Chicago Day 3

Cramped, dusty and requiring a ladder to reach
the top = Used Bookstore Heaven

Okay, so Day three in an easy to follow 10 point list:

1) Woke up early, took great shot of the Cloud Gate
2) Had Breakfast at the Pittsfield Cafe - like stepping into historic Chicago (also super tasty!)
3) Saw Jason Segel talk about his book Nightmares!
4) Heard Jason Segel refer to The Goonies as "his people"
5) Wrote Yesterday's blog a day late
6) Immediately liked him a little bit more
7) Attended a board meeting with some lovely folks from the Reference and User Services Association (RUSA)
8) Walked to my hotel, then back to the RUSA Social, then to the Spectrum social (all in all about 10 miles)
9) Hit my third Used bookstore in Chicago (pictured right) and found a classic horror novel I've been looking for for about five years.
10) Chatted with my family over FaceTime and 

Wrote this blog for you!

Chicago Day 2

Hopefully, the forlorn look of this De Brazza's
Monkey helps you feel pity for me

Okay, I'll be the first to admit this is technically Day Three; but as I spent so much of Day Two on my feet I had a bath last night and then crawled into my bed and fell asleep.

So here's Day Two with Day Three to Follow Later Tonight!

Day Two I started out by hitting registration at ALA MidWinter, which was pretty easy as I registered online ahead of time and because I caught the first bus, so there were about six people in line ahead of me (for context, there are currently around 10,000+ people attending the event).

Afterwards I followed my wife's suggestion and headed down to the Lincoln Park Zoo, and specifically both the Ape and Monkey Areas.

On the way back to my hotel I checked out the Original Mr. Beef (and yes, it is definitely worth the side trip) and then hit the Exhibit Hall - if you've never gone to an ALA Exhibit Hall opening, I strongly recommend it - lots of Library Folk, often free food (and sometimes drink), and just a great way to meet and greet all sorts of people.

According to my Activity tracker I walked 17.6 kilometres yesterday (which is roughly 10.9 miles for my American readers), and was therefore exhausted at the end of it all.

Later tonight - what I did today!

Things I've noticed: The Power of Sandwiches

Not my photo, but YUM!

To begin, I'm not any sort of social media expert.

I've been on Facebook since 2008, had a blog since 2009, did some coursework online and have coordinated a series of online interviews for a division of the American Library Association (ALA), but for all that I still don't know how to make Reddit work or how to represent myself on Pinterest, Tumblr or Instagram (although I do have a Flickr account!)

And last year I finally bit the bullet and started on Twitter (after a lunch at the 2014 ALA Midwinter Meeting in Philadelphia where people exchanged Twitter handles rather than business cards) and since then I've happily tweeted with 10 to 20 retweets or favourites to mark my twitter-based impact.

However, I have noticed is that if you reference a writer or a sandwich, you get significantly more views.  My current record for views is in the 2000s, and referred to the introduction of the recent Penguin Horror edition of Frankenstein.  Also sandwiches get a remarkable amount of feedback.

So there you go - tweet about writers or sandwiches, or perhaps writers eating sandwiches, and watch the retweets fly!

Heading off to Vegas Tomorrow

Just one day left before I head off to this years annual conference of the American Library Association. As I've never been to Vegas before, I'm pretty exited about checking out the city, as a Northern boy, I'm pretty nervous about the heat.

Since stating I was heading to Vegas I've been told the following 

1) Bring a water bottle
2) Hope you like the heat, and 
3) Get me a cool "Read" poster Dad!

So with those things in mind, I'm looking forward to a pretty great trip, and will continue to blog while I'm there!

Things I've Noticed: I'm heading off to Philadelphia

So later this week I'll be heading out to my first midwinter meeting of the American Library Association, located this year in Philadelphia, PA.

Although I'll be spending a lot of the event checking out various sessions and meetings, I'm looking forward to checking out a number of the sights (including JFK Plaza, pictured right), foods, and (hopefully) various used bookstores.

So, if anyone has been there before, and knows of various spots/foods I gotta try, let me know and I'll try to fit it all in!

Here in Chicago at ALA 2013

So here I am in The Windy City for my first American Library Association Annual Meeting.  Although I'm from Canada, our library schools still need to be accredited by the ALA if we want to find work throughout North America, so it's a pretty cool thing to come down here and check it all out.  This trip is also a part of my Spectrum Scholarship, which has made for a great year so far, and means I've been able to meet the other Spectrum scholars in person, a really great group of people.

The photo above is the view out my hotel room window, which is a pretty nice thing to wake up to - although I am missing the wife and kids a lot.

So far I've been here fore a day and a half and I'm pretty impressed with both the city and the event.  Today is my first day where I have a pretty open schedule, so I'm going to try and get around to seeing some sights as well as checking out the exhibitor's hall at the conference; both intimidate me a little, but as I'm here for a limited time I'm just going to try diving in and see what happens.

Things I've Noticed: I'm a Spectrum Scholar

So taking a quick trip out of my love of Fantasy, Horror and Science Fiction; I thought it would be cool to mention that I just got chosen for a Spectrum Scholarship by the American Library Association!  You can read about it here or here.  It’s really cool as it means that the debt I’m going into for Grad school will be significantly reduced and I’m in a pretty small group of people as only 50 of these scholarships go out each year and they can be given to any successful applicant attending any ALA-accredited library school in North America.  I’m one of only three from Canada and am also the first person at my school to get one.

 

And now for the really interesting part; as part of the scholarship I’m going to get to attend next years American Library Association Conference in Chicago, IL!  I’ve never actually been there before, so if any of my readers are familiar with the area, be sure to let me know what kind of must-see stuff I should be checking out.

 

SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEE!