Conference report 1
I’m back from ACRL, which was great all around, though next time I’ll stay for three nights instead of two. (And the next one will be in my native Baltimore, so I’ll be able to stay with family.) My compatriots from the fellowship program and I kept drawing up comparisons with the MLA conference: more free stuff (you’d never, ever be given a free shoulder bag to carry your swag in at an MLA), greater variety of types of panels (you’d never see a poster session at the MLA either), nicer receptions, and many more conversations with friendly strangers.
There are a few constants, though, especially the familiar conference feeling, comprised of equal parts spatial disorientation* and buzzing overstimulated brain. I got my resume looked over at the job center, spent not nearly enough time checking out the exhibits (they ran out of Edward Gorey t-shirts before I got back, dagnabbit!), chatted with early risers at the roundtable I was on, kept repeatedly bumping into people from the library of my graduate alma mater, and went to some very cool panels, on which more when I can transcribe my notes.
I also liked Minneapolis a lot. I got from the airport to downtown on the (squeaky-clean, fast, pleasant) light rail for $1.25 and in less than half an hour. Between a performance of As You Like It and the reception at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, it was also a Culture Weekend. I wish there’d been more time to explore the MIA; I only glimpsed Magritte’s Promenades of Euclid in passing and missed the de Chirico entirely. On Sunday I had a few hours to bum around before going off to catch my plane, and I spent them wandering through Loring Park, watching the red-winged blackbirds, and strolling around the Walker Sculpture Garden. I do appreciate a city with such terrific public art, not to mention good food and good used bookstores along the pedestrian-friendly main downtown drag.
* Did anyone else find themselves going all the way around the Minneapolis Convention Center in an enormous loop trying to find the ballrooms after going in the wrong direction at the main entrance?
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