Under the name of Cailin Sanders

Monday, July 5, 2021

Sandra Boynton puzzles

I actually got these for review. Such a hardship... I simply HAD to put everything else aside and work on them.

This was a new type of puzzle. It's wooden, not cardboard, and has letters on the back that you can also match up. Which you need, b/c the pieces fit together very tightly and the picture is rather muddy. It was ok to do, but I donated it to the library.

Saturday, April 24, 2021

ALA Midwinter: my notes, experiences, meanderings, and lots more detail than you probably want but I'm putting it in anyways

Originally published 1-17-10

It occurs to me I should have borrowed my friend's computer and written up my ALA notes earlier, because I felt wonderful all weekend, even though my friend's roommates have a cat (which I am allergic to but it must have been a hypoallergenic cat b/c I had practically no reaction at all) and then when I finally got on the plane to come home, I thought "hmm. I am sick." and so I was. I don't know how that happened. Anyways. Here is my ALA adventure, minus the books which will come later.

Friday

I successfully navigated the Milwaukee airport and the Boston subway system, which is pretty cool, and arrived at my friend's apartment in Dorchester. Very cool top floor flat, like being in the Little Princess' attic! Much more comfortable, of course. I spent most of the afternoon wandering around Dorchester and doing a little knitting. Interesting town.
We both trooped off to ALA Friday evening and seized tons of book loot.
I met Melissa Stewart! I thought I'd blogged about her fascinating and excellent book, Under the Snow, but I guessed I just raved about it to my colleague, Miss Pattie. Anyways, we have ordered a copy and I was delighted to discover she has a similar book about rain out now and a frog book coming soon!
Random fact: One of my friend's roommates works for Sarah Beth Durst! Is that not the ultimate in cool? She says she's very nice.
We went to a Cape Verde restaurant for dinner, which was definitely new to me but delicious.

Saturday

The big one! Sarah (my other library Sarah friend - I have several) took me on the subway to the Boston Public Library....what can I say? My childhood dreams were shattered. When I was a teenager, I used to imagine working at the BPL. I picked out the branches that looked the best. I browsed their catalog. I later applied to Simmons, but it was too expensive and for many other reasons I ended up going to library school in Champaign/Urbana. Which was good. Anyways, back to the BPL. The entrance was grand and imposing, the reading/reference room was gorgeous (and oddly similar to the reference room at UIUC). The general library....was so sad. I was so disappointed, especially in the children's room. Books piled higgledy-piggledy on shelves and on top of each other, dingy, worn, and icky-looking, antiquated and humongous spine labels covering half the spine, the whole children's area was just so.....sad. The teen room was much nicer, probably because it's newer. It felt a lot shinier and there were a couple friendly librarians in there (not that the children's librarian wasn't friendly. she was.) and it looked like they had quite a few programs. I guess they are having budget shortages probably and don't have enough pages or money to replace books. And my friend said lots of the neighborhood branches are really nice. But it was a cherished dream....broken. Sniff.
So, to cheer me up, Sarah took me to find the ducks in the Boston Public Gardens. They still had their Christmas bows on and I got pictures of me and the ducks!
Then we zipped down to the conference and I got into the HarperCollins preview just in time. It wasn't really new to me, because I read Betsy Bird's account of the preview on Fuse 8 and I'd already spent a lot of time at the HarperCollins booth, but it was interesting to hear their take on the books and made me take a second look at some I had dismissed earlier.
More books
Delicious Thai food cooked by my friend's roommate.

Sunday

I went with my friend and her fiancee and her roommates to church. It's a very interesting building, a converted old Bostonian house, where different churches and groups meet on each floor. Very friendly people.
Vietnamese sandwiches for lunch. My culinary experiences were widened quite a bit on this trip!
Now is when things start getting sticky. After much cogitation and consultation of the post office online, I decided it would be cheaper to pack all my books into my duffel bag and pay to check it, then shove the books that didn't fit and my pajamas into my smaller canvas bag as a carry-on. However, I knew it was supposed to rain/snow on Monday and didn't think I could manage to get it all on the train, to the conference center (where I had decided I simply had to go on Monday for reasons I will explain later) and back onto the train and to the airport. So, my solution was to take my duffel and poster tube down on the train, check them into the bag check overnight, then come back Monday morning, mail the tube, grab the things I needed, and lug everything to the airport.
Only one problem: my bag split on the way down there and the bag check didn't allow you to leave stuff overnight. What???
My amazing friend, who is, as her fiancee says, Always Right, actually drove downtown and picked me up. Sniff. She was so sweet. We patched my bag with packing tape and staples and watched the second half of Elizabeth Gaskell's the Return to Crandon on Masterpiece Theater which I had never heard of but found fascinating.

