Random impressions of my first American Library Association Conference
Today I attended my first-ever American Library Association Conference in Orlando. I was there manning the Horror Writers Association table for a while. A few random impressions:
It's basically like a big SF convention dealer's room with a couple panel rooms running off to the sides, only more sedate.
There are people selling a surprisng amounto of stuff that isn't books. Furniture, bookmobiles, data systems, etc. Pretty much everything a public library system need. In other words, this event is the "business's" trade show. Makes sense, but it's not quite what I was expecting.
With regard to vendors, the saddest thing I saw was this. One booth was selling digital conversion of material preserved by older technologies, and they had a banner that basically said, "Convert your shitty old paper and microfilm records to digital." And right across from them was the booth trying to sell microfilm systems. Good luck with that.
To me, another oddity among the vendors was the publisher that exists to keep L. Ron Hubbard's science fiction in print. Granted, west central Florida is a big area for Scientologists, so their presence makes a certain amount of sense, but still, it's just odd to see anybody making a fuss over Battflefield Earth in 2016.
The library system of Qatar had a booth, which seems to me to be proof positiive that Qatar has so much money they truly don't know what to do with it all.
The most interesting-looking idnividual I saw cruising around was a fellow from the Library of Congress booth. He was a very bookish looking ectomorph in a tan suit with a plaid bowtie and matching pocket handerchief. I'm pretty sure he was actually the living god of NPR walking incognito among the mortals.
It's basically like a big SF convention dealer's room with a couple panel rooms running off to the sides, only more sedate.
There are people selling a surprisng amounto of stuff that isn't books. Furniture, bookmobiles, data systems, etc. Pretty much everything a public library system need. In other words, this event is the "business's" trade show. Makes sense, but it's not quite what I was expecting.
With regard to vendors, the saddest thing I saw was this. One booth was selling digital conversion of material preserved by older technologies, and they had a banner that basically said, "Convert your shitty old paper and microfilm records to digital." And right across from them was the booth trying to sell microfilm systems. Good luck with that.
To me, another oddity among the vendors was the publisher that exists to keep L. Ron Hubbard's science fiction in print. Granted, west central Florida is a big area for Scientologists, so their presence makes a certain amount of sense, but still, it's just odd to see anybody making a fuss over Battflefield Earth in 2016.
The library system of Qatar had a booth, which seems to me to be proof positiive that Qatar has so much money they truly don't know what to do with it all.
The most interesting-looking idnividual I saw cruising around was a fellow from the Library of Congress booth. He was a very bookish looking ectomorph in a tan suit with a plaid bowtie and matching pocket handerchief. I'm pretty sure he was actually the living god of NPR walking incognito among the mortals.
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