David's ALA 2008

Let me give you a summary of my ALA this year. This is mostly in lieu of all those great program notes you’re waiting for, as I actually got to attend very few programs this year. The good news here is that if you look up the various ALA cognotes and online program stuff for the conference, you can find far more than I ever, ever could have shared with you, which is a good reminder for us that these days even when we can’t attend a conference, we can almost always get some great stuff out of it. Finding this stuff can be as tricky as finding your way around an actual conference, as ALA is a virtual ant farm of divisions and committees, and there are some very good programming found in places that you wouldn’t think to look, but it is worth the hunt.

The main reason I didn’t get to do many programs was I’m on a committee here – the Reader’s Advisory (RA) committee, under RUSA CODES (which translates Reference & User Services Association, Collection Development Services division, or close to that, anyway). This is the committee I moderated a panel for at last year’s ALA, one of two national RA committees, the other being the PLA; both work closely and amicably together, I’m pleased to say. (PLA is undertaking a bold experiment w/ their committee structure, btw, changing traditional committees into largely virtual communities of interest and building a new website and structure for those groups to work in. They are starting off with just three of the many PLA committees as guinea pigs, and one of those is Reader’s Advisory – quite a testament to the importance and innovative spirit of RA given that this is also one of their youngest committees. It is very exciting, especially for folks who may have felt that national committee involvement was beyond them because of travel limitations, and if any of you want to know more about this, the PLA RA folks are looking for some dedicated RA people who want to participate and help figure out this model. I’m definitely in the loop: talk to me).

Back to my committee. Owing to the unavoidable absence of our presenter (Nancy Pearl) for our program – Book Group Therapy – our committee swung into action to assemble something in very short order out of the prodigious talent of its members. It went pretty much like this: “Hey – my uncle Jeb has use of a gigantic ballroom at the Disneyland Hotel…” “Yes, and momma can sew the costumes!” “Bucky can put the handouts on the wiki, right Buck?!” “Gee, kids – Let’s Put On a Show!!” It really was inspiring how everybody pulled together to put on a panel that wound up having almost too much stuff, and all of it pretty high quality. SPL’s own Jen Baker and Linda Johns were a part of that, contributing their own Book Group Therapy handout to the effort; Jen almost certainly would have been on the speaker’s platform too, but had a time conflict w/ her own committee. Our first 8 a.m. meeting was on Saturday, and we worked on the program, talking about what we would do and kicking around ideas for each other’s portions, as well as discussing the results of a book group survey we’ve done and are still doing. The group is just great – I love and admire everyone on there, and there is a real spirit of camaraderie and a lot of laughing and play, so much so that Andrew Smith and myself have to force ourselves to stop cracking wise or we’d never get anything done. (There are a lot of surreal things about being in Disneyland, like using a urinal to the strains of “Bibbity Bobbity Boo” – are those mouse ears on the urinal puck holder? - that just require serious comment and discussion, folks).

The program that emerged on Sunday morning was as follows: Megan McArdle (Chicago PL and our chair and a wonderful person) kicked things off with some introductory framing and a quick review of some of the survey, including a fun sampling of unexpected titles on our ‘your group’s best / worst titles’ section that included “The Yiddish Policeman’s Ball,” “Like Water for Elephants,” and “Water from Elephants.” Sharron Smith (Ontario Canada, a great person and presenter, and good pal – I spoke last year at her RA conference in Toronto, and will be going back next January to speak there again) took the main section of Book Group Therapy, and the part of her piece I liked best was how she modified the tenets of readers advisory – appeal characteristics like story, language, character, etc. – to her book group, helping readers to see books not just as a matter of taste, but of various storytelling styles, and encouraging them to view each other with the same tolerance and respect that advisors strive for in working w/ the public. (One great tactic here was asking members to go around and talk about the ideal book for them now & then, again helping them to know & respect each other’s reading differences as a good thing. Good Stuff).