Monday: In which a carefully planned operation mostly works

So, I got up early and stuck my bags in Sarah's car. I then took the train down to the exhibition center and camped out in front of the doors for about half an hour until they opened, at which time I hurled myself towards the ABDO booth.....b/c I had been told on Saturday that they would be selling their massively excellent $20 library bound comics for $5!!! I achieved my goal and snatched the Scooby-Doo set....and they told me they weren't selling them until noon! Wail! Sad Puppy Dog Eyes! Sweet ABDO rep found another set to put on display and sold me the whole 8-volume set. Yay!
I mailed my poster tube. I hastily bought socks. Hey, they were stripey! I ran for the bus. I missed it. I waited. I got on the bus. It started. It stopped. The driver got out. The driver got in.
In the end, Sarah (with my luggage in her car) and I dead-heated each other to the airport and managed to hook up. I zipped up to the ticket counter, checked my taped and stapled bag, and the very nice lady said since I was intending to carry on my large canvas carry on I could check it for free (I never question falling out of the sky things like this) and....the flight was delayed.
and delayed
and delayed
I finally got back a couple hours late, missed the program I was supposed to be doing, but my aide did an excellent job of covering for me, and now I am home, as I said, somewhat sick, and digging into my book bags!

Looking forward to my first ALA Midwinter!

Originally published 1-12-10

I went to my first ALA last summer (just the exhibits). Now I am going to my first ALA Midwinter (just the exhibits). Hey, that's the good part, right? Plus, my budget just doesn't cover the actual conferencey part. This is partly a trip for the coolness of ALA, partly b/c I have always wanted to go to Boston, and partly to see some old friends, who are kindly letting me camp out at their place for a couple days. Otherwise my Boston dream would have to wait....oh, say 8 years into the future when I'd paid my student loans. Things I am hoping to do and see and get:

A visit to the Boston Public Library. It was one of the places I dreamed of working at when I was a teen. Although I decided a big system wasn't for me (and sheesh, who can afford to live in Boston?) I still am very excited to see it!
A visit to Terri Schmitz's book store, The Children's Book Shop. I read her articles in the Horn Book when I was a teen and decided we were kindred spirits. I am secretly hoping to see her in person! Maybe have her sign something....I tried to find a copy of the issue with my favorite of her articles "Safety in Numbers" but no luck.
Lots of snazzy new posters. The ones I collected at ALA this summer are looking kinda dingy or kids have ripped them as they strolled by. I learned from last year and am taking a poster tube.
I am hoping to snag an ARC of Dawn Lairamore's Ivy's Ever After. Sounds like a great debut fantasy but it's hard to tell just from publisher's descriptions....I want an ARC b/c, after I have reviewed it, it would make a perfect prize for a program I'm planning.

Other than that, I am just going to let things happen! (hopefully not things like getting lost when I drive to the airport at 4am, or when taking the Boston public transport to my friend's house, or....yeah, I get lost a lot)

2014 ALSC Institute

Originally published 9-21-14

I have been wanting to go to the ALSC Institute, ever since I first discovered there was such a thing, two years ago. Two years of saving, the surprise agreement of my library to pay for the conference itself, and copious amounts of angst (which are involved in any traveling I do) and I was on my way! (No, I am not scared of flying. I have punctuality anxiety instilled in me by the horrible Austin public transportation system and my family's inability to get anywhere on time so I am always in "OMG I'm Going To Be Late" mode.) I also tend to have Conference Anxiety because I am Not Good at the social aspect and...I have issues.

