PLA 2012 Wednesday March 14

The clothing-related bits first: I had a trying time, as usual, figuring out what to bring with me. Assuming the forecast was correct (and that is a leap of faith), it was going to be in the 70s. In Philadelphia. In March. I was only bringing a carry-on, so everything had to smush in a small space with the real baggage, fifty little bottles of product plus underwear, socks, tights, pjs, jewelry etc. It's not the clothes that take up room.

I picked out three stretchy dresses, a bright orange cardigan and one pair of black flat boots. These, with bare legs if warm, and leggings if cool, should be enough. I wore my dark denim jacket over all, with a dark pashmina in the outer pocket of my carry-on. And my Nook in my purse.

That turned out to be just perfect for the trip. I was comfortable enough to walk miles all over (and eat ice cream for lunch), but also look, well, at least cute. I have a few observations about the profession's style.

• Librarians seem to be all hunched over. True, many of us were crouched over netbooks or smartphones, but even those who were eating lunch or chatting outside the sessions looked round-shouldered. I could hear my mother's voice in my head, "Don't slouch, my dear!" My mother apparently sounds a lot like Maggie Smith.

• We all wear glasses, and 90% of them are damn cute. Well done, all, in the field of stylish eyewear.

• We're pudgy. Sorry, gang, but we need to step away from the keyboard and play a little tennis (I include myself). This would also help with posture.

• I wish we had a little more imagination with shoes. I get the whole comfort thing, I do, especially when you're walking on a thin layer of carpet over concrete all day, but there are so many stylish and comfortable flats and low heels out there. I refer you to Barking Dog for suggestions, even if they do seem to like Wolky (and that I DON'T get.)

Anyway. No sessions on Wednesday, so I left my luggage at our dreamy hotel (all hail Sofitel) and then walked around for a couple of hours until Karen arrived. There was the greatest shoe store, literally across the street, with the dismal name (ironic?) of Head Start Shoes. They had the most beautiful pair of taupe haircalf oxfords, perfect for that warm day. Only $175 on sale!


I paid my own way here, so I kept walking, looking for lunch, past the Kenneth Cole store (note to self), and ended up at The Happy Rooster eating the most amazing fish and chips. That, my friends is a big chunk of cod and wildly salty, crispy chips. I can't believe I held back long enough to photograph that plate.

I eventually wandered back to the hotel and got my conference crap in order. Karen arrived, we got caught up, and headed over to the convention center to register and visit the exhibits for a half hour before they closed.


I had a dozen vendors in mind to visit; primarily to ask them about some enhancements I hoped they would be making, and soon. 2012 is the year of us being the customer, and asking for what we need from a product, since we are PAYING FOR IT. Ahem.

I talked with AWE, who promised to deliver useful useage statistics in a delightfully easy interface, and Evanced, whose hapless rep wrote down everything I said about better reporting capablilities, and promised to pass it along, and a few others. I also peeked at Burgeon, whose reps all had their babies with them - truly, three different babies in strollers and their parent's arms.  They're THAT family friendly.  Saw this bitty book return there - so cute!

The exhibits hall was closing, so we walked to our choice of vendor fetes; Bibliocommons or Brodart? Brodart was at Maggiano's and they weren't ready for us yet, so we hopped over to BC at Time (Restaurant, Whiskey Bar and Taproom) and cashed in our drink tickets. I had a lot of great local beer in Philly, and this was the first; Thomas Jefferson English Ale. Cheers to our founding fathers! We ran into old friends and got some priceless library gossip.

The city was so beautiful at night. Everyone was out, of course, stunned by the warm weather and determined to make the most of it. This is looking south down Broad street. The buildings were illuminated in shifting lights (both sides of the street), blue in this shot, but moving gently through the spectrum.

And then we strolled back to the hotel and talked for a long while. My panel presentation was at 8:15 the next morning. Stuffed the yellow Kohl's dress in the dirty section of my bag. I realized falling asleep that I was starving. A beer and a few canapes aren't dinner when you walked a couple of miles in the afternoon. "I'll eat tomorrow. After all, tomorrow is another day."