ALA Mid-Winter

ALA Mid-winter was held in Boston January 15-19. There were all the usual numerous committee meetings and business meetings that have to happen to keep the association running. There were presentations, the exhibits, author talks, receptions, and the highlight the announcement of all the children’s book awards.

I am a member of two ALA committees the National Library Week Committee and the Campaign for America’s Libraries Committee. One of the tasks of the ALA committees was to review the draft strategic plan of ALA and give feed back on is ALA focusing on the right strategic goals and how we saw our committee in the draft plan. This was a very interesting discussion.

I attended two ASCLA (Association of Specialized and Cooperative Library Agencies) sessions one about possible changes to the governance structure of the group. The other session was a consortial managers discussion of issues that are impacting the management and survival of consortia in the U.S. This was a lively discussion with representation from New York, Massachusetts, South Carolina, Utah, New Jersey, Nevada, Florida, and Illinois.

There are other meetings that I want to report on and my findings in the exhibit hall. More over the next few days.