The American Library Association meeting was a successful one, both from a work perspective and a personal one.

On the work front, I found this to be the first national conference we’ve attended where librarians en masse seemed excited about our consumer health materials. Whether that was due to overwhelming attendance (and thus merely a larger version of the core audience who had always appreciated our free materials) or to a shift in professional perspective on the topic, I cannot say. But I can say it was very exciting to have to return to the office three times in order to retrieve more material. I hope the books come in use to library communities.

On a personal front, the grand total for the weekend book acquisitions ended up at 21 (including gifts). I paid a whopping $9 to purchase three of the books I wanted for gifts, but otherwise everything was free. I’ve started one of my new books already, but probably won’t get to finish it until next month, so look for a review of it and others at the end of July. (I currently have four other books I’m currently in the middle of reading…)

I also got to have dinner with Bill and Jana of Unshelved. It was a nice, laid-back evening of conversation and Ethiopian food and I came away after dinner feeling more relaxed than I have in a while. (So relaxed, in fact, that I dozed off in front of Trader Joe’s while reading my book after I stopped to buy milk and bread.) As always, I’m impressed by what nice people Bill and Gene know and look forward to meeting Jana, their store manager, again.

The only regret of the weekend is that I missed meeting Maggie, who is hosting the Southern Reading Challenge, which I’m taking part in this summer. Hopefully, I’ll get to catch up with her at some future conference.