ALA-Chicago Report
Augh, have been eaten by travel!panic. So, really quickly, here's the stuff I did at ALA/Chicago.
Friday
Arrived at my hotel. \o/ (After an Adventure, in which the airport shuttle I took let me off North instead of South, in spite of me telling three separate people the precise address of my hotel and standing in the line clearly marked South Chicago. But I eventually made it to the hotel after a few extra shuttle bus adventures.)
I stayed at the University Center dorms. They were very dorm-y, but nice enough. I had a double to myself, with a shared bathroom with one other person (which was the height of luxury compared to my own undergrad dorm experiences). Also, there was a random bulletin board of Star Wars (original trilogy) trivia by the elevators. :)
After dumping my bags, I grabbed my registration materials from the conference center.
Saturday
8am-10am Conference Orientation (not terribly good, as most of the speakers were not actually good at speaking...)
I wandered through the exhibit hall a bit between sessions.
1:30pm-3:00pm Urban Indian Culture-Keepers: Reaching Out and Making Intergenerational Connections
3:30pm-5:30pm Science Fiction & Fantasy: uncovering the modern world of information, society, and technology through metaphor and imagination (There were five authors from Tor Publishers, and so Tor gave away bags of free books. Six! Including one advanced reader copy. Glee! Plus, the authors were all fun and interesting speakers.)
After I was done paneling for the day, I met up with sly_hostetter from amplificathon for dinner and geekery. :D We grabbed some Chicago deep dish pizza from a place called Lou Malnati's, which was quite tasty.
Sunday
10:30am-12pm Exciting NASA Materials for Libraries (NASA! It was just exhibits and stuff you can have for your library, but they showed lots of pretty pictures.)
More wandering through the exhibit hall.
1:30pm-4:00pm What Makes Tango So Scary? Serving Your Whole Library Population, Intellectual Freedom, and Censorship of LGBT Children’s Books (Best panel ever! See [ previous post] for squeeeeee. ♥)
After dinner, I went for a two hour walk through Grant Park, which is lovely and right next to Lake Michigan. There was a tiny harbour, too, and the boats made such a pretty tinkling noise as they bobbed on their moors. I walked by the museums, including Shedd Aquarium,* but besides closing around 5:30pm, they also cost a lot, so I did not go in. But someday I will go back to Chicago when I am not attending a conference and do have money.
*My particular flavour of fangirl insanity: going to places from [ AUs], so the characters haven't even actually been there. Hey, I also happen to like aquariums... ^^;
Monday
10:30am-11:30am Sibert, Geisel, Carnegie, and Batchelder Awards (a.k.a. The Lesser Awards Not Deserving of Grand Banquets Like the Newbery, Caldecott, and Wilder Awards. However, there were still awesome people getting awards and giving witty speeches, including Mo Willems for the Geisel Award and Kadir Nelson for the Sibert.)
After the awards ceremony, I ran into my children's lit professor, who introduced me to a dozen people as her "star pupil" before she had to run to catch her plane. Then I wandered through the exhibits some more (I let my guard down a bit and got eaten by a hungry vendor ... at the Scientology booth), after which I ran into the professor with whom I will be going to Germany. She had just been mentioning our trip to a colleague, so she said that clearly I was not excited at all-I had a HUGE doofy grin and was perhaps bouncing on my feet just a bit. :D
1:30-3:30pm My These Novels Certainly Are ... Graphic! Libraries, comic books, and censorship (More intellectual freedom fun, with an extra dose of WTF in regards to [this particular case], which is very NO on so many levels.)
4:00pm-5:00pm Odyssey Awards (Audiobook awards! :D Sherman Alexie won for The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, and there were also several other awesome audio folks there. More squee!)
The end. I flew back to D.C. on Tuesday, obviously. I had a great time at my first ALA, and I definitely found some really great panels. I love my profession. ♥ I didn't come away with any particularly promising job leads, but I did get a volunteer opportunity. Because we all know how much I need more volunteer work.... But it's GLBT issues! I had to.
