Where in the world is Carmen San Diego? With George

April was a blur of speaking engagements, meetings, budget crunch time at OCLC, and a bad case of bronchitis for the long-suffering Joyce. And May is going to make me wish for the good old days of April.

While it was a blur, some wonderful moments stand out from April's speaking engagements:

• The discussion with the archivist in Oklahoma about how far we need to go make special collections accessible and useful for the public
• Speaking at the Small and Rural Libraries conference in Columbus, with an audience that included all the other speakers, such as Steve Coffman, Glen Holt, Leslie Holt, Rivkah Sass, Denise Davis, and Blane Dessy---sort of like singing karaoke in front of Jose Carreras
• Hearing the question come up again at the Library of Virginia about how public librarians can work more effectively with classroom teachers to improve services to students. Someone should offer a large cash prize to the person who can develop a scalable, effective solution to that conundrum.
• And the beautiful setting and excellent discussion at the annual meeting of the Academic Libraries Section of the Kentucky Library Association in Cumberland Falls State Resort Park
  

My only May speaking engagement got canceled, but this month, the IFLA/OCLC Early Career Development Fellows are in residence here in Dublin. My colleagues Nancy Lensenmayer and Susan Saggio are the brains and the brawn behind this project, but I get to go along on some of the field trips. Photos of our trip to DC, including the Library of Congress and the Folger Shakespeare Library are here.

Also, this month includes meetings of Members Council, the OCLC regional service providers, the WebJunction Advisory Committee, and two more trips out of town with the Fellows.