Blogs in the Spotlight - A Dashing and Bold Library

Blogger - Marcia Kochel
Blog - A Dashing and Bold Library: Reflections on school librarianship and what's happening at the Galloway School Library

Some of my most fun years working as a school library media specialist were during the time I was working with Marcia Kochel as a colleague in another Bloomington middle school.  If I had been 10 years younger, and if she hadn't moved away to Atlanta, who knows what we could have accomplished in the school library world!

Now she is the head librarian at The Galloway School in Atlanta, and when she blogs, it is about the things she is doing there in her library.  Most recently she has been tweeting more than blogging, but just yesterday she blogged about her spring break trip to Ireland with another friend, and all kinds of memories came flooding back about OUR trip to Ireland.

Sometime in the winter of 2004 Marcia asked me if I wanted to go with her to a library conference presented by IASL - International Association of School Librarians - in Dublin, Ireland.  It would be happening that coming June and she thought we could work it out that our school district would pay for the conference and maybe some of the flight costs.  And they did!  (They don't do that so much anymore.)  So we decided to plan to go to the conference that was being held at Trinity College in Dublin, and then extend our stay with another week of travel in Ireland.  And since she travels extensively, she had a working relationship with Rick Steves travel books and she planned out the whole trip.  And she even created a CD mix of songs from Ireland to get us in the right mindset.

And most importantly, she was the driver of our rented car, driving on the left side of the road, which went really well most of the time - except for the first day out.  We were headed south into the Wicklow Mountains, on a narrow little mountain road just beyond the lake that looks like a glass of Guinness beer (dark brown with a sandy beach at the top that looks like foam), and we popped a tire when we went off the left side of the road.  So this is us:

Actually, I guess it was me because she didn't think she knew how to change a tire, and was surprised that I did.  And there were no cell phones or AAA to help.  Only a minor injury to my hand and we survived to have a great time on the rest of the trip.

Here's Marcia standing by a Kilkenny County bookmobile.  Seemed appropriate for the trip.

And here are our sock monkeys, Rory and Nate, resting near Sweet Molly Malone's cockles and mussels in Dublin.  Marcia's Nate has traveled with her all over the world, so when we were going to Ireland, she and her husband created Rory (short for Aurora, I think) for me to bring along.  Rory started out in this foofy pink dress, but things got better for her later in the trip when we found her an Ireland World Cup Soccer outfit!

On the ferry crossing over to near Galway.

Standing while being buffeted by the winds of the Cliffs of Mohr, Nate in the backpack.

And our nightly task was to find some local nightspot where they were playing Irish music live, and finding something to eat.  Hopefully this picture won't cause her problems at her school, but it shouldn't since she is drinking tea and I have the Guinness!

It was great fun.  And I hope she keeps on blogging!