Caption: Fr. John with John Kemp-Edwards of JERSEY BOYS

The KLAS Conference 2016 was held in Buena Park, California. KLAS (Keystone Library Automation System) is the library system used by most of the libraries for the blind, throughout the United States, coordinated closely with the National Library Service, which had a representative present who spoke and participated in the conference.  As the Catholic Library for the Blind, affiliated with the NLS, our participation in the conference was appropriate and appreciated.

After the initial introductions, I was approached on an individual basis throughout the conference by many other conference goers who either wanted more information about our special services or who thanked me for the services we were able to provide through the years. One, in particular, was the librarian for the Nevada Library for the Blind, which has a large Catholic base, and who wants to publicize our offerings, in particular the Catholic Review. (As an aside, I have friends in Nevada, who are part of a large Catholic Basque population in that state.)

On the evening of the first day of the event, which began at 8 am, we were taken to the historic Racho Los Alamitos, fed a lovely buffet dinner and entertained by Marleena Barber. Marleena has  a one woman cabaret style show in which she details her growth from a timid, teased childhood as  a visually impaired albino

	Caption: Marleena singing

child in Maine to a young woman who discovered her passion for acting and music and came to live her dreams and find love.  She is legally blind but refuses to let anything stand in her way.  She is happily married with two children and leads the children's choir for the Braille Institute. Marleena is an active advocate for blind and albino children and performs regularly in numerous other cabaret venues. She has a strong, trained, wonderful voice and the easy stage presence of a veteran entertainer. 

I was able to share with her the photo of a darling little albino client of ours (3 years old, adopted from China) which-as a mother, as an advocate, she adored. I told her of the little girl's mother who looks to people like her for inspiration and how active the girl's mother is advocating for her own daughter and thanked Marleena for her work and her music. Of course, I passed along my card and our work. I'm sure we will stay in touch.

The Braille Institute had several representatives in attendance at the conference. One was Kathryn Hayes, who usually works with the library in the Hollywood area office.  She has been my contact there for years. She has sent many people to us for religious and spiritual materials, including the Large Print Bible. She originally was not slated to attend, but after we spoke, she came down and attended the entire conference. It was very useful to meet those people in the Keystone group with whom I have been speaking and emailing for years. It was also useful to connect with the directors and owners of the company who were very gracious and interested in our concerns. We are one of the smaller libraries in the country-wide span of their accounts, but we have never been treated as such. Quite the opposite. We were treated as specialists with unique materials to offer.  Again, I'm glad we were there to represent the Society.

Each day had a combination of general sessions and smaller sessions and each had items of greater and lesser importance and interest to our agency. Often there were "nuggets" contained within an otherwise irrelevant workshop that were incredibly useful and applicable to our situation. The only reason for the "divide" between useful and not useful was that much of the information dealt with the use of NLS cartridges and downloads and our MP3's are entirely separate from the NLS system. It is, however, important for us to be aware of what and how the NLS is changing and evolving because many, perhaps most, of our clients use the NLS system. We need to be able to help clients who do not understand how the systems are different or if they are newly blind, to help open the doors for them to such services.

As the conference activities drew to a close, I took the opportunity to rent a car and drive out to meet a long-time client, Sr. Mary Augustine Murphy, who has recently been moved from her beloved home, the Monastery of the Angels in Los Angeles, to a care facility, St. John of God Retirement and Care Center. Ironically, Sister Mary Augustine is a client dear to Kathryn Hayes of the Braille Institute also. Sister has always been a feisty, delightful and yet deeply spiritual member of our XSB family.  Recently she lost her sister and so, combined with losing her

	Caption: Christine and Sr. Mary Augustine

independence, her spirits have been a bit daunted, though her trust in the Lord's plan never faltered.  Our visit was very special. Kathryn had thought that I would spend about an hour with her before she would be too tired to go on, so I arranged to run up for a tour of the Braille Institute after seeing her. Sister and I ended up talking for over two hours. We could have chatted longer. We laughed. We cried. She shared so much of her worries and sorrows and even joys and asked for our prayers for her and her family. She is an inspiring and wonderful woman. I am lucky to know her.

From talking with her I ran up for a rapid fire tour of the Braille Institute, where Sister learned life skills as a youngster, led by the gracious Kathryn Hayes. Kathryn introduced me to everyone we came across at work, noting that she told them I was coming. They were pleased to tell me of their work and interested in ours.  Founded in 1919 by J. Robert Atkinson, who was blinded as a youth, they are a massive, amazing structure. They have publishing, recording and duplicating facilities as well as classrooms dedicated to teaching life skills. I was fascinated by

Caption: Kathryn from the Braille Institute

their consciousness of a differentiation in textures in floor and walls to aid in special orientation for their clients and students. The staff go into the community to help families with blind children. Others train adults and older children in their facility.  The center hosts various meetings, conventions, a Braille Children's Reading Challenge, a children's choir with visually impaired members, led by a visually impaired director. They serve clients around the world with their audio, large print and braille circulating libraries...but they don't do what we do.

It was a great trip. It filled the days with camaraderie, learning and sharing. It was time well-spent.  I learned more about how to utilize the library system that is so much a part of our client services. It is the important centralized system where we keep track of both our audio and braille books-keeping those records accessible to the auditors in a standardized format-where we keep track of our patron records, which formats a client uses and all of the information on what a client orders through the years as far as books in all formats and serials, address changes, how long a patron has been a client etc. and much more. The conference helped me understand better how to more fully use the system. 

We connected with other libraries, we made our presence known, I connected with a client in need. It was all good.

When I was first approached about attending the KLAS conference back at the beginning of the year, I was beyond excited. I had never been to Los Angeles or Orange County before, and thought it would be a great experience for me since I had only been on the job for a couple of months. My excitement was also met with apprehension - what should I expect? Will there be a pop quiz at the end? What will the people be like?

Soon after our arrival in California, the KLAS staff greeted Christine and me in the lobby of the Knott's Berry Farm Hotel and they prepped us for the next few days. Christine and I had already made known our breakout session preferences prior to

	Jim Burts, Executive VP of KLAS, wearing the XSB cap.

At the end of the conference, we wrapped up with a roundtable discussion on fundraising. As most, if not all, the other libraries there were government or privately funded, it was quite interesting to hear about their troubles raising funds and their tactics in trying to overcome that. Everyone at our table was left quite in awe of the fact that we were a strictly not for profit, let alone a religious organization. I suppose there is a reason we have been around for over a hundred years!

I found that some of the breakout sessions did not pertain to us at all. For

James Gleason from the Perkins Library in Boston.

example, the session I attended on "Machines" dealt mainly with the NLS players and subsequently how to keep cockroaches out of them. Several discussions included the post office's general ineptitude and methods on how to deal their indifference to Free Matter (which actually was the most relevant to us). Another session dealt with Catalogue maintenance, with the presenter suggesting having six volunteers read a book and designate certain ratings/subject labels. That's not an option for a small agency that wants to put materials into the hands of readers as quickly as possible.