ALA Annual, Day 4
I was calculating how many days I've been here, and wow - I can't believe it. It's only the second day of the conference proper, but it's my third full day in DC.
The conference is overwhelming, especially the exhibits portion, but I've hit some good events and meetings thus far. I really enjoyed The Hollywood Librarian; it's not just about librarians in film, but about their importance in general to people's lives, and to a democratic society. The writer and director, Ann Seidl, is trying to get it out during Banned Books Week by showing it in libraries; I've gotten on her email list, and I think it might be a promising project for Simmons student groups.
At the OLOS Diversity and Outreach Fair, where I volunteered, there were a lot of really exciting programs highlighted, including Circle of Literacy, a program to support literacy for the incarcerated. The Office of Literacy and Outreach Services is pretty amazing, actually; it's very small, but they coordinate a lot of programs making a lot of local impact.
I went to two presentations today, one on marketing reference services to Generation X and one on the intersection of authority control and faceted browsing in catalogs. Both were standing room only, which frankly surprised me, but there are a lot of people here, and I guess they're all here to try to mine some new ideas in different fields. One thing that's definitely clear is that there are committees, or sub-committees, or discussion groups, for everything. No matter how narrow a field of librarianship you want to go into, I guarantee there's a group about it.
It's also pretty clear that you can get a lot professionally out of conference, or not. There are all these meetings, but there are also lots of product promotions in the exhibits area, and plenty of more "celebrity"-type speakers. I'm not saying I'm doing any of that; I got to see Nancy Pearl speak today, and I'm going to see Julie Andrews tomorrow. But it's a balance to be struck. And it's tiring! Hopefully I'll get another entry in before I leave.