Travelogue: ALA Midwinter Conference, Boston, 1/8 – 1/11/16

Manager of Strategic Initiatives Richard Mott gives us an interesting recount of his trip to ALA Midwinter Conference, "Jennifer Giltrop, Lynn Jacobson, and I, along with almost 12,000 others, had the opportunity to travel to chilly Boston earlier this month for the annual American Library Association Midwinter Conference. Midwinter is smaller than ALA’s annual conference (which will be in Orlando in June this year, by the way). While Midwinter does have a number of programs and special speakers (Andre Dubus, Chelsea Clinton, Ken Burns, and Cory Booker, to name a few), most people who attend are on committees or have other library business to attend to.

"For example, there is a job placement center, a sort of job fair within the conference, at which we set up shop to talk to potential candidates for jobs at JPL. Among other meetings, Jennifer met with a deputy directors group she co-chairs and Lynn is on a committee responsible for planning programs for the annual conference. I had an all-day meeting on Monday of a task force charged with developing tools to help public libraries measure outcomes, and I had the opportunity to participate in a panel that did a presentation on the topic on Sunday.

"All three of us happened to attend a 3-hour session together on Saturday called “Change Essentials,” based on the eight principles laid out in a book called Our Iceberg is Melting.

"I had little time for sightseeing, but the weather wasn’t exactly right for walking the Freedom Trail, anyway. Even so, the highlights of my personal experience had nothing to do with the conference, I confess:

      1) Being able to put my scuffed shoes in a plastic bag outside the door of my hotel room before I went to bed and finding them in the same place the next morning, only freshly shined.

       2) Watching the Alabama - Clemson college football national championship Monday night in the hotel room with my wife (nothing to do with Boston, but it was a FANTASTIC game).

       3) Good restaurants! (I had my first ever whole lobster at this wonderful hole-in-the-wall seafood market/restaurant on the harbor four blocks from my hotel – lots of locals, order at the counter, plastic flatware. I strapped on my plastic bib while Siri helped Lisa find instructions on her phone for how to eat a lobster.)"