{"id":58839,"date":"2014-01-22T09:09:54","date_gmt":"2014-01-22T14:09:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/?p=58839"},"modified":"2014-01-21T12:14:19","modified_gmt":"2014-01-21T17:14:19","slug":"coming-to-ala-midwinter-here-are-some-tips-that-might-help","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/?p=58839","title":{"rendered":"Coming to ALA Midwinter? Here are some tips that might help"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Holly Boyer, Head Editor, INALJ Virginia<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Coming to ALA Midwinter? Here are some tips that might help<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n

\"hboyer\"<\/a>ALA\u2019s Midwinter Meeting<\/a> in Philadelphia is coming up later this month. If you haven\u2019t been before, the Midwinter conference is an excellent introduction to ALA\u2019s conferences. It\u2019s smaller than Annual which means it\u2019s a little easier to navigate and not quite so overwhelming. Most of the sessions are business meetings, and people who are interested can sit in and learn more about different committees and the work they do. I am by no means a conference expert, but I did have the good fortune to attend last year\u2019s Midwinter meeting and came away with these lessons learned.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Wear comfortable shoes.<\/strong> If you need to dress up, wear your walking shoes and change in to the nice ones only when you need to. The conference center is huge, some of the meetings are at other local hotels, and you will walk miles on the exhibition floor alone.<\/li>\n
  2. Beware the lure of ARCs.<\/strong> The exhibition floor is piled with books. Seriously, they are everywhere. Most of the fiction publishers will push ARCs (advanced reader copies) on you like, well, like books on a librarian. Don\u2019t take all of them. You will want to. You will be sorry when you collapse under the weight of all the young adult romance novels.<\/li>\n
  3. Use the job placement center<\/a>.<\/strong> If you\u2019re on INALJ.com, then you\u2019re looking for a job. The good folks at ALA JobLIST have excellent resources for job seekers<\/a>. In addition to resume critiquing and career counseling (which, sadly, there are no more available slots), there is an open house<\/a> with employers that are actively hiring, and several career development workshops. I\u2019ve already put 3 of them on my conference scheduler<\/a>.<\/li>\n
  4. Talk to people.<\/strong> Imagine you\u2019re standing in line for coffee (and you will be standing in line), say hi to someone, start a conversation. I\u2019ve met several people at conferences this way. I learned about life working at a vendor when I couldn\u2019t find a place to sit at lunch and asked if I could share a table. On the plane out to Seattle I sat next to two veteran librarians \u2013 one an academic librarian and the other a retired public librarian. I enjoyed listening to their experiences and a gaining bit of advice.<\/li>\n
  5. Socialize<\/a>.<\/strong> This is a bit different than the talking above. There are quite a few social events happening during the conference and you should take advantage of them. A good place for newbies to start is the NMRT (New Members Round Table) social<\/a> on Saturday, January 25. (I happen to be on the committee for this event \u2013 please come!) There are so many others \u2013 pick a social event that interests you and go. Don\u2019t forget to talk to people.<\/li>\n
  6. One of the highlights of my conference last year, aside from Carol Tilley<\/a>\u2019s presentation Comics: A Once-Missed Opportunity, was going to the Youth Media Awards<\/a>.<\/strong> I was a total book nerd growing up (some things never change), and it was a real treat to see the Newberry and Caldecott (among others) award winners announced. I may have even heard a gleeful Tom Algleberger<\/a> cheer when his wife, Cece Bell<\/a>, won a Geisel Honor Book Award last year. It\u2019s the Oscars for children\u2019s book lovers.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Here<\/a> are some more tips for first timers. If you need more incentive, check out ALA\u2019s tips for making your case for attending<\/a>.<\/p>\n

    See you there!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    by Holly Boyer, Head Editor, INALJ Virginia Coming to ALA Midwinter? Here are some tips that might help ALA\u2019s Midwinter Meeting in Philadelphia is coming up later this month. If you haven\u2019t been before, the Midwinter conference is an excellent introduction to ALA\u2019s conferences. It\u2019s smaller than Annual which means it\u2019s a little easier to…<\/p>\n

    Read more \u2192<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":58523,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[145],"tags":[231,5884,69,3592,5883,3663,5885],"class_list":["post-58839","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","tag-ala","tag-ala-midwinter","tag-article","tag-blog","tag-holly-boyer","tag-inalj-virginia","tag-midwinter"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/hboyer.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1WoMK-fj1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58839","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=58839"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58839\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/58523"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=58839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=58839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=58839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}