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San Diego Attracts 10,700 to ALA Midwinter Meeting“Grandmothers and libraries know the true history of America,” said Richard Rodriguez, delivering the annual Arthur Curley Memorial Lecture at the January 9–14 Midwinter Meeting of the American Library Association in San Diego. The author of Brown: The Last Discovery of America (Viking, 2002) said the racial history of this country is a largely untold story retained in the memories of grandparents or waiting to be discovered in books. “The library gave me that; it taught me how to be brown,” he told a standing-room-only crowd, challenging conventional labels like “black,” “white,” “Hispanic,” and “Native American.” Midwinter Meeting registration totaled 10,788 attendees and exhibitors, which marked a decrease from the 2003 Midwinter Meeting in Philadelphia, with 13,664 registrants. The San Diego conference also featured the annual Newbery/Caldecott and other youth book and media awards, the Best-Selling Authors Forum with Bertice Berry and Ángeles Mastretta, as well as several Friends of Libraries USA events with other prominent authors. ALA President Carla Hayden presented “Living in a Post-CIPA World,” a panel discussion on the impact of the recent Supreme Court decision upholding the Children’s Internet Protection Act. Grappling with the adoption of a set of core values for the profession of librarianship, the ALA governing Council considered rescinding a little-used motto crafted by founding father Melvil Dewey and adopted by the Association in 1892: “The best reading, for the largest number, at the least cost.” While some councilors claimed that it was paternalistic and outdated, others argued that the motto applies to the priorities of library professionals as much today as ever, and the body voted 98–52 to retain it. The Midwinter Meeting brings ALA members together to plan the Association’s Annual Conference and to update librarians on legislative issues, current topics, and Association business. A full report is scheduled to appear in the March issue of American Libraries and online at this site. Posted January 15, 2004. |
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