Andrew Smith then spoke about his library’s ‘Gab Bags,’ and SPL’s Book Group Collection, as different models for that kind of service, and why this was a good thing to provide and for all the work involved in doing it, how it actually save a lot of work for library staffs while promoting book groups in a very tangible way. Andrew, if you don’t know him, hales from the Williamsburg Regional Library RA ‘hot zone,’ – a gravitational anomaly in our field where a bunch of really innovative folks are all working and advancing RA from a fairly small system, and he’s a great representative of their ethos of hard work, smarts and collegiality. He’s the model of a stand-up guy, and a blast to be around. Michelle Boisvenue-Fox of Kent District Library (home of the much loved ‘What’s Next’ sequels resource, among other things) then spoke about thematic book groups of many stripes that they’ve been doing as a way of attracting members in some neighborhoods that were a fairly “saturated market,” – too many of those ideas to go into here – you can check our online handouts @ http://www.readersadvisory.org/ later on - but all really good stuff. Aside from being a partial doppelganger for an old theater buddy of mine who went on to join the Secret Service, Michelle is really smart and insightful, and I look forward to working more w/ her in future. Next Julie Elliott spoke about book groups and one-reads at college libraries. ALA is a huge tent, and public libraries just one part of that, and Julie’s contributions from that angle were really valuable, and got folks thinking both of things that Academic libraries can do to support leisure reading, as well as ways public institutions can work w/ academics (summer reading club for college folks, anyone?), so this was really great. In fact, in our follow-up meeting, her ideas about RA in non-public libraries got us all really excited about potential future programming and article ideas, and much-needed outreach to other ALA divisions who don’t have RA on their agendas. Great stuff.

Lastly, I spoke. Those who know me know that I’m hardly qualified to talk about book groups, hence my topic: Why Men Don’t Join Book Groups. 51% of our survey respondents so far said they wanted more men in their groups, so this was definitely an area of interest for many attendees. I spoke for about 15 minutes (without aid of Powerpoint sight gags, btw) about various factors that might or might not come into play here, reflecting on my own experiences moderating one group (outside SPL) that turned into a meeting of the She-Woman-Man-Hater club (“…present company excepted, of course…”), and talked about the inclusion of ‘male’ among the great diversity of views we often find in book group selections, w/ suggested authors. I mentioned other strategies that can help groups become more co-ed, such as adding more non-fiction to the mix, non-fiction only groups, Media tie-ins (book & a movie), Great Books, online book groups, and father/son groups, as well as – of course – the wonderful variety of men’s book groups out there, many of which are quite ‘non-traditional’ in their approach, including feats of skill, trivia contests, beer, and atypical book group reads such as sports or periodicals. I talked about the benefits of gender diversity in a library book group, how even the most homogenous of communities have men in them, and referred to a few areas where differences in communication styles can prove challenging (e.g. you think we’re too argumentative / we think you’re avoiding conflict. Or the differing yet equally valid styles of talking about feelings, or around feelings.) Finally a plea about how one man in a book group is very scary (for the man), and two men in a book group is often a contest, even if nobody realizes that. The answer: more men!

The program went very well, though we didn’t wind up w/ time for Q&A. ALA is quite far-flung this year, so we were a good half-mile from the conference center, which worked in our favor in terms of reducing the exodus that might have otherwise occurred when folks got there and saw that Nancy wasn’t on the bill. We did have her action figure there, and all touched on it in some way. I felt it appropriate to my hirsute topic to use it as a ‘talking stick,’ or conch. Almost everybody stayed, and we have a pretty good turnout. Afterwards we went for lunch at a nearby Italian restaurant, and had lots of fun and beer and sang Happy Birthday to Michelle in about three keys. To wrap up committee business, we had another 8 a.m. meeting on Monday, where we did brief postmortem, followed up on next steps for the book groups survey (http://www.readersadvisory.org/), and planning our program for ALA 2009, which is on Paranormal fiction, a very hot and very broad topic embracing lots of areas. We discussed moderators and speakers for this, and are now going after some A-listers (Gaiman, Meyer, etc) to see what we can get. We also talked about future programming ideas, and some other business; it was a full meeting. I’m sad to be one of the (rather too many) folks rotating off of this committee after my quick two-year term (mainly owing to the expense of going to all these conferences – almost all my cohorts in the RA pond are more fully-funded that we are for this), but do intend to keep plugged in to their work as an ex-parte virtual member for the year ahead, and also to be a presenter for them – and PLA – in the not too distant future.

