Committed to Committee Work
When you go to Annual while on a committee, that is your priority. This year as I sit in super secret meetings I can help but think about the time and effort that goes into ALA Annual! There are tons of committee meetings in tons of spaces all over the Moscone area. The planning must be intense. As I sit here on break from my first committee meeting, I think of everything else happening at ALA right now. There are other committee meetings. People are swarming the exhibits. Librarians are conducting programs and board meetings. It is such a well- oiled machine that is moving 20,000+ librarians around the very busy city of San Francisco this weekend. I am looking forward to seeing more of the conference after my meeting, but it is so nice to be in an environment that is planned out and full of happy people.
But back to committee work–
So far I have spent hours going over material for this committee and we are still accepting applications until October 31. All this time going over and over what I think is the best of the best is now being challenged by other people who think about things differently. Annual isn’t the down and dirty committee meetings; we are saving those for Midwinter in snowy Boston. But Annual is the time to meet fully with my committee and work together. Hours and hours ( and hours and hours) I have spent working on going over material and now there are other people who have been doing the same stuff. People who understand that this has taken over part of my life because it is taken over part of their lives too.
I’m sure we will disagree and spend time going over and over the merits of material. I am sure that we will do it again at Midwinter. But just thinking about the time- the commitment- that goes into being a member on a book award committee is really mind blowing. There are tons of librarians doing the same thing we are- picking the best of the best. This whole year process will lead us to a lovely list of book winners come January 11 and I, for one, cannot wait to see what we all choose.