Musings from the Library Conference: TLA 2009

Some people I met at the conference....Disappointment: I only came home with a couple of new author photos for my author tablecloth. The best was the author of the Black Lagoon series.

Surprise: I came home with 137 free books, uncorrected proofs, more than I've ever brought home from a conference. Rolly-carts were not banned until day three. No excruciating back pain from carrying a hundred pound of books for four days when you can push a rolly-cart. I've already started several of the freebies, including Absolutely Maybe (which is a resounding Yes! so far) and Tales from Outer Suburbia (loved the first little story). I will be reading the ones I like, taking some to pass on to good readers at my school, and passing some on here at my blog in the near future.

Spent Way Too Much Time: A skyscraper is going up across from the convention center. Three enormous cranes were working almost nonstop and simultaneously. If I looked very hard (and I looked very hard), I could see tiny people in the cabs of the cranes. Here's the the thing: those cranes are hanging there, a hundred feet above the fifteenth floor of this future skyscraper. That's way up there. And a long way down. How much do they pay those crane operators? I hope they are getting lots and lots of money.

Sign of the Times: As the vendors were tearing down the library conference, I started seeing the exhibit hall next door begin to set up...for a gun and knife show. High calibre guns, mind you. And there was a long line waiting outside a third exhibit hall. The people were waiting to buy tickets for the 25th celebration of Wrestlemania. Should I have tried to pass along some of my BookCrossing books to these folks?

And...BookCrossing: When I put out a call for books at BC for books to be released at the conference, I was hoping I might receive fifteen or twenty books. I received over 450! That meant I brought my rolly-cart filled with over a hundred books each day and distributed them. I heard over and over, "I love this idea." When I left the convention hall, all the books had been taken. And, so far, I've had two books logged in. That makes me very happy.

Finally, Pepe: Pepe insisted on coming home with me from the conference. He seems to like books. I think the kids in the library will love him.

My favorite sessions were 23 Things, Librarian in Black's Strategies for Staying on Top in the Library World, and Leaders in the Libraries. I'm coming back to my library with lots of new ideas in my brain!