However, I hoped the positives of the conference would outweigh the ANGST, I told myself I could play in my newly-arranged apartment when I came back, I spent several hours on Monday printing out maps and detailed schedules, and I set out. This is the story of what I did. If you are looking for detailed thoughts on sessions, they're here! Also my musings on author talks, emotional manipulation, the difference between "breakfast" and "continental breakfast" and the lust for artichokes.

Wednesday - Traveling! This involved driving, a bus, a plane, running across the Phoenix airport (I hate Phoenix. Phoenix hates me.) another plane, and a train. I arrived! I met people on the train that I knew and followed them! I determinedly took myself down to Happy Hour, despite the fact that A. I do not drink and B. I dislike noisy crowds, and was rewarded by meeting some new friends. After we determined that neither food nor drink would be forthcoming any time soon (and at this point I had definitely run through the banana and trail mix which were my sustenance that day) we adjourned to a pub down the street which had awesome food and was quiet enough to talk without yelling.

Thursday - My roommate arrived late Wednesday night (and she had a much more stressful traveling story - luckily we're at least remotely similar in size and I could lend her clothes) and we moseyed downstairs. I was all set to go seek out breakfast and then realized there was a Guerrilla Storytime going on! Storytime trumped breakfast, which was totally worth it, especially when someone demonstrated the Popcorn Train song for us, which I had never heard before and it was awesome. My kids are generally pretty shy but I think I can adapt it for the kindergarteners at least.

Session 1: Thinking outside the Storytime box: Building your preschool programming repertoire

This was the BEST session of the entire Institute and really started things on a high note. Marge Loch-Wouters, Amy Koester, Mel Depper, and Amy Commers did this and they were amazing. Since I canceled my preschool storytime this fall and am regrouping and preparing to completely revamp preschool services next year, this was absolutely perfect. Tons of great ideas for unique programs and their organization was spot-on and hilarious, as they popped up and down to describe programs and give the early literacy research and even helpful tips on presenting programs to your administration for approval.

Session 2: Easy programming for Discerning Tweens

Realistically, not every session is going to be amazing. This was probably the most disappointing session I attended, mostly because I had high expectations and it didn't meet them. I did pick up a few ideas, but mostly spent the session annoyed that the presenters seemed so...out of touch. Probably the best moment was when one said not to feel discouraged if you "only have 20 or 30 tweens at your book club" and the entire room broke out into spontaneous laughter. Although I'm not usually one who cares about such things, it did bother me that they talked about giving tweens ownership over their own content and the audience raised questions about copyright, but nobody questioned the videos of interviews with kids being shown. It did remind me to keep working on replacing the pictures of kids on my programming blog though, which is an ongoing project.

I then found my new friends from the night before and we went and found lunch! I have never actually been to a Quiznos btw. We had so much fun talking we were almost late back to the next sessions!

Session 3: Be a winner: Inspired Youth Grant Writing

There were some good tips in this, but it was mostly far, far beyond the scale of my own grant writing. As the presenters mentioned, it's a ton of time and work. Honestly, for me, I am more in need of staff and time than money. We're not super well off in regards to $$, but we're not too bad. Most of the grants they talked about mounted well into the thousands - I usually write requests or mini grants for well under 1,000. Anyways, I did get a few good tips that I'll be using when I write a little garden grant for our children's garden this fall.

Session 4: STEAM power your library

I've been to previous sessions with Amy Koester before, so most of her introductory "why STEAM at your library" remarks are familiar to me, but I always like to attend her sessions because she's very practical and I always get some new ideas to add to my steam programs, plus encouragement for what I'm already doing. I got several new ideas for Mad Scientists Club and also for a new program I'm thinking about called, tentatively, Mini Makers.

