Dispatches from the Kingdom

[amlibraries]

A wrap-up of the 2008 Annual Conference by Michael Gorman, ALA past president:

We were more than 22,000 strong when we gathered in Anaheim in late June and early July. We were stardust, we were golden, and everywhere there was song and celebration. This was ALA Nation—thousands of librarians, library workers, trustees, timid students and self-confident students, a scattering of LIS educators, exhibitors in suits and exhibitors in matching polo shirts, international guests, and invited speakers. We came in all sizes, of all ages and shapes, of all skin hues, all creeds and lack thereof—the nobles, gentry, and common folk of ALA gathered in medieval concourse around the ramparts of the Magic Kingdom, bathed in the invisible omnipresence of King Mickey, Queen Minnie, and Uncle Walt. There was a pride of the lions and lionesses of ALA (Norman Horrocks and Peggy Sullivan come to mind). There were Angry Young Persons, keen-eyed cataloguers, bloggers, hearty reference librarians, haunted looking library administrators, school librarians and lovers of children’s literature with bags of signed books, hopeful job seekers and seen-it-all retirees, technology freaks, governance mavens, round tablers, big fish in divisions, members of esoteric interest groups, and, from the appearance of a few, some Second Life avatars. They came for many reasons and with many objectives and left, no doubt, with a variety of reactions and rates of personal and professional satisfaction.

I sometimes feel that I have been attending Annual Conferences and Midwinter Meetings of the American Library Association since Melvil Dewey was in his professional prime but, in fact, my first such meeting was a Midwinter in Chicago in 1975 in the then faded, now being restored, glories of the Palmer House. In those days, the meeting was of a size that most people could stay in the Palmer House and the Chicago Hilton and very few other hotels and the exhibits could be housed in the basement of one of the two. My second was the annual conference in San Francisco in the same year. I gave a speech on the International Standard Bibliographic Description (ISBD) on a Sunday evening at 8pm to an audience of hundreds. That left me wondering if American cataloguers were (a) immensely dedicated to their craft, or (b) insane. It was all a far cry from the many hotels and behemoth conference centers of modern conferences and meetings. Today, the conference hotels—the Hyaltonarriotts—all seem the same and all magnificently unprepared for the breakfasting, lunching, dining, and other needs of ALA Nation from Friday morning through Monday evening of the meeting. This was markedly so in Anaheim where the long and lugubrious lines at Starbucks were matched by the patient scrimmage of breakfast seekers and there was fierce competition for one of the three copies of the New York times available amid the thickets of sparkly “Little Mermaid” t-shirts in the gift shops. Conference centers vary only in whether their acres are distributed horizontally or vertically and, therefore, whether the attendees spend ages on escalators or on a sort of route march. Two things about them are invariable—the auditorium in which ALA Council meetings take place are always the furthest rooms from the entrance, and the carpets are of surpassing horribleness of pattern and color.

The invited speakers in Anaheim were, as usual, an odd lot. Take, for example, Ron Reagan, about whom two questions arise immediately, one difficult to answer the other easy—“Why?” and “Would he have been there if his name were Ron Smith or Ron Mondale, for that matter?” The other conference speakers included Diahann Carroll, Sally Ride, Dean Koontz, and T. Berry Brazelton, who, combined with the divisional speakers, seem to offer someone for every taste and interest. Then there were the thousands of programs, panels, colloquies, etc. The traditional gathering of techno-bloviators on the Future Of Libraries took place. In this case, the objectivity of the speakers was assured by the fact that none of them actually work in libraries. Another old favorite is the faux-controversial discussion of catalogues and cataloguing. This year’s version was even worse than usual as the participants appeared to be unhampered by any knowledge of the topic they were discussing. This is a tough time to be a cataloguer what with the sniping from uninformed technophiles, the forecasts of even tougher times ahead, the downward rating of their skills, and the ghost-ship of RDA (a cross between the Pequod and the Marie Celeste) lurching toward its tragic conclusion. There were hundreds of other, worthwhile, programs on the whole range of library topics and even this jaded heart was uplifted by, for example, the enthusiasm and commitment of school and children’s librarians and their optimism in the face of adversity.

I attended all the Council sessions and some of the Executive Board meetings, a distinctly minority interest (an elected leader of ALA told me, on seeing me at Council II, that I needed professional help), but then I have a great interest in ALA governance. I have long meditated an article called “10 things everyone knows about the ALA Council that aren’t true” that would include the facts that Council meetings end on or before time these days, that turn-over on the Council is quite high, that very little time is spent on “non-library” or political issues, that Council meetings are not riven with animosity, and that Council discussions, more often than not, center on issues that are important to all libraries. It is felt by many that streaming (audio and/or audio-video) of the Council would make its proceedings more accessible and dispel some of the myths. This would be the niche-est of all niche markets but I would be for it if ALA still has arms and legs after paying the bills.

There is at least one very good restaurant in Anaheim but even that is an alloyed pleasure as its interior resembles a Scandinavian bordello. Though not as hot as I feared, it was still difficult to walk anywhere in comfort. “Downtown Disney” is a plastic horror. All in all, it will be good to foregather in real cities at our next few meetings—I prefer to be in a place presided over by Richard M. Daley rather than Mickey Mouse.