Remembering ALA Conferences
Posted by: Christine Bulson
Although I will not be at ALA this weekend you may be sure I will be thinking about past conferences. It is said that when attendees evaluate a conference, they talk about their trip, what the hotel was like and of course, the food! After all that they may mention a meeting or program that was “fairly useful.”
So here are some of my memories. My first annual meeting was in NYC. I looked out of my hotel room on the 25th floor and saw a horse overturn the carriage he was pulling! Chicago I remember for the food – an outstanding meal at Spiaggia’s and the elegant Booklist reception in 2005. San Francisco was great for Ghiradelli ice cream. And then a meal I will never forget was in Atlanta at Nikolai’s Roof where the waiter took no notes, everyone ordered every course at the beginning of the meal and we all got exactly what we ordered. Maybe they recordered it all?
The Ritz Carlton in Atlanta was one of my favorite hotels. In San Antonio I always tried to stay on the River Walk. Once from my room in New Orleans I could see a turn in the Mississippi. The Westin St. Francis in San Francisco had beautiful views of the Oakland Bay Bridge.
Most of my traveling has been by plane. Taking a red-eye back from San Francisco I sat next to a woman who held a small dog on her lap for five hours. Returning from Chicago, the non-stop trip of three hours door to door was changed to 14 hours by a thunderstorm. However, I got my first flight on a Boeing 777. And finally, in San Antonio the January after 9/11, I stood in a very long line, very early in the morning and thought how quickly the world had changed.
Oh yes, I did go to speeches, programs and meetings. I once heard an interesting talk by Terry Gross about how she interviewed people over the phone. There must have been others…