As for the rest of the conference, much of it for a jaded attendee such as myself (or aging roué, as I like to think of it) had to do with touching base, chewing the fat, or breaking bread with a whole lot of folks that I collaborate w/ in various ways, but only see at these things. This includes editors and assorted others at Booklist, Library Journal, NoveList, Kirkus, ALA and Libraries Unlimited, as well as admired colleagues/pals w/ things like LibraryThing and Unshelved, and wonderful contacts in the publishing world such as Nora Rawlinson. It is attending the annual dinner thrown by NoveList’s Duncan Smith for NoveList contributors, where we got into a really lively and laughter-filled discussion about the changing shape of the online world and libraries’ role in that, between salad, steak and sorbet. It is catching up with Joyce Saricks, or Barry Trott, and mapping out the future of the He Reads / She Reads column w/ Kaite Stover as we walk one of those long walks between venues. It is bumping into old classmates and workmates - like bumping into Kristin Buxton at Target where I’d gone to buy a toothbrush - and it just wouldn’t be ALA if I didn’t run into Tracie Hall and get very real with her for five minutes – we always run into each other and have these great little mind-melds that we both love. It is going to the iSchool reception to see a few old pals, and meet some new ones, and watch vegans attempt to navigate the House of Blues bar snacks. It is gawkish fanboy approaches to folks like Jessamyn West or Jon Scieszka. It is talking with a couple of New York library systems about the possibility of my coming out there to do some talks some time – an East Coast tour. It is talking with a number of other SPL attendees such as Marilyn Sheck, and it is checking in with and throwing out little unasked conference tips to a number of iSchool & SPL newbies and ALA first-timers who were in attendance, such as Bo Kinney and Jay Mann. This whole species of thing gets lumped together under the mildly derogatory term "schmoozing," but as you can see it is so much more complex than that. Also, oddly enough, it takes a huge amount of energy – sort of like working a busy 12 hour at DTH or BAL – so I was pretty zombied out by the 3rd day.

Speaking of zombies (you’ll see), probably the best unasked conference tip I threw out to those newbies was to be sure and attend the Book Cart Drill Team Nationals on Sunday afternoon. I don’t think many of them had planned to go, and it would necessitate the tragedy of missing at talk by Joe Janes, but I think we’re all glad we did. This year was a much stronger and larger field that last, with eight entrants, and three serious contenders for the prize: a small all-woman team in glittering coats who did a live-miked version of Hey Big Spender (Hey Big Reader, actually) that included a lot of sashay, bump & grind and a spectacular move with one librarian going under another as she did the splits between two carts(!!); a very creatively costumed group with books on their heads that spun, who did a great medley using sultry sign-language (on the whole it was a pretty sex-drenched contest this year), and a costume extravaganza that went from a Weird Science thing w/ dry ice reactions to a full-on Thriller Zombie Dance. (This group – ‘the Well-Stacked Scibrarians’ from Santa Monica, took the gold cart.) In the bottom five was a sweet number to Bjork’s ssshhhh song; a very adorably unpolished group of California Raisins; a complicated James Bond routine that was sort of like one of those elaborate Gene Kelly mimetic dance numbers, only with no actual dancers involved, and book carts in the middle; a feel good California Girls routine that had everybody bopping and clapping; and a younger group that kicked serious butt with an ambitious surf-rock hip-hop routine that just missed the Bronze cart: I predict great things for those kids. The whole thing is hilariously emceed by Jon Scieszka and Mo Willems, who have several running gags, and at one point looked like they were going to get into a free form rap using just the words 'DEMCO' (who sponsors) and a Flava Flav-esque ‘Daayyyymm!”

