Midweek 1: #AAUW136

On November 28, 1881, Marion Talbot and Ellen Richards invited thirteen other women to a meeting to talk about the needs of college-educated women -- to provide more opportunities for higher education and to consider what public service they could collectively undertake.  The Association of Collegiate Alumnae was the result -- known today as American Association of University Women .

Members and guests at Tuesday evening's meeting of the Waukegan Area Branch posed for a birthday-greeting photo.   #AAUW136!

(Yes, that's my husband on the left. I'm in the middle behind Dorothy, who's holding the AAUW banner.) 

The program was given by Jamie Larue, director of the  Office for Intellectual Freedom at the American Library Association, presented "Social Justice and Intellectual Freedom."  The five librarians in the branch are certainly aware of IF issues -- it was a great opportunity to present IF to so many non-librarians. Everyone enjoyed the presentation.

Jamie and I met at a library conference in 1994 when he he was director of the Douglas County Library District in Colorado and I was director of the Fargo Public Library.  We learned much more recently (thanks, Facebook) that he and my sister were friends when both worked at the University of Illinois libraries in the late 1970's.  Jamie grew up in Waukegan.  One of the AAUW members worked with his mother, prompting Jamie to say that in the dozens of presentations he's given across the U.S. and abroad, this was the first time an audience member remembered his mother. :)