I'm home. What did I do in Boston? It was pretty much all ALA stuff. That, and freezing my arse off walking from place to place. My blood has definitely thinned since moving to California; How did I ever put up with the freeze-dried face, the wind-chilled eyeballs, the runny nose? Blah.
I attended my committee meetings, and they were each minor fiascos. I took minutes for the MARS-ETS committee meeting, and will write a short piece for the next ACRL-IS newsletter, thus securing my place in history. Or something. I also attended some discussion sessions and presentations, and even sat in on ALA Council for a bit. Them rule-lovin' librarians sure know how to run a meeting!
In between commitments, I'd sit and people watch, seeing how long it'd take for me to see someone I knew. Even with the crowd of 10,000+ there were plenty, from Harvard, from library school, from Berkeley, from previous conferences.
I met and had drinks with Cynthia Wilson and Desiree Goodwin. Cynthia, a librarian and photographer in Philadelphia, is putting together a photo book of real librarians, designed to undermine the existing stereotypical images of librarians. She snapped photos of me, in my silly pink hat, downing a stout at the swanky Sheraton hotel bar. We'll see if it makes the book. She also read my tarot, which I'd never had done before. I Am A Librarian should be out by year's end.
Meanwhile, Desiree, who works at Harvard's Graduate School of Design library, is suing the school for race and gender bias in promotion. It's become a bit of a cause célèbre in the library world and around Harvard, but she seems to be handling it well. Trial or settlement should be coming up soon, she says.
After reading and admiring Jessamyn West for years, I finally got to see her in person. Very bright, brash and funny, as expected, but also completely charming. She gave a talk on doing 'street reference,' which she's done at events from the WTO Seattle protests in 1999 to the RNC NYC protests in 2004, to Burning Man's playa info. Very cool.
My next ALA engagement: The annual conference, in Chicago in June.