We had a fairly large break here - there was a book signing for some of the authors, but I've never seen the point in standing in book signing lines, or really getting book signed (I missed out on the fan gene completely) so I took myself off to have a look at the Oakland library. It was about a 30 minute walk and it was hot. The area felt a little iffy to me - tons of graffiti and I've lived away from the city so long that my urban instincts are pretty meh. I arrived and my first thought was that it was a clunky old building, obviously suffering budget issues as they had severely curtailed hours, there was no a/c...but as I wandered about I became more and more impressed. The library was PACKED. Every chair had someone reading, studying, or just sitting quietly. The teen area amazing, a very friendly staff person obviously knew the kids' names and they were behaving beautifully, all using the space to read or hang out. The kids area had a similarly welcoming, busy hum. I chatted with some of the librarians and they were extremely nice - told me a little about their Thatcher Hurd murals and made a few deprecatory remarks about the after school crowd, but I told them their teen space especially was far superior in behavior to my own! If my library had a mezzanine they would be throwing stuff off it constantly....anyways, it was a really nice library - I hope they get the funding to stay open or expand their hours, as they're obviously well-used.

Next, we had dinner. Someone speculated it would be chicken, rice and green beans and they were WRONG. It was chicken, mashed potatoes, and green beans with carrots. I had fun chatting with some of my new friends, although the din was truly awful. Then the opening general session with Steve Sheinkin. I'm not generally much for author talks, but I really enjoyed this. He has a rather dry sense of humor which appeals to me and he was very funny and informative in talking about his path to writing, his books, the research that goes into them, and the importance of telling the stories that have been overlooked or censored. He talked primarily about Port Chicago 50, (which I did stand in line to get an ARC of last year) but it was really interesting to hear more about it.

There was a children's trivia thing at a pub, but that was it for me and I went to bed.

Friday
There was a breakfast buffet and then after you'd picked a table an author magically appeared. Mike Twohy was at our table - he's done some very cute picture books about animals but it was too noisy for anyone but the people sitting directly next to him to actually talk. Which was ok, b/c see previous remarks on my disinterest in authors in general. I listened to some interesting discussions with a couple librarians from Missouri, who live/work near Ferguson.

After breakfast, there was an author panel about diversity. It was moderated by Jamie Campbell Naidoo, whom I'd never heard of (academic apparently?) and consisted of Tim Federle, Pam Munoz Ryan, Rita Williams-Garcia, and Gene Luen Yang. They all told stories about their middle school and tween years. Rita Williams-Garcia talked about how she had nothing going for her in school but a "strong left hook" (she told hilarious stories about her mother dressing her in cast-off clothes that she picked up after funerals of old ladies!). Pam Munoz Ryan talked about the power of imagination to allow children to relate to stories whether or not they were about their own culture. Gene Luen Yang had some very funny things to say about his childhood and experiences with comics.

The two things that I enjoyed most about the breakfast, to be totally honest, was I was very excited when the authors were asked what they had coming out next, that Yang is doing a middle grade series!! I feel so much better about him being in the Comics Squad anthology now. Also, when they had all the authors stand up, I eye-marked Susan Blackaby and pounced on her before she could escape to tell her how much my library loves the Brownie Groundhog books. Ok, maybe I can be a little fan-ish. I do like telling authors that kids like their books or they work well in storytime.

Session 5: Inspired Collaboration: Early Childhood Partnerships

This was three speakers explaining three massive, like full-city partnerships, they worked on. It wasn't super useful, but I did get a couple ideas I can scale down to my small town. I think a couple other people were a little disgruntled as well, as they pointed out that it's really difficult to go out and do outreach when you're the only person at the children's desk and none of the other staff want to cover the children's desk (I got over this difficult by just not staffing the children's desk, but other than providing a moment of humor, I don't think it's necessarily an option for a lot of libraries)

We had a lunch break and I went to the Oakland Farmer's Market. So, most of the time I like living in my small town in Wisconsin. But every once in a while I miss living in the city and I miss living in a more temperate climate. Omigosh the fruit and the vegetables and it was all SO AMAZING. City blocks and they do it ALL YEAR ROUND. I bought a whole tub of raspberries for myself and a nectarine to eat later, and a walnut-pear tart and dried apricots and nectarines (and they're good dried fruit, not those horrible washed out apricots, but the really delicious ones that are dark orange and tangy) and then I was overcome by the number of pomegranates. So firm and red and plump and then omigosh ARTICHOKES. They had BUCKETS OF THEM. Big and green and obviously completely ripe and super delicious.

