ALA Annual in cell phone pictures

I attended the American Library Association's Annual Conference this year in Las Vegas. It was such a great experience. I have these pictures in my phone that have been sitting there for months so I thought I'd post them even though this happened ages ago. Procrastination blog '14

This is a list of all the events, panels and speakers I wanted to go to or thought sounded interesting. Let's pause to give a mighty guffaw at my naivete. Oh you sweet summer child.

 

This is the other side of the paper: a list of the exhibits I wanted to visit. I did see most of them.

 

There is so much free stuff at ALA Annual, you guys. I took this aqua backpack that folds up into a little bag "just in case" and I definitely used it. In this pic I'm carrying the backpack (which has rolled-up posters stuck into the mesh water bottle holder pockets), my "trust me, I'm a librarian" tote because duh, and a tote from a vendor. I think I picked up at least one more before ALA Annual ended. I must have been carrying like 30 pounds. This picture is especially blurry because I took it in the mirrored walls of the Bally's hotel elevator and the door opened right as I took this picture and I thought someone was coming in. You can't really tell but I looked super cute that day. Also pictured: the free pins I got on my nametag lanyard.

 

 

I got so many free Advanced Reader's Copy books the strap of my (admittedly cheap) official ALAAC messenger bag I got upon registration ripped right out. I was able to trade it in for a new one, thankfully.

 

 

In the exhibits hall were booths of vendors, some of which had displays and furniture to try to tempt librarians into making purchases. I fell in love with this awesome-looking chair: 

 

Look at it!! It's plush grey and red quilted felt, super comfy to sit in, swiveled, its design made you feel enveloped in your own cozy private little space, and the tube roof allowed natural light in!!! Perfect for reading.

 

I love you, chair. I will never forget you. 

This is one of the many rad temporary tattoos I got from the 2015 Summer Reading Program preview. I love it. It has sadly worn off long ago, although I got another one I can put on at any time.

 

Anyway Las Vegas is beyond, you guys. This Vatican-esque ridiculousness was taken in the lobby of a mall. Really.

 

In fact it was this mall that had an amazing rare books store. I saw first American editions of some of the Chronicles of Narnia books.

My mom took more pictures (including ones of me in the Hershey's and M&M's stores), but that may or may not be a post for another time. 

Life update: new job!

I haven't posted anything in a while, but this time it's for a good reason: I got a new job! I'm now the librarian of a health sciences university. I've been working here since May and I really like it. Here are a couple random things I like about my new job:

Misc. book stuff

I just added another update to my Surprise Stamp post.

I also bought some books from an estate sale and from my library's booksale recently but they will go in another post. The only one I have with me right now is the New York Public Library's Desk Reference, which I bought for work since it's a useful thing to have. 

Also, Threadless.com has this Select collection (the book heart T-shirt I bought from them is from that collection) and they just came out with new stuff, including this shirt and this cardigan with a 'herringbook' print!!! So much want.

One of my birthday presents was this zippered pouch from Out of Print (another favorite online store. Everything has covers of classic books/literature on it), which I had actually contemplated buying. My mom went to a book/cooking store in NorCal with my brother when they were there for a wedding (my brother already lives in that area) and she bought it for me there. I love it. It looks like a library card!!!!! But at first I was at a loss as to how to use it since I'm no longer in school and don't need pouches to hold pens and such. However, I decided to stop carrying my purse around in my work tote bag (the idea had been for convenience; once I was done with work I could just pull the purse out without having to transfer everything) and use the pouch to hold things so that they don't get lost in the tote! And since my tote bag says "Trust me, I'm a librarian" and the pouch looks like a library card from inside a library book, it's all themed! (My other little zippered pouch that I'm using is a sort of coin purse my little brother bought me in Honduras and it doesn't match the theme but we'll ignore that.)

Oh, I also put my favorite pins on my work tote (UCLA Bruins pin from UCLA Alumni, WonderWoman pin I bought at the LA County Fair, small "Respect" rainbow pin that I think a sibling got from school eons ago). I have an "I Read" pin that I got from the LA Times Festival of Books a few years ago, but underneath it says "LA Times" and since I'm not sure if it says "I Read" or "I Read LA Times" and I don't do the latter, I elected not to use it. I had also bought an official LA Times Festival of Books pin with a dinosaur but I tragically lost it a while back (button pins have a really annoying habit of becoming undone and falling off. I almost lost my UCLA pin that way).

Things I've found in the library where I work: National Geographic magazines

So I've started working as a librarian in a junior college library. I'm building their library from the ground up, basically, and this involves going through all their donated books and materials. I've found some pretty neat things, which I'll highlight in this blog as a series.

Somebody donated a bunch (a couple boxes worth) of National Geographic magazines. I haven't really gone through them yet because I'm doing all the books first, but this one was amongst said books and the awesome holographic image of a hominid skull caught my eye.

Pretty sweet, right? It's the metallic rainbow-y kind that looks 3-D. I took a video of it so you could check out the neat 3-D action. Hopefully it comes out:

National Geographic Vol. 168, No. 5 November 1985

I also came across this other NatGeo mag. The guy with the condor on the cover looks a lot like the guy from The Black Keys (the one with glasses). Perhaps he's a time-traveler.

 Condor-wrangling: not for the faint of heart.

National Geographic Vol. 139, No. 8 May 1971