Georgia on My Mind

The American Library Association's (ALA) annual conference—June 13–19 in Atlanta, GA—is not for the fainthearted. To successfully navigate the more than 1,200 meetings, programs, and special events on offer, you'll need to plan carefully how best to use your time—and have great stamina to stay the course.

Take a typical conference day, like Sunday, June 16, for example. Will you leap out of bed to go to the 7 a.m. Fun Run/Walk? Attend morning and early afternoon continuing education programs? Head to the mid-afternoon President's Program? Stay alert through the marathon Newbery/Caldecott awards presentation?

The ALA conference has always been a grueling event. In the 19th century, ALA pioneers sang hymns to blow off steam and gird their loins to do battle with the major issues facing library services. This year, attendees can dance late into the night to the sounds of the Indigo Girls at ALA's Scholarship Bash.

That's not to say that spirituality is entirely absent from today's agenda. Jack Canfield, author of the best-selling Chicken Soup for the Soul, promises some "Chicken Soup for the Librarian's Soul." Advance publicity for his talk on Saturday, June 15, asserts: "Participants will be moved [to become] more caring in their professional relationships, dream bigger dreams, replace blaming and complaining with responsibility, action, appropriate requests, and persevere in the face of fear, obstacles, and set backs." Here's a nostrum for seltzing up your attitude, guaranteed to work in only 60 minutes.

However, if chicken soup doesn't appeal, you could make your way over to the exhibits at the Georgia World Congress Center, where over 1,600 booths and approximately 3,000 exhibit staff will be eager to demonstrate (and sell) the latest books, equipment, and services. Plan to visit the exhibits every day, not just to shop but also to dream of bigger library budgets.

Hopefully at least 600 members (the amount necessary for a quorum) will attend ALA's membership meetings on Saturday, and Monday, June 17. The membership meetings offer rank-and-file members an opportunity to take part in governing the nation's oldest and largest library organization.

Responsible librarians also won't want to miss Saturday's Opening General Session, featuring Time magazine art critic Robert Hughes. Traditionally, a celebrity speaker from outside the ranks of library service is paid a huge sum to deliver a soaring keynote address. Over the years, very few speakers have been treated to librarians' favorite expressions of public disapproval—a silence deadlier than the crypt and/or steady defections during the speech.

Tired yet? Try to save some energy, because you'll want to attend ALA's President Program on Sunday. President John W. Berry has a knack for presenting programs that are informative, rousing crowd-pleasers. This latest one will explore the key role that libraries play in connecting patrons to the humanities and American culture.

Even the most self-disciplined librarians have been known to overrun their budgets and abandon their diets to attend the American Association of School Librarians' (AASL) Awards Luncheon, the Association of Library Service for Children's (ALSC) Newbery/Caldecott Banquet, or the Young Adult Library Services Association's (YALSA) Margaret A. Edwards and Michael L. Printz Luncheon. Advance registration for these events, sponsored by ALA's three youth divisions, is recommended—and major credit cards should be kept handy.

The importance of credit cards is made vividly clear when choosing among the more than 25 preconference programs. All boast hefty registration fees and all but a couple are crammed into Thursday, June 13, and Friday, June 14.

To round out your conference experience, consider sitting in on the membership meetings of ALA's youth services divisions. These come "attached" to division president's programs. Heavy perspiration gets poured into their preparation, and your basic conference registration badge gets you in free.

Finally, if you have a taste for improvisational theater, don't miss ALA's council meetings. Listen as councilors deliberate how to make the world a better place through more and improved libraries, and for the first time in ALA's 126-year existence, how to increase the salaries and benefits of its members. Expect to hear great bursts of extemporaneous eloquence. Unplanned comic relief often arises from snarls in parliamentary procedure.

If you manage to survive the weeklong conference, schedule a moment for reflection. If you're overtaken by a sense that you haven't accomplished enough, schedule another moment to forgive yourself. Then, determine to do better at next year's gathering. Despite our small personal flaws and the organization's faults, ALA's annual conferences are stimulating, energizing, awesome, and altogether addictive.