Photos from my new phone are over [here] at flickr.
Friday
Arrived at my hotel. \o/ (After an Adventure, in which the airport shuttle I took let me off North instead of South, in spite of me telling three separate people the precise address of my hotel and standing in the line clearly marked South Chicago. But I eventually made it to the hotel after a few extra shuttle bus adventures.)
I stayed at the University Center dorms. They were very dorm-y, but nice enough. I had a double to myself, with a shared bathroom with one other person (which was the height of luxury compared to my own undergrad dorm experiences). Also, there was a random bulletin board of Star Wars (original trilogy) trivia by the elevators. :)
After dumping my bags, I grabbed my registration materials from the conference center.
Saturday
8am-10am Conference Orientation (not terribly good, as most of the speakers were not actually good at speaking...)
I wandered through the exhibit hall a bit between sessions.
1:30pm-3:00pm Urban Indian Culture-Keepers: Reaching Out and Making Intergenerational Connections
3:30pm-5:30pm Science Fiction & Fantasy: uncovering the modern world of information, society, and technology through metaphor and imagination (There were five authors from Tor Publishers, and so Tor gave away bags of free books. Six! Including one advanced reader copy. Glee! Plus, the authors were all fun and interesting speakers.)
After I was done paneling for the day, I met up with sly_hostetter from amplificathon for dinner and geekery. :D We grabbed some Chicago deep dish pizza from a place called Lou Malnati's, which was quite tasty.
Sunday
10:30am-12pm Exciting NASA Materials for Libraries (NASA! It was just exhibits and stuff you can have for your library, but they showed lots of pretty pictures.)
More wandering through the exhibit hall.
1:30pm-4:00pm What Makes Tango So Scary? Serving Your Whole Library Population, Intellectual Freedom, and Censorship of LGBT Children’s Books (Best panel ever! See [ previous post] for squeeeeee. ♥)
After dinner, I went for a two hour walk through Grant Park, which is lovely and right next to Lake Michigan. There was a tiny harbour, too, and the boats made such a pretty tinkling noise as they bobbed on their moors. I walked by the museums, including Shedd Aquarium,* but besides closing around 5:30pm, they also cost a lot, so I did not go in. But someday I will go back to Chicago when I am not attending a conference and do have money.
*My particular flavour of fangirl insanity: going to places from [ AUs], so the characters haven't even actually been there. Hey, I also happen to like aquariums... ^^;
Monday
10:30am-11:30am Sibert, Geisel, Carnegie, and Batchelder Awards (a.k.a. The Lesser Awards Not Deserving of Grand Banquets Like the Newbery, Caldecott, and Wilder Awards. However, there were still awesome people getting awards and giving witty speeches, including Mo Willems for the Geisel Award and Kadir Nelson for the Sibert.)
After the awards ceremony, I ran into my children's lit professor, who introduced me to a dozen people as her "star pupil" before she had to run to catch her plane. Then I wandered through the exhibits some more (I let my guard down a bit and got eaten by a hungry vendor ... at the Scientology booth), after which I ran into the professor with whom I will be going to Germany. She had just been mentioning our trip to a colleague, so she said that clearly I was not excited at all-I had a HUGE doofy grin and was perhaps bouncing on my feet just a bit. :D
1:30-3:30pm My These Novels Certainly Are ... Graphic! Libraries, comic books, and censorship (More intellectual freedom fun, with an extra dose of WTF in regards to [this particular case], which is very NO on so many levels.)
4:00pm-5:00pm Odyssey Awards (Audiobook awards! :D Sherman Alexie won for The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, and there were also several other awesome audio folks there. More squee!)
The end. I flew back to D.C. on Tuesday, obviously. I had a great time at my first ALA, and I definitely found some really great panels. I love my profession. ♥ I didn't come away with any particularly promising job leads, but I did get a volunteer opportunity. Because we all know how much I need more volunteer work.... But it's GLBT issues! I had to.
Photos from my new phone are over [here] at flickr.