ALA Day #1

I was very excited and anxious at the same time at the thought of attending my first professional conference for the American Librarian Association. I described it to friends who asked me what I was doing, "What's the ALA Conference?" It's where hundreds of librarians and awesome bibliophiles descend on DC to talk about books and wreak advocacy havoc. Well, maybe not that last part, but definitely a lot of cool and awe inspiring people converging into one place. A few people I spoke to said, "I hear those conference can get pretty crazy." This made me flash back to an invitation I'd received to go to the ALA Dance Party which was Prince themed. All I did was nod and smile in response. Unfortunately, I did not get to attend the Thursday, Friday, or Saturday events of the conference as I had agreed to be in a friend's wedding. This was also before I knew the dates of ALA and could not back out of the wedding as a result without causing offense. So as we begin, my launch date for the conference was Sunday, June 27th at 10:30 am.

I had planned on attending various events starting at 8 am. I was surprised with a visit from long time friends from Leesburg and that turned into late night conversations, bad science fiction, and chips and salsa until 2 in the morning. When I left the apartment at 8:30 am I made it into the conference, registered and breathlessly stumbled into my first event with the ALSC (Association of Library Services to Children), Celebrating the Spoken Word with Poetry for Young People, a program which discusses and sings the praises of using poetry to impact children and literacy. The speakers included Mary Ann Hoberman, Children's Poet Laureate; Stephen Young, Program Director, Poetry Foundation, Poetry Out Loud National Recitation Contest; Sylvia Vardell, Professor, Texas Woman's University, School of Library and Information Science. I recall the youngest speaker, Amber Rose Johnson, most vividly. She was the winner of the 2010 Poetry Out Loud Winner, and is a senior at at a high school in Providence, Rhode Island. The Recitation Contest involved the student picking and memorizing three poems of their choice and then delivering them in front of a panel of judges. I recall her second poem choice, Shakespeare's Sonnet 116, in honor of her parents and Margaret Walker's For My People. She recited the last poem for us and to hear her speak moved the entire room into a stunned silence. It's almost as if we weren't listening to poetry but rather the dreams and hopes of a young black woman speaking of the struggles of African Americans over the past few centuries.

Some of my takeaways from this event about poetry were:

• "Rhymers will be readers" = Literacy --> Poems --> Children --> READ.
• We should be looking at what poems do and how they use language when using them with children.
• The best poetry informs all of our senses.
• Having kids read poetry along with you, even if they're ESL kids and can only focus on one word, is a great way to get them to participate and into poetry
• Children who have at least 4 nursery rhymes memorized will be reading at higher grade levels by the time they reach elementary school.
• As quoted by the Amber Johnson, "A poem is a reflection of you, who you are, a reflection of the author, and a reflection of yourself."

I was volunteering at this event for the ALSC and helped hand out handouts (which disappeared faster than you can say, "Free food in the exhibit hall!") Once the handouts ran out I struck up a conversation with a woman volunteering at the event too, a librarian from Montgomery County. I was excited to find a kindred spirit and proceeded to ask her question about working with children in library services. I was disappointed when I came to find that she's looking to change careers because, as she put it, "She's tired of working with children and tired of all the bureaucracy she has to put up with." She's not even a member of ALA she told me. I met with my friend Miranda after this who told me she couldn't stand how negative people were being and usually tuned them out when they spoke like this. I can't tell what my path as a librarian is going to put me through, but I hope not to come out of it jaded and worn.

I accompanied this librarian into the overwhelmingly crowded exhibit hall where we proceeded to chat. I told her I'd ran into the same man 4 times on the metro and throughout my morning at the conference:
"Have you played 'Cite the Librarian' Game?", she asked me.
"What's that?", I asked.
She replied, "Where you look at someone and ask yourself if they're a librarian or not."
"He definitely doesn't look like a librarian," I said.
"You don't look like a librarian either," she retorted.

This comment actually stung to hear. Especially when it was followed by one of the vendors asking me what high school I was from. My attire didn't make me look that young I hope. I had my hair down and undone so that may have been why. My confidence was boosted by a homeless man later on the metro who asked me if I was a librarian or a teacher. He loved us so much, he said, that he eventually wanted to marry a librarian.

