ALA Chicago

AlA is the acronym for American Library Association. It is the oldest and largest library assouciation in the world, providing information, news, events, advocacy resources for members, libraries, and library users. (ALA website) Their Annual Conference is held every year in July.
It runs for 6 days with pre-conference and after conference activities. This is the conference to attend if you are a librarian. We meet in our committees, hear about and sample the latest trends in the industry, and meet other librarians and authors.

The committee that I am on, the Fabulous Films Committee under YALSA (Young Adult Library Services Association), meets twice a year after viewing many many films and compose a top ten list for Young Adult Librarians on a certain subject. Our first meeting was lots of fun. This fall I will be showing some of the movies, looking for teen incite!


I mentioned that I looked at some of the latest trends for the library world. I was specifically looking for ideas for the early literacy center. (The picture above shows just one of the ideas and is linked to the website) Let the grant writing begin!



Finally the authors, for me this was like going to the Academy Awards. There were so many authors that I met that I admire! Tom Angleberger, Peter Brown, Aaron Reynolds, Jeffery Brown, Loren Long, Ally Carter, Mo Willems, Kevin Henkes, Daniel Kraus just to name a few. However  the highlight of my week was to have the artist Thien Pham draw me.