ALA report
So ALA was good, aside from the frazzling logistics of traveling between convention center and conference hotels 3 miles north, and a scorching Chicago heat wave. Oh, and the power failure Friday night that zapped both the convention center and the hotels in the area, including mine. Fortunately the electricity came back on after a few hours, but checking in by the light of emergency back-up lighting was a bit of an adventure.
Barack Obama packed them in at the keynote session on Saturday night (“Wow, that’s a lot of librarians!” was the first thing he said as he looked out over all 10,000 of us). If he hadn’t already won me over, he’d have done so when he remarked, during the Q&A, that he’d always learned more from fiction than from nonfiction, because fiction
shows us how to empathize, and “we have an empathy deficit right now.” (Has he been reading my posts on literature and empathy?)
Saturday’s panel on Cataloguing Cultural Objects was excellent, and I’m not just saying that because one of my UVa colleagues (Ann Whiteside, Director of the Fine Arts Library) was on it. Some really interesting points about the philosophy and the practice of cataloging things that aren’t in book format, including installation art, buildings, archaeological discoveries, and the kinds of objects that fall into the vague category of “decorative arts.” I was also very interested in the discussions of what constitutes “aboutness” for images. And it was totally cool to hear about both MARC and Erwin Panofsky on the same panel. (The fact that I got all excited over a panel on cataloging and metadata is, I think, indicative of my ongoing transition to librarian-ness.) The other highlight of Saturday was the panel on the impact of EEBO and ECCO on scholarship, which featured both scholars and librarians; lots of food for thought there, which I think I’ll cover in a separate post.
I spent Sunday going to Literature in English Section meetings, and on Monday I attended the “Digitizing Medieval Manuscripts” panel (I love how medievalists are some of the biggest e-text geeks around), then hit the exhibit hall before getting on the El to O’Hare. LES-folk are absolutely lovely. Next time I’ll make it to the blogger salon.
It was strange, but good, to be back in Chicago, where I spent my undergraduate years. I went down to Hyde Park to have lunch with a former mentor from those days, and felt like I was about to collide with my younger self at every street corner. Powell’s Used Books on 57th Street hasn’t changed a bit. The Medici still serves eggs scrambled with the frother of its espresso machine. The view from the upper deck of the Metra train is still the same (though the stations
have been spiffed up since I lived there, I think). The Michigan Avenue office building where I had my first serious
college-intern job is still there, though I didn’t go in. The view of the river from Michigan Avenue still makes me happy. I wish I’d gotten a chance to go to the Art Institute and see my favorite paintings again, but I’ll be back again.
And now when I sit at my office computer I can look at a lovely Casalini Libri poster with a view of Fiesole in front of me, and a gloriously lurid NYRB Editions poster of Edward Gorey’s book jacket for The War of the Worlds behind me. Full swag report to follow.
Unfortunately the Medici has changed their ice creams, so their shakes, which used to be the favorite part of my meals there, have become seriously blah.
Bane, you’re near the Med? Small world!