Once the librarian and I parted ways on the exhibit floor I spent the rest of the day picking up swag and running into Laurie Halse Andersen, famous young adult author of Speak, Wintergirls, Twisted, Prom, and Chains. I ran into her at her mini Q&A at the Live at your Library Stage. She read an excerpt from her new book Forge which is a continuation of the storyline from Chains following a pair of young African American teens during the Revolutionary War. I clapped softly after her reading and she whipped her head around to me and said, "Don't clap! It's only the prologue. You don't know if the rest is going to be good or if it will suck." She was smiling when she said this though. A very humble writer, Laurie also shared that, "These books are not copy-edited, please don't hate me. I really don't know where commas go." As a gift to herself she has promised that once she finishes her three books surrounding this topic she will read M. T. Anderson's (no relation) similar books beginning with, The Astonishing Life of Ocatavian Nothing.

Laurie tweeted a photo of us at her reading. See if you can find me! It's hard, trust me!

After Laurie's Q&A I spent a lot of time wandering the exhibit hall where I picked up various amounts of swag. I will detail everything I picked up later in Day 3 but suffice to say I scored a gem finding a recorded book narrated by James Marsters for FREE! I also visited Alliance Entertainment booth who were GIVING AWAY FREE CDs and cleaned them out. I think I walked away with maybe 10 or 12 CDs total of popular and eclectic music. Best find ever was Massive Attack's latest album.

My second volunteer program for ALSC was called "Good Comics for Kids" which was a panel of librarians, most of whom were dressed in steampunk attire, recommending good graphic novels for kids up to middle school. I met Erin Burns here, a library associate from DC Public Library, and she gave me insightful advice on how to survive searching for a job. She had been unemployed for 8 months having being laid off from a position that hired her for not having an MLS and then let her go for the same reason. Her best piece of advice was to have a support group whether it be religious, family, or friends. Have a network of people to bring you back up when you're feeling low and discouraged. Also, have an activity that gets you out of house and prevents you from getting overwhelmed. She described a program that combined dance, improvisational theatre, and a third element that sounded very fun.

My third and final commitment for ALSC was volunteering for the Newbery/Caldecott Banquet at the Renaissance Hotel near Dupont Circle. On my way to the hotel I ran into my friend Miranda, a fellow grad student from UMD, on the bus. She's currently living in Rochester, NY and came down for the conference since a friend was letting her use his apartment to stay in (fairly sweet deal) while he was away on business. We talked shop on the bus about life after grad school, job searching, and living in general. She hung out with me on my volunteer stint, which involved guarding the doors to the banquet hall to prevent anyone from coming in early. Thankfully there was a reception across the hall we could usher them into to get distracted with wine and talk. Around 6:48 when the doors were supposed to be open, the librarians in line were definitely getting cranky and I had flashbacks of working special events for Parking Services at JMU. While waiting and watching people walk by I looked to my life and saw Laurie Halse Andersen in a stunning floor length blue and green gown, very faithful to her organic lifestyle. I was shocked at seeing her there. I had tried asking her a question at her book signing but didn't get the chance (I was very very shy). Not so here when the first words out of my mouth were, "MISS ANDERSEN!" She looked at me in surprise, walked over and said, "First of all, call me Laurie." From there her entourage went to look for something and that left me speaking with her for 10-15 minutes about her books, the movies her books were turned into, the possibility of Wintergirls being optioned for a film (probably not), raising her chickens, her writing cottage, her writing style, and how much her books impacted me and my friend Sarah and our high school book club. Laurie smiled and was very gracious throughout our conversation even stopping to hug me twice before she left with her escorts. I was glad I was able to tell an author how much reading their books meant to me and to be completely honest about what I thought of them. Wintergirls was especially hard to get through. Laurie started a trend that most of the authors I would hear and speak to followed up on, giving their two cents about Twilight. Laurie herself said that she couldn't finish reading the books. In fact, she nearly threw one across the room. But her opinion was that if it got the kids reading then she had no complaints about the quality of the literature. Since Laurie's books deal a lot with girls' destructive relationships and the boys involved in them, we compared Bella and Edward to Laurie's characters. I told her how most girls could see themselves in Bella not because she was a relatable character, but because she was a tabula rasa with unrealistic expectations for a relationship and absolutely no sense of self or self-worth. At any rate, Laurie hugged me goodbye and left for the banquet and I was left with a very good end to my evening and my first day at ALA Annual 2010.

 Newbery/Caldecott Banquet. Snazzy fest with dinner!