Anderson Cooper receives standing ovation at PLA President's Program
Contact: Angela Thullen
PLA, Marketing Specialist
312-280-5026
For Immediate Release
July 5, 2006
Anderson Cooper receives standing ovation
at PLA President's Program
CHICAGO - Author and television news anchor Anderson Cooper received a standing ovation following his June 25 keynote address to the Public Library Association (PLA) President's Program at the American Library Association (ALA) Annual Conference in New Orleans. Attended this year by over 1,600 conference goers, the PLA President's Program and Awards Presentation is a consistent crowd-pleaser at the ALA Annual Conference.
Daniel Walters, PLA 2005-2006 president, welcomed an energetic crowd to the Morial Convention Center Auditorium.
The program began with the presentation of the 2006 PLA service awards, honoring libraries and library professionals for their distinguished contributions to the profession.
The PLA awards are designed to highlight the best in public library service and to honor those providing public library service whose vision and accomplishments are extraordinary and deserve recognition by their peers.
Award winners expressed gratitude to PLA for the opportunity for recognition, as well as to the award sponsors for their support of the profession.
Following the awards presentation, Anderson Cooper addressed the audience with candid reflections on his development as a journalist reporting from some of the most devastated regions of the world and his bewilderment upon witnessing that level of devastation on American soil in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
Cooper encouraged his audience not to forget the events that took place in the very Convention Center where he delivered his address.
Drawing on examples of personal interactions, Cooper reminded conference-goers that while they had done much to help the city to recover through their presence, there is still more work to be done.
An empathetic crowd rose to their feet at the conclusion of Cooper's remarks.
Following the program, a local bookstore sponsored a book signing featuring Cooper's recent best seller "Dispatches from the Edge:
A Memoir of War, Disasters and Survival."
HarperCollins supported the 2006 PLA President's Program.
PLA is a division of the American Library Association.
For more information, contact the PLA office at 800-545-2433, ext. 5PLA, or visit PLA's web site at
www.pla.org
.
