Librarians invade DC

As a librarian, I am always on the lookout for news stories about libraries or librarians. Starting this blog, I know I am joining the soon to be crowded field of librarian bloggers. A few examples of bloggers would be the LibrarianInBlack, the Reflective Librarian, Library Bytes, etc. just to name a very few. There are plenty of blogs in our profession and most of these bloggers will be at the 2007 ALA Annual Conference in Washington DC beginning this Thursday. A week long conference of everything under the sun that has to do with public and academic libraries, technology, programming, design, administration, etc.

I will be attending this years' conference. My meeting schedule is overbooked, my social calendar makes me want to stay in my hotel room.

At the conference, I will be representing the PULSE program and Brooklyn Public Library- my current place of employment. On Sunday afternoon, I will be doing a poster session about the program at the CLENERT Training Showcase.

I inadvertently scheduled many of the program sessions during the showcase and realized that I would miss many of the programs I really wanted to see. As we say in the profession- C'est la vie!

It is anticipated that there will be about 20,000 librarians converging on DC this week. Plenty of interesting speakers include, Garrison Keillor, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Julie Andrews and Bill Bradley. An interesting mix for a diverse group of librarians in attendance.

It might seem that some of these celebrities, politicians, etc. might be unusual as speakers for a library conference. However, they usually surprise all of us and are often quite engaging.

I have not officially decided if I will blog at this conference. It will be my first time attempting to do so. The thought of sitting on the convention center floor and writing may be appealing but nevertheless time consuming.

In the meantime, grab a good book and enjoy!