Final Post from Washington, DC

Welcome to Day 5 and the final post of my ALA experience! I did not have to work until noon today so I took this opportunity to walk around The Stacks some more. Free books are great, but you must have the luggage space to haul them back home! I also have come to the realization from several overheard conversations and my own observations that librarians are crazy for book bags. This may not be a big surprise to many of you and I am a "bag person" myself, but it seems like the goal of some folks here is to collect as many book bags - free, not free, plastic, cotton, polyester, recycled, etc - as possible. There should be a study done on librarian behavior patters in The Stacks. It could be interesting.

Before work I also attended the Graphic Novel Panel consisting of David Small, author of the new book Stitches, and Audrey Niffenegger, author of the new book The Night Bookmobile. It was real fascinating to hear the stories and background information on these books from the authors themselves. I have never really been into graphic novels before, but after their talks I just may check them out (at least the authors' books in particular).

For work this afternoon I helped prepare awards and set up for the RUSA 2010 Awards Ceremony and Reception. Award winners included the likes of Marie L. Radford, Nancy Pearl and other superstars of the reference world. It was wonderful to be in the room with these great librarians. Today was my longest work day (6 hours) but it flew by fast.

I will work an early bird shift (5:30am-8am!!) tomorrow for the Coretta Scott King Breakfast setting up and taking tickets, but then I am headed home. So this will be my last post from ALA and DC. I highly recommend getting involved in ALA as it seems there are endless possibilities. The Student-to-Staff program is a great way to get a glimpse of the behind-the-scenes action of the conference and a great way to minimize your conference related fees. I hope that you'll apply for the program next year and that you enjoyed following along in my first ALA journey. Cheers!