I sort of have a “How can I miss you if you won’t go away” feeling about ALA most years. I went when I was a councilor. I went when it was near me. I went when I was speaking at it. This time, none of these things were true and I was still a little exhausted from ALA Anaheim last year where my credit card number was skimmed and I had to drive an hour to get a decent restaurant. This year ALA is sounding fun, from the reports. ALA is always a better time when it’s in Chicago. More of the staffers can go and more people are used to the location and can get decent hotel rooms and the weather isn’t horrible. At least that’s been my experience. My work travel this month is going to consist of a trip to New Orleans next week [another popular ALA summer venue] for MetaFilter’s Tenth Anniversary where I will be paid to drink beer and eat alligator and wear a catchy t-shirt. Here are a few links I’ve been seeing about what I feel I’ve been missing at ALA.
- Library Conference Secret Twitter Proves Librarians Sexy, Stern
- Zines! Takes me back to my early days printing out Cognots at ALA in DC.
- Watching the ALA2009 hashtag in real-ish time.
- Meredith got an award!
- ALA 2009 photo and tweet tracker (props to heather)
- Library Journal’s up to the minute news tracker including their amusing top-of-the-tweets report
It’s just like being there, only I’m still in my pajamas, and I slept til 11.
It was fun. (I already left, so it’s in the past tense for me.) Handing out zines was a blast, the Library Society of the World meetup was a good time. The secret twitter account was a riot for a short time, but went the way of all public anonymous stuff (thanks for for finding that link to the Washington City Paper article). The only other notable thing you left out from my point of view was the ALA Unconference, which I will write more about on my own blog.
“my credit card number was skimmed” — so sorry about that.
A new Twitter hash tag picked up where the old one was cut off. See @ALASecrets2009
Code4lib 2010: Pyjamas only dress code?
I think I’m still wanted by the ALA for pre/post combination violations (where they tried to bill me nearly a year later for being a student + member, rather than a student member. At best, they could have gotten restitution for precisely the amount they already had, less costs).
It was great fun. Twitter is wonderful and the photo/tweet tracker by Heather is way awesome!
Oddly, I didn’t miss it at all this year. Unlike your horrible experience last year (ouch!) I actually enjoyed Anaheim more than I’ve enjoyed ALA for a few years. And the last time it was in Chicago I had a terrible experience – though not as bad as yours in Anaheim! The worst for me was Orlando where I had the fun experience of an “attempted strong-arm robbery” when someone tried to mug me in the parking lot of my hotel.
Anaheim though, I had fun – it was the first time I really took some time out to be a “tourist” and went on one of the Hollywood tours for fun and I was staying in one of the hotels *across the street* from the convention centre. Too often I’d go to conference and never get away from the convention centre and convention hotels – and never really experience the cities they were in!
I think I was maybe a bit burned out on ALA too. I was never working at a library that supported going so I was usually the only one from my library there. And now, since Anaheim, I’ve moved to Canada so maybe I’ll try CLA in Edmonton next year! And for now I’m off to check out those links you gave! Thanks!