Why am I telling you all this? Because in truth, I think that aside from the aforementioned schmoozing, things like the Book Cart Drill Team Nationals are really the heart of conference going. The more, shall we say, content-centered programs vary wildly in quality, and with a very few exceptions are the sort of thing you can pretty much get out of reading our professional literature. Those of you haven’t been to conference can approximate much of that by taking a few days an immersing yourselves in Computers in Libraries, The Progressive Librarian, RUSQ, Library Journal, and things like that, plus a few books. The part you can’t do from home is stuff like the drill team event: an utterly joyous, deeply silly, thoroughly heartwarming celebration of our mirth, our spirit, and our place in the American pageant. It makes me cheer, and tear up, and laugh. (Laugh almost as hard as the guys I flew down here with – two perfect strangers in the plane’s back row, where we convulsed over our favorite South Park sketches and stuff like that). It is a welcome opportunity for hundreds of librarians to not take ourselves seriously, while bursting with pride over who we are and what we do. This is where I truly recharge.

A similar not-well-attended but deeply special program I attended was a stellar panel of authors assembled by Booklist – Carolyn See, Janette Turner Hospital, and Ellen Gilchrist, all talking about their post 9/11 novels. I had to miss the first part of this, and came in during Hospital’s remarks, and was transfixed and deeply moved by what she was saying. You know I’m not always crazy about author events, but here were three really outstanding author events, strung right together. Fantastic. Likewise, the crowd was not huge for the 5th Annual Poetry Blast (right next door to the Young Native American authors awards, you could hear beads shake through the wall, and I grabbed Sherman Alexie’s hand in passing and thanked him for the Sonics thing), where a wonderful diversity of children’s poets read their works. How special and moving this was, in how many ways, I’m a bit powerless to convey: profound, delightful, sensuous, inspiring, wonderful, awesome – all words meant their truest sense. And I had to leave early, to get waaay over to another hotel for the Alternative Media Reception – formerly SRRT’s Free Speech Buffet – a paid event w/ a handful of radical presses and bookstores and libraries, and, of course, really cool librarians. It was down the hall from a big posh crowded Gale’s Best Library event w/ a free bar (ours was pay), so a number of us dropped in on that in our tshirts and shorts to brazenly get a free glass of wine and take it back to our own event. There was good cheese and desert and I got in a very intense discussion with a couple of folks active since the sixties/seventies and a nice librarian from Charlotte Mecklenburg PL (a super visionary system that is the home of Readers Club and many other great online features that were 2.0 before anyone was calling it 2.0) who is stepping in as SRRT chair (four idealists: a socialist, an activist, a pragmatist, a skeptic – we scared off the atheist) over God, human nature, tribalism, complexity, political effectiveness… (yeh, one of those conversations. All we needed was some Pink Floyd and something stronger than the Gin & Tonic). That went pretty late, and was so much more satisfying than the more typical ‘Look how wild and crazy we librarians can get on someone else’s tab’ kind of thing that seems the norm.

As far as traditional programs I caught, the only one really worth mentioning here was the ACRL President’s Program – Bo Kinney was there too – featuring Dan Ariely, titled after his book: “Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces that Shape Our Decisions.” You can get a full sense of this by reading or looking into his book or reviews of it: basically it is a pretty head-spinning look at just how deeply susceptible we are to some pretty astonishing errors. He was a very good speaker, and had some fun exercises w/ visual illusions to help illustrate how we miss things. Not sure what I’ll do with it – though it came in handy during my conversation with the activist, the atheist, et al, later that day.

By the way, all that I said earlier about those special programs that are the most inspirational? The good news is, it is pretty much the same inspiration we get when we just stop a moment and see each other at work and give due value to what we see, all around our branch, our department, our whole library system. So watch a children’s storytime, read a really complex and expertly-handled Questionpoint, look beside you at the kindness and skill of your own colleagues, and the indefatigable support we get from our hard working, service-oriented crew, and you’ll be inspired too!