Restrictions on travel/large gatherings due to COVID-19 made it impossible for Broward County Library to present the 33rd Annual Conference on Children’s Literature in person. But as remote learning and increased home schooling turns parents into teachers and teachers into multi-taskers, learning opportunities such as the conference are more important than ever. The goal of this project was to transition the event virtually while still presenting an exciting, inviting and enticing learning event.

The 33rd Annual Conference on Children’s Literature featured three key elements of innovation:

• Successful transition of the conference from physical to virtual, achieved with teamwork between library sections including programming, digital initiatives, IT and youth services.
• Addition of pre-conference online Bookopoly game/book talk events hosted by one featured conference speaker.
• National marketing via a newswire service, as the conference was virtual, with the potential audience unlimited geographically.

Dynamic, well-produced, entertaining and informing, the 33rd Annual Conference featured six presenters and seven presentations, all of which were recorded and are available online. There were 319 registrations and 219 unique attendees throughout the day, over twice the attendance at last year’s conference. This increase can be attributed partially to the national press release, which was posted in 108 media outlets nationally and viewed over 2,000 times.