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The Teaching Librarian 19.1 21 anita brooks kirkland Tip 1: Stop playing the innocent and go to the party. Let's face it, for teachers we're a pretty promiscuous bunch! go to any other educators' conference and you will find teachers talking to teachers. Yes, there might be history teachers talking to geography teachers, or on rare occasions even high school teachers talking to elementary teachers, but on the whole it's a pretty tame scene. but at Super conference teacher-librarians mix with each other, yes, but also with public, university, college, health, and yes, even "special" librarians. To the uninitiated it can all seem a bit intimidating. rec- ognizing this, the good gar- deners in the association hold an opening night mixer where experienced cross-pollinators in the form of the various associations' leaders do their best to help wallflowers blossom. go to the party. go to every party. if you're not much of a mixer, take a friend. Your professional learning network starts here and Super conference offers a wonderful opportunity to connect with others in our field. Tip 2: Go to the all-conference plenary sessions. Plenary sessions provide a great way to flirt with big, new and potentially dangerous ideas, but at a safe distance and in the relative anonymity of a crowd. Take last year's conference. Over a span of three days we heard Stephen abram, Michael Wesch, anna Porter, atom egoyan, Diana Swain and Jian ghomeshi. Years ago Stephen Lewis electrified the crowd and inspired the whole association to take action for africa. a couple of years ago a most articulate romeo Dallaire moved us with his horrifying tale of human bru- tality. We've learned from ethan zucker- man that technol- ogy is not necessarily neutral and access to technology is a hu- man rights issue wor- thy of the attention of information pro- fessionals. Super conference offers a window on the wider world and encourages us to be outward looking. Cross-Pollination @ your library Even as late as the eighteenth century it was difficult for Europe and America to accept that innocent little flowers were involved in anything as unpuritanical as sex. (Hill, 1985) If the tension in the story of plants was the distance between lovers, pollen was what would bring them together, over feet or even across continents. It was an evolutionary trick that transformed the world by letting strangers have sex. (Dunn, 2009). TingL_19.1_final.indd 21 11-08-31 2:11 PM