What I learned at my first ALA conference...

Things I learned at my first American Library Association conference:

•  Being part of a conference attended by 28,000 other people means things will get overwhelming. Just find a spot out of the way to look over the giant conference manual and drink your Jamba Juice. (I never had Jamba Juice until this conference and I'm totally hooked now. It's way better than Starbuck's sad attempts at smoothies.)
• Fight the instinct to take reading material along. You won't need it, and you'll get oodles of free books in the exhibit hall from publishers and authors alike. 
• Use the post-office in the convention center. You can mail the boxes of books to your home or office via media rate, which saves you money and there's the added bonus of not pulling a muscle trying to shove the books into your suitcase and/or lug the books onto the plane, train, automobile, mule, camel, bicycle, pedicab, etc. on your way home.
• Be a little outgoing. This is tricky for me because I tend to like to sit back and just observe. Forcing myself to start conversations with strangers was daunting, but totally worth it. Literary professionals are awesome people. The hotel shuttles to and from the convention center are the perfect time to strike up conversations with fellow riders.
• No line is too long to stand in when you're going to meet Lois Lowry!
• When attempting to go through the exhibits hall, do it in stages. Plan it out. Remember that you are an information professional and use the information available to you to not get killed by the annual "Running of the Librarians" for free books on the first night. Avoid the big publishing houses (Scholastic, HarperCollins, Random House, etc.) on the first night, unless you are 100% committed to wall-to-wall people in a book-grabbing frenzy. If you are someone who really enjoys a "Black Friday" atmosphere, then take on the publishing booths that first night. Otherwise, avoid it at all costs. Vendors will do giveaways on the first night to try to lure you in, but a lot of the giveaways continue through the rest of the conference. Don't get trampled for an ipad giveaway that lasts all week by a 5,000+ crowd rushing for a one-night-only pie giveaway at a nearby booth. Do your research pre-exhibit hall opening and you will be a happier person.
• Wear comfy shoes. I saw so many women wearing sky-high heels. Why, why, why would you do that to yourself? Sessions are miles apart and you have to walk so far every day. Be kind to your piggies. Those super-cute heels aren't giving the intended impression that you are stylish or professional, they give the impression that you are an idiot to bring those to a conference this size.
• On the topic of wardrobe: a lot of people pack cute dresses and wear those the entire time. Others wear jeans. I went with brightly colored pants and bright tops. Wear clothing that you are comfortable wearing as you walk around in a busy city. Breezes happen...keep that in mind when you pack those dresses, ladies. Librarians are a group that tend to keep their cardigans close. You can always wrap the cardi around your waist to keep the mooning to a minimum, if it gets that bad.
• Do bring a cardigan or shawl or jacket because it is chilly in the sessions. It was actually kind of chilly in Chicago one day with the wind whipping off the lake. 
• When a session you wanted to be a part of is standing-room only, don't be afraid to find out what's happening next door or two doors down and sitting in on those, instead. I found a really awesome graphic novel discussion going on in a nearby room when the session I wanted to see was too full to get a seat.
• You can bring your family and friends to ALA! I didn't realize this. People brought siblings, spouses, friends, children, parents, everybody with them to the conference. I would say half the people in the lines for the author signings, 1/4 of the people in the auditoriums for the speakers, and most of the people in the film screenings are friends and family members of a librarian at the conference. There were so many children at the conference that ALA actually provides day care for when the parent(s) are busy with sessions.
• Have fun! It is a professional conference and it's easy to get conference fatigue, but remember that these ALA conferences are unique opportunities to talk over ideas, problems, and issues that you have at your library with like-minded people from all over the world. I met librarians from China, Guatemala, Denmark, Nigeria, and Chile. Not to mention the librarians that work in the US, but are from other countries, like my seat-mate on the train back to St. Louis, who was from Bulgaria. Several years ago, she won a green card through the USA's immigration lotto (Yes, there is such a thing! I had no idea...) and so she came to live and work here. I went to Chicago excited to be attending the conference, but left ALA even more amped about my profession as a whole and the awesome people that have decided to work in this field.

Chicago, we're coming for you!

Get excited! It's officially ALA week in Chicago! 25,000 librarians, writers, publishers, bookshop owners, and library students all invading one city for a week of awesomeness! I've never gotten the chance to go, so this is my first trip to the Conference of Win. [I might meet Lois Lowry!! EEEEEE!]

There are so many people coming to speak that I'm sad I won't get to hear and see everyone! I'm bummed especially about my train schedule meaning I have to leave the conference in the morning of the last day before Octavia Spencer takes the floor for her big talk to close the conference. Remember Octavia Spencer? She was on Ugly Betty, Big Bang Theory, and most notably as Minny Jackson in The Help (for which she won an Oscar! Yay!). She's taking the leap into a mystery series for children that features a Ninja Detective and she is the keynote for the closing of the conference. I'm sure she's awesome. Plus, she's writing books for kids about Ninja Detectives, how can that flop?

Octavia Spencer as Minny Jackson. She was my favorite character in The Help!

Speaking of non-floppers on the children's lit scene: Mo Willems is going to be there and I've got a book for him to sign for my friend's son. Elephant and Piggie books are all the rage! I love his work. He's such an amazing author, it'll be interesting to hear him talk about how he comes up with all of his ideas.

