Friday, January 25, 2013

Settling into Seattle

MSLA members are at the ALA Midwinter meeting in Seattle this weekend.  The sun is out and we are expecting a few more noteworthy events as we plan our time here.  Several people were out early this morning to meetings with colleagues at AASL with lots of focus on our L4L database, common core, and coordinating information among members across the country.

As always, the informal interactions are terrific when there are thousands of librarians gathered in one place--from the sign at the Pike Market Fish Market announcing "librarians do it quietly!" to a fruit vendor telling us that he's enjoyed meeting so many nice librarians (and realizing we ARE a nice group).  This morning I ended up at a coffee shop for breakfast and quickly learned the woman sitting next to me was on the ALA notable books committee for children's books, and she'd read hundreds of the 1500 books recommended this year (as had her husband!).  She was full of information about which books she thought really stood out from the crowd (and no, it wasn't Wonder--though she liked it).  It was one of those moments that make you realize how much we all love what we do--as we happily discussed children's books for almost an hour.  Tonight we are off to explore the vendor hall exhibits and have dinner with AASL colleagues before we meet with the affiliate assembly tomorrow.  Stay tuned!