San Antonio, Day Four

I got up this morning & headed over to the hotel restaurant to get some breakfast. My director and supervisor were there. I sat at their table.

I asked them how their day went. My director had been looking forward to the ALA President's speech, but was very disappointed. Apparently and for some strange reason which must be important to the ALA higher-ups, the President had talked on and on and on about Cuba. I have no idea why-- and since I was eating a sirloin at Steers and Beers whilst chatting with my pal TR at the time-- I can't speculate-- well, I can but it would be uninformed speculation.

I have no idea why Cuba is important to the ALA people who attend these meetings annually-- or even twice annually. It seems to reason though that the ALA should pay more attention to matters affecting libraries and librarians in the United States-- working to help New Orleans is a good thing-- I've not seen much on what ALA is doing to help Mississippi libraries though recently. The ALA was good in letting people know about how Mississippi coastal libraries were affected in the aftermath and did start a rebuilding fund. Also, it's great that other libraries have adopted Mississippi libraries. I just feel though that Mississippi libraries just seem to be forgotten by the ALA. At least that's my perception.

Then again, my opinion doesn't matter much to the ALA since I just attend conferences every eight years. David Durant wrote in The Chronicle of Higher Education back in September about librarians being predominantly a liberal profession. Speaking as a bipartisan voter, I'd say librarians are more libertarian than liberal.

The majority of the email messages I had been getting from them have been reminders about voting for various ALA officer positions. I've not voted in a single ALA election because: 1) I don't know these people; 2) No one I know has run for one of these positions or has recommended to me a previous candidate. I've considered leaving ALA. Perhaps if I had witnessed the speech itself, I probably would not have renewed my membership. As of the moment, though, I'm a bit irked.

Another thing that irks me as well as other librarians-- the Librarian in Black has gotten into some detail about a new ALA e-newsletter. She and Jessamyn West don't like it. I don't like it either for similar reasons. I will be unsubscribing from this perquisite.

Back to the subject at hand...

After breakfast, my director, supervisor, and I went to the Convention Center. I brought along an Orange OCLC Bag filled with library swag that I deemed to heavy to take with me on the flight. I planned to go to the UPS store in the Convention Center and mail it home. The line was long though, and so I decided to wander in the exhibits area for a little while in the hopes that the line would shorten sometime.

I saw some vendors I'd not seen before in this trip-- one of them a regular from the Mississippi Vending Circuit. He's going to be working a little more hands-on in Mississippi this year and so I handed him my business card and told him the best time to contact me. I also ran into a vendor and she went over some changes that were going on with their database. This convention has been especially helpful as far as going over future changes.

I wandered around some more. I made a second pass by Dark Horse Comics. This book will be making its way to our collection. I also got a hold of some advanced reading copies of books-- James Patterson, Tim Dorsey, et al. I also grabbed another bag so I could carry all these books.

I finally found the Unshelved booth. Unshelved is a hilarious web comic strip centering on library workers and libraries. I bought this book and this shirt. I might just wear it during one of the days of our state conference up in Tunica later this year.

At about noon while a lot of librarians were waiting in line for free HarperCollins books, I went over to the UPS store. The line went out the door, but was still relatively short. I waited for about ten minutes. I rearranged the way the books were set in the second bag and placed both bags in the UPS box. The bags fit perfectly in the box. What would have cost me $18 cost me not quite $23 for three times as many materials. That's definitely deserving of a Woot!

I left UPS and went back to the exhibits area. I saw a couple more vendors and got some information from them that might just be helpful.

A little before 1 p.m. I began walking to the Alamo. I toured the building and grounds. The area's smaller than you would think-- especially if you're not familiar with San Antonio like I am.

After I finished touring the Alamo, I went to Rivercenter Mall. I had a Blizzard at the Dairy Queen and wandered around aimlessly.

At 3:30, I decided to take a ride on the boats that travel on the river in the Riverwalk area. It was cool. The boat captain was entertaining and I learned some things about the city.

When the boat ride was over, I walked over to Bretano's and scanned through some of the new W.E.B. Griffin book until 4:45. I then walked over to Boudro's and met up with my director and supervisor. My director had made reservations there at 5 p.m.

The coconut shrimp was very good. The guacamole was fresh-- the server prepared it for us at the table. I also had some cappuccino. After dinner, we took a trolley car back to the hotel.

We leave tomorrow. We fly from San Antonio to Houston and then to Jackson.