The International Association of School Librarianship (IASL) Conference was held in Rome, Italy from July 17th to 21st, 2023. I attended, along with a number of my Charles Sturt University colleagues. It was my first time attending the IASL Conference and it was so much fun.
I admit that I was totally unprepared when I signed up for the conference. I thought there would be a handful of countries involved but boy, was I wrong. We did a flag ceremony as part of the opening ceremony and there were so many countries represented! It’s been fun to hear about what’s happening internationally and interesting to learn that we are all facing similar challenges, such as:
- support from school leaders;
- staffing;
- budgets;
- time; and,
- isolation.
Coming to this conference has helped connect me with practitioners globally, but also helped me to see how my own research can be used by the global community of teacher librarians (or school librarians, depending on what the country calls them). It’s given me another boost of energy to keep going.
I’ve also heard from some of my academic counterparts in the USA and Italy whose research is somewhat aligned with my own. I’ve been thinking about how to collaborate with them and replicate some of their studies in Australia, as well as get my research into their countries.
What I have enjoyed most from this conference though, has been meeting everyone. I am not a natural networker and am quite the introvert, but I have not found it difficult at all to talk to my international colleagues because we all have so much in common, such as:
- passion for all things libraries;
- love of books and reading;
- desire to learn as much as possible about any and every topic; and,
- genuine friendliness and acceptance.
I have truly enjoyed my time at this conference and will absolutely be back again.
PS. Being a tourist in Rome has also been amazing. I’ve shared some posts on my socials, feel free to check them out!
Adventures of the Lifting Librarian 