The American Library Association annual conference

Marian Wright Edelman, President of the Children's Defense Fund

I'm back from ALA's annual conference in Washington DC. The conference was overwhelming! By far the most moving presentation that I attended was Marian Wright Edelman's address on the state of America's children.

I attended a pre-conference on giving your library a make over (Extreme Makeover: Redesigning Your Library to Promote Usage and Circulation). Most of the projects presented at the pre-conference were YA area make overs. Everyone seems to love slat wall displays. Ikea has great little egg shaped chairs that spin for kids. The Queens Public Library did away with Managers' offices and switched smaller meeting rooms with larger staff workrooms to provide more public space in the library. RFID and self-checkout machines are very popular in larger and more affluent library systems.
The biggest pain about the conference was that workshops and lectures were held in about 30 different hotels that were scattered around DC. Thomson Gale provided shuttle buses that made traveling around easy but it often took more than the scheduled 30 minutes between workshops to get from place to place.

The march of the librarians between buildings.


The best workshops that I attended were about providing and marketing business reference services and award winning programs in small and medium size libraries. Again YA programs seem to be the hottest thing around.


The porch of the Morrison-Clark Hotel


I stayed at a small hotel about two blocks from the Convention Center. The hotel was charming but the rooms were tiny. The neighborhood was interesting.


Is this a church next door to the hotel? I don't know.


Statue of Samuel Gompers in the park across from the hotel.




"SAY TO THE ORGANIZED WORKERS OF AMERICA THAT AS
I HAVE KEPT THE FAITH I EXPECT THAT THEY WILL KEEP THE
FAITH. THEY MUST CARRY ON, SAY TO THEM THAT A UNION [MAN]
CARRYING A CARD IS NOT A GOOD CITIZEN UNLESS HE UPHOLDS
THE INSTITUTIONS OF OUR COUNTRY AND A POOR CITIZEN [OF]
OUR COUNTRY IF HE UPHOLDS THE INSTITUTIONS OF OUR COUNTRY
AND FORGETS THE OBLIGATIONS OF HIS TRADE ASSOCIATION."

Strange quote from the Gompers statue. What's with all of the angels, weapons and semi-naked people?