietly in stacks but now circulate in cyberspace.”