Greetings from Washington, DC

Hello readers! My name is Erika and I am going to blog for a few days about my ALA Annual Conference experience. A bit about myself - I am part of the online cohort and reside in North Carolina. My concentration is in reference services and I am just a couple semesters away from graduating from the SLIS program. I was selected by SLIS to represent Wayne State at the ALA Annual Conference as a Student-to-Staff Participant. I have been paired with a division of ALA (RUSA) and will work a certain amount of hours at the conference. In return I get free entry to the conference, free lodging and a per diem. Pretty nice, right? For those of you who are unaware of this program there is an application process through the school each winter to select a student. Forty students are selected for the program from different library schools around the country. Apply! It's a great opportunity.

I arrived in DC yesterday to find that I should have packed more tank tops and less pants - wow is it hot! I had a meeting with the RUSA folks in the afternoon so I decided to head over to the convention center a little early to get my badge holder and program. There weren't too many folks around yet so I was able to get my bearings. I checked in with my RUSA supervisor and got the details of my schedule and also stayed around for a few hours to help prepare session packets. This was a good warm-up for the weekend and a great chance to meet and mingle with a few ALA folks.
I left the convention center to check-in to my hotel and meet my roommate. Soon it was time to meet about 30 Student-to-Staffers for dinner at an Ethiopian restaurant nearby. The food was fantastic and the company was even better. This dinner was a great opportunity to sit down and meet library science students from all over the country. Plus, it gave us all a few friendly faces to pick out in the crowd at the conference. After a long day of travel and work it was time to head back to the hotel and rest up for the weekend.