I still have a couple of things that I did not get to share on the LITA Blog or in this space yet. I stayed home today to get all of my conference writing finished so that tomorrow I can start preparing for Immersion which is happening in two weeks, holy crap.
Without further ado.
Things that rocked about ALA 2006
- New Orleans – The city was so genuinely glad that we were there spending our money, everyone was over the top nice (except for a guy who cursed at me for not turning right on red per the sign, whatever), and the food was fabulous everywhere I went.
- Meeting new people – Always a pleasure to do, especially when you get to meet hilarious people like this
- The food – jambalaya at The Gumbo Shop, beignets at Café Du Monde, a Fried Green Tomato with crab at The Court of Two Sisters, a turkey burger at Lucy’s, and a shrimp poboy at Mother’s. Yum. Yum. Yuuum.
- The Dark Horse Comics booth – These guys have my favorite booth every year. At Midwinter they had Serenity posters and this year I got a copy of Vampire Hunter D and Fray for free. Anyone that will give me Whedon products has my undying affection. I am that easy. I big huge heart Dark Horse.
- My hotel was perfectly in the middle of everything.
- Hurricanes – the drink not the weather phenomenon
- Abita – the local brew
- Next Stop Blogging – The BIGWIG panel I moderated went great, thanks to our three great presenters, Jason Griffey, Karen Coombs, and Steven Bell.
- Oh the Networking! I went to less sessions than I normally do but I did a lot more talking to people. As a result, I met some fabulous new folks, including someone who is actually going to pay me to write! More on that later. Suffice it to say, Teresa Koltzenburg is one of my new favorite people. We had drinks at the Carousel Bar, which revolves while you sit on it. It does not, thankfully, have any of those strange flying animals on it.
- Leslie Burger’s Blogger Bash – The prez was in rare form and barefoot! It was a fun party, as always.
- Free Wifi all the time. ALA you have just raised yourself a notch. Now can we make this a habit?
Things that rocked a bit less
- It was freaking hot as Hades with 100% humidity. I am from Houston, but geez, I thought I was going to melt into a puddle of goo. Why can’t ALA have conferences in the south when it is nice and cold down here? Do they not know that we southerners like to hide from the heat, not traipse about it in all day?
- ACRL President’s Program – see my previous post for the monstrosity that was this program.
- The Blogger’s Bash – It was very late, which made it hard for some people to get there and it felt a bit like the bloggers were being co-opted into being reporters for Leslie Burger. We blogged about the Gulf Coast librarians’ plight as asked, but that was never the original intention on the Blog Salon. I hope OCLC takes it back at Midwinter and Leslie Burger comes to mingle. Do not take this the wrong way. We bloggers do appreciate her support and do not mind supporting her, but the Blog Salon should be a bit less formal. The informality of the thing is the reason why we love it so much.
- Top Ten Tech Trends from LITA – When can we start talking about getting some women on this panel? There are plenty of women doing interesting things with technology. Why do we keep perpetuating the myth that only men do tech?
–Jane, glad to be home