I had to make myself leave and go back to my hotel room for a cold shower (sheesh, not like that, dirty minds you librarians have. I was dripping with sweat - Oakland is hot) and then lie down for a while to recover before I tried to take a bag of artichokes and pomegranates back on the plane which I didn't think would end well for anyone. Can artichokes be classified as offensive weapons?

Session 6: Making Advocacy Awesome: A workshop for the everyday advocate

I was actually on my way to Tech Access On A Budget, but I was comparing notes with some of my new friends and they said that was more geared to writing grants and I'd already done one grant session. So, I picked this instead. I have kind of...mixed feelings about advocacy. On the one hand, yes, it's something that's vitally important. On the other hand, several years ago I decided that I couldn't be "on" all the time and maintain my sanity. Somewhere between the middle schoolers showing up at my front door to see where I lived and spending 20 minutes in Walmart answering questions about checking out ebooks from the library, I decided that when I was not at work...I was not at work. I know some people are constantly "on" especially those who work in embattled systems, and I respect and honor them, but I can't do that. I consider that it's my director's job to be the public face of the library and do those kinds of things. I do spend a lot of time working when I'm not at the library - collection development, networking online with other librarians, etc. and I have no problems telling people I'm a librarian, but other than that, no. I have been told that, because I choose not to promote the library at every possible moment, I am "not a real librarian" (person's name not given because I've forgotten). ANYWAYS. The point is, I have Anxiety about advocacy. I mean, I know Jenna Nemec-Loise and I didn't really think she was going to be like that, but still Anxiety. It turned out to be pretty awesome! Jenna gave some really good tips on language and reframing how you say things which I am going to use when asking for budget/programming things from my administration. Katie, who was from the Multnomah system, had some really practical advice about organizing and planning advocacy and even a FORM which is awesome and I'm going to use all their tips in presenting my new preschool out of the box programming for next year! Yay Katie and Jenna!!

The next thing was Fairyland. Throughout this whole trip, I was kind of amazed at all the children's literature-related things there were in Oakland. I vaguely associated it with crime (no, I don't know why) and I knew my Dad grew up around there (Walnut Creek) but that was all. But I kept running into these "oh yeah, that happened here, they're from around here" and it was kind of surrealistic. Anyways. I missed the first bus, into which librarians crammed to the detriment of life and limb and the obvious bewilderment and shock of the poor driver. So, by the time I caught the second bus and got to Fairyland I had missed the very beginning of the author panel but I don't think I missed much. Daniel Handler, aka Lemony Snicket, Jennifer Holm, and Mac Barnett were completely hilarious. I don't know that it was really an educational presentation, but it was side-splittingly funny. I also have to say I am sorry I didn't get to meet Mac Barnett in person because I am burning to tell him my Count the Monkeys story (long story short, I was reading it to three year olds and asked them for their plan to get rid of the lumberjacks and one angelic little boy pipes up "shoot them all!")

After the presentation, we all went to different break-out sessions (assigned previously and announced at Fairyland). I was given Hands-On Science with Deborah Lee Rose. I had never really thought of her as a science author, although I've enjoyed her picture books, but apparently she writes for a number of science presentations. I will admit that at this point I was feeling rather hot and headachy and felt a little tired of the whole "don't be scared to try science" thing, but of course she couldn't know how much STEM programming I've been doing for the past couple years! She did show a lot of interesting things from the How to Smile database, which I've never really used before, so that was really interesting. She was also very easy to listen to, which was nice given aforementioned headache. She wins for "Most soothing author voice" and I'd like to record her reading aloud bedtime stories for my next storytime (-:)

We had some time to wander about Fairyland, took pictures, and saw a little puppet show of Peter Pan with marionettes (and a rather grisly end for Captain Hook). I'm going to make our giant collaborative program in 2016 a fairy tale theme I think...and some snacks and I found my group of new friends again and we all trekked back to town. We went down to the Eat Real Festival, but most of us wanted to sit down to eat by that time and so we ended up going to a diner, Buttercup something, which was really good and we had an awesome time swapping stories and ideas and our cards.

