Confessions of a Bibliovore

I went to the American Library Association's Annual conference last week, and surely did have myself a blast. I've always been psyched about my choice of life's work, but I'm even more so after the conference. I know there are plenty of burnouts (I knew one, and it was a sad thing), but being around all these people who love what they do shows me that if you can tough out the rocky parts, the rewards are numerous.

In honor of the fun I had, here is a quick ALA 3BT in the tradition of Clare of Tunbridge Wells. Go see the original.

1. Librarians a couple of years away from retirement who were still genuinely and passionately interested in issues like censorship, emergent literacy, bilingualism, attracting kids to the library, and all sorts of other stuff. Show me where that happens in the business world. Yuh-huh. I thought so.

2. Eating lunch with Debbie of Akron, Ohio, who just got a shiny new young-adult librarian and doesn't know what to do with her, so she picked my brain, apparently on the assumption that being as close to young-adultness as I am, I'd have some idea. Also, on the strength of an hour's acquaintance, she gave me her card and said, "Contact me if you ever feel like working in Columbus (her old library system, and apparently a crackin' good one) and I'll get you connectd." Wowzers.

3. Walking into the expo center with a purse and walking out with two bags that bulged with posters, books, candy, pens, pencils, notepads, business cards . . . ALL FREE. Yeah, buddy, you heard it here, FREE BOOKS. Snazzy-cool advance reader copies, because if you get a regular person hooked on you, you've sold a few books max, but if you get a librarian hooked on you, they'll be pimpin' 'til the cows come home because we want the world to read.

I also met up with Beth, of Beth's Blog a.k.a. Sum of Me fame, and we went to see the Taste of Chicago, which is a big fest with all sorts of food from all over the city, from deep-dish pizza to hyper-spicified Indian food. If you're in Chi-town around this time of year and you don't go . . . well, you're just silly, that's all. We had some adventures, recounted here, but all in all it was a good time, and I wish I'd been able to shoehorn some more hangin' out time into my weekend. We got to talking about censorship, and stupid book-banning reasons, and I thought, "I need to do a blog entry about that!" But I won't just yet, because I still need to research. Just know it's coming up.

Also coming up: more recs! I promise! Besides another book about knights 'n' stuff, there's a movie and a TV series that I think everyone should be watching. Having tantalized you, I shall now sign off. Muaha.