Oh, boy, readers--guess who's attending this year's American Library Association Annual Conference in our nation's capitol?! It's me, your humble biblio-correspondent! I just got my official ALA membership card in the mail yesterday and I'll be attending the big show in June with a compatriot, and I have to say--I'm really getting psyched up for it. My MLS degree was conferred to me in December, so I'll be walking into the profession's biggest annual event with the confident swagger of a know-it-all little upstart--I can't wait to see Nancy Pearl wagging her finger disapprovingly at me!
And speaking of celebrities (Nancy Pearl--a "celebrity" in library circles, anyway), I've just been checking out the conference's itinerary and have to admit, I'm getting pretty star struck. The opening general session speaker will be Toni Morrison! W-O-W! My undergraduate American Lit professor (in whose classes I read pretty much everything Morrison has written) would cry tears of joy if she knew I was going to be in the same room with her idol, and I'm pretty giddy at the prospect myself. And also: Art Spiegelman, best known for his graphic novel Maus: A Survivor's Tale, will also be on hand for a program about the value of maintaining comics and graphic novels as a special collection(!)
The only problem I foresee is my lackluster track record dealing with celebrities. I usually mumble something ridiculous/embarrassing, avoid eye contact, and run away after a few awkward seconds. This has been epidemic behavior for me in my past encounters with various rock and roll types (I once found myself in a public restroom with Kathleen Hanna! I defy you to think of a better way to play it cool in this situation than staring at the celebrity in gawking, open-mouthed astonishment. I sure couldn't). Acting like an anti-social weirdo is fine when you're just trying to impress some semi-obscure musician/performer, but I'll really have to step it up if I want to appear well-adjusted in front of a Nobel Prize winner.
More to come!
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