Then I went back to the hotel and collapsed into bed, from which I was woken at about 11:30pm by my next door neighbors whooping it up - literally. My first, sleep-befuddled thought was "wha...librarians party in bars not hotel rooms. That's comic conventions." My next, clearer thought was "that's not librarians". My third, very clear, thought "I'm not dealing with this." So I stuck in my earplugs and went back to bed. Thus when my roommate came in several hours later, apparently her first thought was "how the heck is she asleep through that!?" and she complained and then everything was blissfully quiet.

Saturday
Apparently, the difference between "breakfast" and "continental breakfast" is eggs or the lack thereof. Huh. Being the dedicated individual I am, I went to an 8am session even though I didn't think I was really interested in (or had already attended) all the sessions offered.

Session 7: Dewey-Lite: A solution to the non-fiction problem

I really didn't think I was going to get much out of this, since I have already put my picture book neighborhoods into place (although I am nowhere near done. Don't tell my director...) but I thought it would be fun to see what the Darien librarians had to say. I was really glad I went! First, it fired me up for eventually changing over the juvenile non-fiction (not yet! don't panic any staff reading this!) and secondly it gave me some good ideas for improving the picture book neighborhood process. Finally, it was fun!

Session 8: Science of Poetry

I was kind of done at this point and I am really leary of poetry. I know a lot of people love it, but it just leaves me cold, in general. Yes, I wrote a lot of (bad) poetry (it's all online!) and I have lots of poetry in my head, but I was just pretty doubtful about it. It wasn't a bad session - more geared towards teachers, as they emphasized their "take 5" program which is aimed at schools. It did give me some things to think about using poetry more in storytimes and working science and poetry into some of my activity table plans though, so not bad in the end.

The closing session was with Andrea Davis Pinkney. She's an amazing speaker (and has a stunning singing voice) but I have to admit it kind of left me cold. Because of some things in my own background and my own personality, anything that even vaguely smacks of emotional manipulation puts my back up and "inspiration" is included in that. I know I'm really alone in that and it doesn't affect most people this way, but I get really uncomfortable when people talk about libraries "saving lives" or we're all singing inspirational spirituals or talking about how amazing we are. I mean, I think libraries are important. I love my job. I absolutely enjoy that moment when I hand the perfect book to a kid and their face lights up, or when I spend the time to talk to a parent about finding books for their child and they're grateful for my help. I do get a little teary-eyed when teens come back and tell me they're readers now, even though they never read a book before. But the rhetoric makes me really uncomfortable. It was interesting to hear about her writing process and how she works with Brian Pinkney, as well as the research and inspiration for her books, but I have to admit that I don't purchase her picture book biographies because they don't circulate so I was a little blase. Anyways. I do think it would be amusing to put her and Rita Williams-Garcia together - they're such opposite characters in their approach to civil rights in their historical fiction and in their personalities (as seen on the stage) and you could tell that idea was going through everyone's heads when Ms. Pinkney demonstrated some boxing moves from the classes she'd taken for one of her books....

And the conference was over. But the fun did not end! One of my new friends, fellow blogger and Cybilite Maureen, set out with me to see how much of Oakland we could walk over. She visits yarn shops wherever she goes and I think this is an awesome idea, especially if we throw bead shops in there, which we did. We grabbed some pizza at a corner shop which was deliciously greasy, and then we wandered all over the Eat Real Festival. I feasted on a chocolate hazelnut tartine, which was a sort of pastry thing, and a blueberry meyer lemon frozen yoghurt popsicle from the Fat Pig which was delicious and then bought jam and honey and we had dinner and traded many, many, many library stories.

I finally tore myself away and drifted back to my hotel room in a happy haze of jam, honey and yarn. Which I then had to pack in my bags.

