Birdie Reports from the Public Library Association Conference

Birdie sent in an email report from Boston:

Hello from Boston, where the eleventh annual Public Library Association
Conference (a biennial event) is being held at the John Hynes Convention
Center in Back Bay. Public librarians from around the country are gathered
to share their best ideas and find out what’s new and exciting in the
library world, and in particular how best to serve their communities in
these days of the shrinking public dollar. There are tons of publishing
houses represented of course, as well as distributors,subscription services,
and technology suppliers. Library equipment and service vendors are well
represented, from a manufacturer of themed program activity kits for
remembering Bi-folkal Productions to RFID bookdrop
manufacturers Birchard Company . I happen to be
particularly familiar with these two vendors, as I am sandwiched between
them in Exhibit Hall A, selling In My Book greeting card/bookmarks to library stores and friends groups.

Outside the exhibit hall, the big excitement has been about book maven,
reader’s advisory goddess and author Nancy Pearl . She
of course is the librarian with her own personal
‘shushing action figure’. Nancy presented “Book Buzz”
to an overflow crowd, seated inside and outside the Constitution Ballroom in
the Sheraton Hotel where audio was being broadcast into the lobby. Her
presentation included a discussion with a panel of publishers, Nora
Rawlinson of Time Warner, Marcia Purcell of Random House, Virginia Stanley
of HarperCollins and Talia Ross of Hotzbrinck, all touting their forthcoming
titles.

Journalist, producer and best-selling author Linda Ellerbee (Take Big Bites
— Adventures Around the World and Across the Table, Penguin Putnam) kicked
off the opening general session on Wednesday, also to an overflow crowd.
She confessed to the crowd that her recent birthday (age 60) has caused her
to do a lot of soul searching, and that surviving breast cancer, a divorce
and other hardships has caused her to arrive at certain conclusions,
incuding “face a problem with a solution” and “when all else fails — do it
your way”. Here’s a link to an NPR story on her new memoir/travel guide…

Other speakers have included the esteemed author Elie Wiesel, and children’s
authors Jon Scieska, Ken Oppel and Terry Trueman. Norton Juster and Chris
Raschka signed their 2006 Caldecott Medal Winner, “The Hello Goodbye Window”
(Michael Di Capua – Hyperion Books for Children). The exhibits close on
Friday with a special dessert brunch for both attendees and exhibitors from
3:00 to 4:00 pm; the general sessions close on Saturday the 25th. Conferees
will meet again in Minneapolis in March of 2008 for the 12th annual PLA.
For more information, visit PLA , and click here for the blog.