Had a chance to visit the exhibits today. Wasn’t as gaudy as it used to be, but maybe I’m mistaking ALA Midwinter with ALA Annual. There was a time though that they had fairly gaudy and loud exhibits. About the only thing I saw was an ugly looking robot. They could have spent a few extra dollars and gone with an android, but I guess we’re all on a tight budget. 
At least I did get to talk to the vendors that I needed to for my real job, so that worked out fine. Did run into some more Arkies today including JB Hill from UALR and Connie Zimmer from Arkansas Tech University. We did have one person at the Arkansas Meetup, Johnice Dominick, Library Director at Green Forest Public Library. We did have a good conversation, and it is always nice to meet new people. Maybe next year I’ll suggest beer and pizza.
Went to the Chapter Relations Committee meeting at 1:30PM. Some of the items that were discussed include the possibility of an ALA/Chapter membership renewal system. It was presented by John Chrastka from AssociaDirect. Ideally, the startup costs would be subsidized by ALA and the maintenace costs would be split between the chapters. This is still in its infancy, so there is more work to do before we have something definite to look at. They were just gauging interest for the project at this meeting. Hopefully, we’ll have something more concrete by ALA Annual. We also had a report from Kevin Reynolds, the Executive Board representative (as well as the ALA Councilor from Tennessee). He informed us about the registration numbers so far, which is 4,823, which is less than 5180 last year, in San Diego. He also mentioned that the Digital Content & Libraries Resource Group is working toward filling out their subcommittees. Some areas include Accessing Digital Content, Generating Digital Content, Accessibility Issues, among others. Hopefully we’ll see some of the results from this group in the months to come. The Associations of Library Trustees, Advocates, Friends, and Foundations (ALTAFF), is working on a joint membership with chapters. I’ll report more once I have definite information. ALTAFF is also working on a campaign to publicize their grouop for Library boards and friends groups. More information can be found at www.ala.org/altaff or by emailing altaff@ala.org. The committee is encouraging state chapters to do a library snapshot day, in order to not just publicize library efforts locally, for advocacy, but also nationally, for National Library Legislation Day, which is April 23 & 24, in Washington, DC. Anyway, that was pretty much the gist of this meeting.
On another note, I did run into Bill Barnes, one of the Unshelved cartoonists, and he told me that he really enjoyed our Centennial conference and was treated quite well and would love to come back someday. Makes me proud that we did such a good job not just in having a good conference, but also in dealing with outside speakers and making them feel welcome.