Sunday I went back and forth on paying for another night and just sleeping in the airport, but I finally decided that I didn't want to finish off my conference sleeping in yet another airport (bus stations are one thing - you kind of expect to be uncomfortable, you know? Although I can recommend the Indianapolis Greyhound station). However, I met a completely random couple of people in the elevator at the hotel on Saturday night who were also leaving at 4am in the morning and so the taxi I had to take at that ungodly hour was waaaay cheaper! Then I did plane, (Phoenix again, where they were about to take off and then taxied back to the airport to let someone off. See above remarks about my relationship with Phoenix) then another plane, which was consequently just a tad late so I had to wait for the next bus, but I got in fast enough that I snagged a seat on the crammed bus, back to Beloit, picked up my car, and finally home! (with a stop at Walmart for something to eat)

Conclusion: This was the BEST conference I have ever been to. I have a ton of ideas, perfectly in time for the overhaul of my programming I am contemplating next spring and the projects I am working on now. It was super easy for me to meet and hang out with people and get places and I enjoyed the whole thing immensely. I also have a serious longing for artichokes now...and realized I have no way of telling which honey sticks are which, so I guess I'll just have to taste them all!

ALA Midwinter 2013: Financials and General List of Obsessively Detailed Stuff I did

Originally published 1-29-13

This is what my conference cost me and what I did there. Please note this is not a criticism of anybody who could not afford to go, could afford to go, spent more than I did, spent less than I did, or did something different. This isn't even the same as what I did at the last two Midwinters I was able to attend (San Diego and Boston). For one thing, I had regular meals. Also, the Roosevelt Hotel where we stayed was AWESOME. My library gave me Friday and Monday off from work. I was not compensated for Saturday-Sunday or the half of Tuesday I spent traveling. I seem to fall midway between those who were paid every day they were traveling and conferencing and those who had to take vacation days for all of it, so I am content. This is what my library did before and I think it's reasonable.

Financials (because, admit it, you really want to know how much money I spent)

$110 Membership in ALA and ALSC (This is the first year I've been a member - it gets more expensive)
$333 Bundled registration for midwinter and annual (reimbursed by my library)
$281 Air fare to and from Seattle
$69 (roundtrip bus fare from airport to Beloit and fee for leaving my car in their park 'n' ride)
$50 Checked bag both ways (first way it had my mini suitcase inside it, going back they were both full of books!)
$27 (shuttle from airport to hotel and back again)
$209 Hotel (my half - shared with Sara the Librarian)
$28 (misc. items from a crochet hook to lollipops, toothpaste to nuts for the trip)
$7 postage for posters (my library would have reimbursed me for this, but I cannot find the receipt anywhere!)
$120 food. This was a bit more than I had hoped to spend, I was trying to keep it under $100, but it's not bad for the 8 meals I ate (I didn't bother with food other than some nuts after breakfast on Monday until I got home Tuesday afternoon.)
$30 Purchase of books at conference (reimbursed by my library)

Now, as to what I did...

We left around 6:15 on Friday morning and made our way to the O'Hare airport via bus at Beloit. It was snowing. We arrived in Seattle around 2, checked in, registered, and had a very late lunch or early dinner, depending on how you look at it, at the Cheesecake Factory. Then we explored the exhibits for the first time (really the first time for Sara the Librarian!)
We went to dinner with my committee at Tango. We discussed our libraries, our lives, blogging and review copies, STEM, after school programs, and a little about the topics our committee would be tackling on Sunday. Later had a long discussion about choosing and joining committees and potential ALSC presidents as we walked back to our hotel with another committee member (clarification: Sara the Librarian is not on my committee, she just came to observe)

On Saturday, we dragged ourselves out of bed (time change!) and got crepes for breakfast, then went to the discussion on Dewey vs. Genre. It was, however, VERY full. We decided we didn't feel like sitting on the floor. We went to a publisher Book Buzz instead (where they present their upcoming list) and then to the exhibits, where we lost each other. I had a long talk with Peachtree, one of my favorite small publishers, about upcoming easy nonfiction and after we found each other again we stopped off at Simply Read Books for a long time, they are a small publisher from Canada with much awesomeness. Spent a long time looking at the various Make kits, then we went and got lunch at the Cheesecake Factory.
Yes, we are aware Seattle has much awesome food. Every time people asked where we were eating, I would say "I have a very tight budget" then they would recommend places where the appetizers cost my entire budget for a whole meal. Clearly, my idea of affordable is not the generally accepted one.
We returned to the exhibits and spent some time at the small press exhibit talking to the OwlKids representative, who is a friend of Jean Little! Small moment of fan awesomeness here.
We talked to Playaway about their View products (it's not for us, but I just smile and nod), introduced Sara to Zest Books, and went back to Make to discuss which kits my library needs.
I spent the evening reviewing my committee information and websites, discussing our schedule for Sunday and Monday, and we had appetizers and dessert for dinner at, yes, the Cheesecake Factory (did I mention it was down the street?)