Giada DeLaurentis is going to be there, and I'm really hoping she's actually cooking. Cookbooks don't do a whole lot for me, but I'd like to eat free food! Especially free food prepared in front of me by a famous chef I've seen on tv before.

Khaled Hosseini is coming to talk about his newest book that came out last month, And the Mountains Echoed, which is sitting at #3 on NY Times Best Seller list this week. I always wanted to read The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns, but I still haven't gotten around to it. Maybe hearing him speak will inspire me to finally read these books?

Oliver Stone is coming to talk about his new documentary, which I might stop in to hear a bit about. It's called "The Untold History of the United States" and is going to be challenging the traditional history taught to students. I'm all for it.

And Alice Walker is coming! I don't actually own a copy of "The Color Purple", but I might see if I could get one and see if she could sign it? She's got a new book of poetry coming out and I hope she reads some from it. It'd be pretty cool to hear her read a little.

And, as I mentioned at the start: LOIS LOWRY! This is probably the coolest thing, ever. Because Number the Stars and The Giver are two of my favorite books in the world, I actually don't have full copies of them any longer. Books that I love, I tend to tear pages out and frame for decoration in my house. So, unless I track one down, I won't have one for her to sign. I don't know that I'll actually be able to meet her. I mean, I might stand in front of her and just sort of stare awkwardly and then be like, 'hi?' But, regardless of whether I can actually form a coherent sentence and have some actual dialogue with the woman, I'm going to hear her speak about dystopian fiction on the first night. She's part of a panel of other young adult fiction writers who are going to be holding a discussion on the topic. Maybe hearing her speak first and not having the chance to meet her face-to-face until the next day will give me some sort of conversation starter, like, 'I really agreed with what you said last night about....' Or, I'll just hover and hear what other people say to her and inwardly go 'EEEEEEEEE!!' the entire time.

Plus all the actual sessions and things I have to go to for work and networking and generally having a blast with fellow bookish people! It actually doesn't start until Friday, but I've been so looking forward to this for months that I'm already overcome with joy! That being said, there will be no Throwback Movie Night this weekend...possibly not next weekend, either?

Librarian nerdvana!

So...tumblr. is. boring. I still don't have much to say, but this blog was always more fun/easier than tumblr is.

I guess I said goodbye to this blog way back in October? It doesn't seem that long, but this is February now. So...yeah. Hope everybody enjoyed their holidays and breaks from various duties and things. These past few months have flown by and were filled with family and friends and moving and holidays and more moving and inaugurations and work and now things are settling down again.

Highlights?

We had a white-ish Christmas, and that was pretty sweet. I'm ready for warmer temperatures now, but I'm always happy to have snow around the holidays because it's "supposed" to be that way. Today is ridiculously cold and just making the several block walk in to work from the garage, my face was really hurting from the wind and cold. Not fun.

My dad sold his house and finally moved out. It was good to no longer be at that house anymore, but also sort of bittersweet, for sure. He's living in my house now and making things more 'grown-up' every day, like putting shelves in the pantry and hanging bars in the closets...stuff like that. It almost looks like my family has lived there for a long time now. The house seems to fit this new-found adulthood. 

We got good news at work earlier this week when the Governor's recommendation for the 2014 budget had more money for us than we expected. Still not as much as we actually need to run this place effectively, but better than the recommendations have been for several years, anyway. I'm not sure we'll actually get what he recommends, but it was nice to know he is kind of supportive of us. Go, history!

On the work front, I got the go-ahead to be able to attend my first national conference this summer in Chicago. I'm a giant dweeb in my excitement about being in the same location as about 15,000 other librarians and authors and independent bookshop owners all talking books and archives and libraries for a whole week. Squeee! As the time nears, there will be plenty of blog-dorkiness about it. I've been wanting to go to this conference for several years, but wanted to go when it was in a city that I really enjoy. So, this is perfect. I love Chicago. The American Libraries Association does two conferences a year, and they just did their mid-winter meeting in Seattle, but I was not on the ball enough to go to that one. Someday, I'd like to go to Seattle. I've seen lots of tweets from the mid-winter meeting and just Seattle Public Library alone seems to be just about the coolest place on earth:

Robert's Rules of Order are written on the red meeting room walls!

Neeeeoooon.

Walking on words in the World Languages Collection.

Central Library for Seattle Public!

Well, I guess this is the second-coolest library on Earth, after the newly-renovated and re-opened central library for St. Louis Public! They opened in December after nearly two years of being closed for renovation and who do you think made the trek to St. Louis the week it finally re-opened? Moi! It was not fully functional just yet, but it was pretty impressive with their recording studio and super high-techy meeting spaces and their reading rooms and their cafe and book club room and whatnot. I wasn't as impressed with their genealogy area, but that was mostly due to policies that I disagree with, not so much the building design and decorating that they've done. All in all, I think St. Louis (and Seattle) do a good job of trying to make their library spaces interesting and not stuffy and over-bearing. Good on ya!

 Seattle seemed to enjoy having an influx of librarians, or at least the famous fish market sign-makers did: