Life in two column inches: ALA Annual 2019

Recently my daughter and I attended the American Library Association Annual Conference in Washington, DC. Besides the myriad of sessions, vendor exhibits, and a chance to catch up with colleagues from across the country, there were some significant and interesting speakers. I always come away from ALA not only with excitement about our profession, but the realization that libraries, librarians, and library staff are people who care deeply about making a positive difference in the world, often for people who are marginalized, dispossessed, and overlooked by mainstream society.

Being in the nation’s capital is always a pleasure. The city has an international vibe and is so rich with culture, history, and political intrigue.  A couple of highlights for me was having my picture taken with Dr. Carla Hayden, Librarian of Congress, 

and seeing the Obama portraits at the National Portrait Gallery. 

A visit to DC is not complete, of course, without a visit to the world’s largest library; the Library of Congress. We scored a visit to several of the specialized reading rooms (African, Asian, European, Hispanic, and Rare Books & Special Collections) as well as attended a reception for international librarians. The breadth and depth of these collections is truly amazing). Because we are truly library geeks we went back a second time to get our own “Reader’s Card” and to visit the main reading room. Truly a tribute to the idea of library as temple of knowledge. 

 

Supreme Court Justice, Sonia Sotomayor, talked about her life and the children’s books she has been writing.  Her forthcoming book “Just ask!: Be different, be brave, be you” was written to help children who the world perceives as different to accept and celebrate themselves, and for the rest of us to not prejudge them. She demonstrated her humanity and compassion by coming down off the stage and wandering through the audience, shaking hands with hundreds of people, while her Secret Service guards looked on in stoic disapproval. Kudos to this Latina justice.

At the Readex Breakfast, Joanne B. Freeman, a US historian and tenured Professor of History and American Studies at Yale University gave a fascinating talk about her latest book “The Field of Blood: Violencein Congress and the Road to the Civil War.” Given the raucous and uncivil behavior in congress and the Presidency today, Joanne showed that this stands in a long tradition of bullying, intimidation, name-calling, and violence that has long been part of the US Congress.  Researched and written over 17 years Dr. Freeman showed the lengths to which Southern Congressman used intimidation and violence (guns, bowie knives, canes) to get their way. Northern Congressman in turn armed themselves and became fighting men; willing to give as good as their southern counterparts.

One of our favorite events at ALA is the LibraryReads Author Breakfast.  This year’s “Fiercely Female” breakfast featured five incredible authors: Leigh Bardugo, Ninth House (Flatiron/Macmillan), Amaryllis Fox, Life Undercover: Coming of Age in the CIA (Penguin Random House/Knopf), Alice Hoffman, The World That We Knew (Simon & Schuster), Anne Gardiner Perkins, Yale Needs Women (Sourcebooks), KarineJean-Pierre, Moving Forward: A Story of Hope, Hard Work, and the Promise of America (Harlequin/Hanover Square Press). Each woman spoke about their work and their motivation to tell their stories (two novels, one history, and two personal narratives).  I came away with copies of each of the five books and a realization that these were stories that only a woman could tell. Kudos to each for their courage to change the world.

The inimitable George Takei once again took to the stage as an auditorium speaker at ALA.While for many he is best known for his role as Hikaru Sulu, helmsman of the USS Enterprise in the television series Star Trek and the six Star Trek movies, he is also an activist for LGBTQ rights. This year he talked about his experience as a young boy, imprisoned with his parents in a Japanese-American internment camp in the swamps of Alabama during World War II. While he and his parents’ rights as US citizens were being violated, every day in school in the camp the interred children stood and pledged allegiance to the US Flag, “with liberty and justice for all”. In order for people not to forget the wrong that the US government did to Japanese Americans and to educate a new generation, Takei with an illustrator and storyteller, is turning his story into a graphic novel; They Called Us Enemy. For him it is important, given the internment camps of migrants on the border, to recall the hypocrisy of the government both to citizen and immigrant alike.

While in DC I was listening to the audiobook version of Michelle Obama’s Becoming.  Having heard her speak in 2018 at ALA in New Orleans, it was a must-read. While I was struck by many things in her life and experience, I was taken with a section near the end of the book where she talked about some of the hateful things that were being said in the run-up to the 2016 election.  She emphasized that “words matter” and that it was important to stand up to bullies. Words of hatred and dismissal were not what America was about.  

The closing session featured Mo Rocca, an American humorist, journalist, and actor. He is best known as a correspondent on CBS Sunday Morning, the creator of My Grandmother’s Ravioli on the Cooking Channel, and the host of Innovation Nation. One of his most recent creations is a podcast series entitled “Mobituaries”, a series based on obituaries. I was struck by his reason for doing these podcasts; a chance to tell a story about a life not captured in 2 column inches.

The preceding paragraphs narrate a few of the highlights of the most recent ALA annual meeting. For me the speakers are not just a series of interesting people but are illustrative of at least one of the many roles of the library, to make a difference in the world.  Libraries tell untold stories, they uncover hidden secrets, they inspire creativity, innovation, and scientific discovery. Libraries are neither neutral nor passive. Libraries are radical spaces.

Libraries help us resist marginalization, racism, intellectual arrogance and blindness. Libraries keep us from reducing our life and the lives of others to two column inches.