Sunday was committee day! My committee didn't start until 9:30, so we had time for breakfast (oh the yumminess of crepes! Also the affordableness!)
The committee was awesome. Sara observed, I took notes, lots of people stopped by, and we had the most fun committee ever! Also, we stayed longer than anyone else. A few ideas outside our committee work - putting new book posters in bathrooms, putting rhymes and fingerplays over changing tables, and lots of trading of ideas and information.
We then went back to the exhibits, talked to Simply Read books again for a while, I did some networking for board books for review with a small publisher and about 3:00 we went for lunner (you know where). We missed most of the Penguin presentation (our waiter disappeared and it took us forever to find him and get out) but we came in time to get their massive catalogs. Then there was a presentation from Scholastic and I spent some time talking to them about their new Branch series for beginning readers.
Sara and I had a ripping party with the Penguin catalogs, then she went to a showing of Fat Kid Rules the World and I transcribed my 7 1/2 pages of notes from the committee meeting.

Monday! Last day! Going the awards is a LOT more fun when you go with people! We went with my committee and some bloggers I grabbed at the last minute to join us. BOMB DESERVES ALL THE SHINY, YAYYYYY!!! Then we went out to breakfast with some No Flying No Tights folks at Lola's (we were going to Dahlia Cafe, but I guess they are just a bakery or something) and friends. The ideas flowed like milk and many business cards were exchanged. I can't wait to get the info on the mini-weapons program!
We zipped back to the hotel, then to the exhibits again, wandered through and got the last-minute free books, I mailed my posters, then we had a little sight-seeing. We went to See's Candy (lollipops for me!) and Evolution (their strawberry lemonade was vastly inferior to their grapefruit juice). Then we went back to the hotel and figured out our travel plans, then walked back to Dahlia for treats (for Sara). The awesome Dahlia people found me a sewing shop where I could find a crochet hook and I stopped at a World Market (no turkish delight, alas). We stopped by a Barnes and Noble and I snapped a bunch of pictures with my phone, then our trip was over.
And I spent from 5:30pm on Monday to 12:15pm on Tuesday on planes, in airports, and on buses, but that's another story.

ALA: The conference

Originally published 7-2-13

This is actually the first ALA where I really attended sessions. I had committee meetings at midwinter, but I was so stressed and couldn't figure out how the schedule worked, so I didn't really go to anything else. Anyways, bottom line: The stuff I went to was generally good and I enjoyed it, but I think people are right when they say that for actual "conference" stuff you should go to your state conference or ALSC Institute (which sounds awesome and I hope to go in 2014 if I have enough money). My personal preference for attending ALA for exhibits is Midwinter - Annual has too many authors! I know this sounds weird and contrary to what most people want, but I am really, really not a "celebrity author" fan and I want to talk to the publishers/publicists and look at the books that are forthcoming, not stand in line for a couple hours to get a scribbled signature on a book my library already owns. Annual is annoying in this respect (for me anyways) because the lines are in the way and the publicists won't talk to you, they're busy talking to the people in the signing line. I get that it's a money/marketing thing, but anyways Midwinter is my preference.

Friday

We've had an extra-busy summer, so I finally grabbed an hour or two to print out maps and skim the schedule last Monday. Then on Thursday kindly friends informed me about the gazillions of people flooding into Chicago in celebration of hockey. Yay. So I decided to take a later train, worked Friday morning, got a ride to the train station, and arrived in Chicago around 3:30. I then walked over to my hotel, which turned out to be closer to 2 miles than 1 mile since I'd written down the wrong address. Oh well. After a little recovery time and an apple, I rode the shuttle down to register and dip my toes into the exhibit hall. Mostly just looked and then waited a looong time for the shuttle and went back to my hotel and ate crackers and cheese. (you wanted to know everything I ate, right?)