Zine Pavillion<\/a> at Annual, and I once again greatly enjoyed helping with setup. I got to meet so many interesting people – Chicago natives as well as some folks who travelled as far as we did. The repetition of cutting and folding Zines for a few hours was a nice reprieve after hours on the road. Before we knew it, the Exhibits Hall opened!<\/p>\n\n\n\nThis year is my first time attending Annual with a friend. One of my childhood best friends recently started an MLIS program, and we made the decision to attend together. Seeing the exhibits hall through her eyes tonight was such a treat. We met so many amazing vendors, librarians, and other information professionals\u2026and that was just in our walk down the first aisle! <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I can\u2019t wait to see what tomorrow holds, when I\u2019ll be presenting two posters in the afternoon. In the morning, I\u2019ll be on the hunt for everyone\u2019s favorite friends, Elephant and Piggie!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\nAnnaliese Melvin<\/strong> (she\/they) is a children\u2019s librarian at a neighborhood library in Washington, D.C. Originally from Pennsylvania, she moved to the DC-area in 2020 to become a special education teacher after graduating with her bachelor\u2019s from Arcadia University. In 2023, she graduated from the University of Southern Mississippi with a master\u2019s degree in Library and Information Science and transitioned into the library field. Annaliese currently works to bring more inclusive programming to DC Public Libraries for children of all ages. She is passionate about equity, inclusion, reading, and Philadelphia sports.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"My first day of #alaac26 started bright and early, with a scenic drive from Pittsburgh, PA to Chicago, IL! After roughly 7 hours in the car, we arrived to slightly overcast skies and a beautiful lakeside breeze. Everyone was friendly from the get-go, brainstorming exactly which doors to enter the Convention Center from. We checked in and decked out our badges, per tradition, before heading off to the Exhibits Hall. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":408,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":"","_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[3150,2980,151],"tags":[3276,3297],"class_list":["post-36268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-annual-2026","category-blogger-annaliese-melvin","category-live-blogging","tag-alaac26","tag-zine-pavillion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36268","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/408"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36268"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36268\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}