As with ACRL I am going to blog the 2007 ALA Annual Conference in Washington DC. I arrived today and just registered. So, with nothing substantive to write, you will have to excuse the following dyspeptic outburst!
Why is it that conference organizers always give you so much stuff? This conference is a little better than ACRL. At that one they tried to give me a great big, elaborate messenger bag with a vendor's name plastered all over it. Here they just attempted to foist a cheap nylon tote bag with the Conference logo on it on me. Honestly, why would I want either? Do they think I didn't bring a bag with me? Do they imagine I like to be instantly recognizable as a tote bag wearing, overloaded tourist/librarian? Why are they wasting my money on such things? Needless to say, I gave the bag back to the nice, but mystified, lady behind the registration counter.
Inside the bag was the obligatory badge holder. These have become more elaborate over the years. We can no longer have a simple plastic sleeve that fits the badge and no more with a choice of a simple clip or thin cord to either attach it to our clothes or hang it round our neck. Oh no, we have to have a great big sleeve, twice as big as the badge, connected to a thick blue ribbon so that I am forced to hang it round my neck. "Hang" being the operative verb. This thing is literally substantial enough to hang oneself with! Why so robust? Because lord knows we cannot miss another advertising opportunity; a vendor's name is emblazoned multiple times on the cord. Now I know where all our library subscription money goes.
The Corcoran Gallery is open late on Thursdays, so I took the opportunity to go and see their exhibition, "Modernism: Designing a New World 1914-1939" Brilliant.
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