by Lisa Zhu
As the recipient of the APALA Travel Grant, I had the opportunity to attend my first ALA Annual this year in Washington DC. As a new graduate in the field, the opportunity to attend such a large scale conference was both highly overwhelming but immensely rewarding. Highlights from this experience included meeting library folks from around the world, expanding my horizon of library knowledge and venturing into the massive exhibition hall.
A highlight of this experience was that I got to meet with fellow APALA members and attend some of the events they organized in conjunction with the conference. The APALA tour to the Library of Congress opened my eyes to the vast materials the library had collected, from ephemera, to campaign photos, to architectural drawings of Asian Americans. Attending the APALA events and meeting fellow APALA members provided a sense of belonging and grounding for me.
Besides the tours and social events, I attended as many talks as possible. The large auditorium talks such as from Justice Sonia Sotomayor and George Takei touched on specific stories of themselves yet it extends to overarching ideas of life, information, and how our field can play a part in promoting education and knowledge sharing. The smaller sessions was where I really benefited from learning for my professional peers. For instance, this conference provided the
opportunity to learn about what Japanese libraries are doing to build community in small towns such as providing business start-up information services and health resources for the aging population. Due to the variety of sessions offered, I had a good sense of the trends of this profession.
Finally, the exhibition hall. It’s huge and varied but a great way to learn about upcoming books, programs, and resources for libraries. As a new public librarian, this hall was a speedy lesson on the major publishers in children, youth and adult literature in America. As a Canadian, I was happily surprised to see the number of Canadian publishers there, especially those who publish Indigenous focused
content. At times, it can be overwhelming to roam the halls given that this conference has over 20,000 attendees. Getting lost in the shuffle and managing my time to fit in an author signing between talks was a challenge.
All in all, I am so grateful for the opportunity to attend ALA Annual. It is amazing the variety of work librarians and library stuff do and ALA Annual is one of the places were this work can be highlighted and shared.