Lessons from the opening session
When you’re in the Overflow Room, you don’t feel an obligation to applaud. Unless the applause is for New Orleans librarians.
ALA President Michael Gorman gave a quick sales pitch for the proposed ALA dues increase. Immediately afterwards, PLA Conference Chair Toni Garvey listed the meeting’s bling (platinum and gold) corporate partners, saying that they “help keep your costs down.” So I sat there thinking that if the companies were really good partners, there’d be no need for a dues increase.
I still miss Linda Ellerbee’s owl glasses. The theme of her speech was “rules about change,” but the line that librarians ought to have taken away and to heart was her assessment of why television news isn’t any better than it is: The problem is that the people who make the TV news shows “believe they are smarter than the people who watch television news.” My spin: Don’t ever think you’re smarter than your library users.
Ellerbee’s best joke: “I know it’s not a logical world. In a logical world, men would ride side-saddle.”
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There are 1 Comments to "Lessons from the opening session"
Quite frankly the only time I DIDN’T feel compelled to applaud was for the New Orleans librarians. I am from Mississippi, the state where Hurricane Katrina actually hit. Eleven (11) of our twenty-three (23), or 48%, public libraries on the Mississippi Gulf Coast were destroyed. Many of our Gulf Coast librarians lost their home. However, most returned to work within weeks to serve their communities. To be summarily ignored by both Ms. Ellerbe and PLA president Daniel Walters was a slap in the face to those Mississippi librarians, who, in spite of personal losses and hardships, are working tirelessly in their libraries to rebuild their communities. I am not trying to take away from the damage suffered in New Orleans. However, I don’t want to see my state ignored when our librarians are the true heroes in Mississippi.!