Scenes from Monday, Annual Conference 2010

David Small and Audrey Niffenegger participate in the ALA Graphic Novel Panel.

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As Conference nears its end, Monday provided a strong finish to the Exhibits and the Auditorium Speaker Series.
At the Exhibits Closing Reception, attendees were delighted by the presence of singer/songwriter, Natalie Merchant, who performed from her newest project, Leave Your Sleep. The songs were adapted from classic and contemporary poets, featuring work from British Victorians, early and mid-20th century Americans and contemporary writers as well as anonymous nursery rhymes and lullabies. By the comments from the Twittersphere, I’d say the audience thoroughly enjoyed the evening’s performance, especially Merchant’s enchanting vocals. For shots of the performance, check out our earlier post here.

The afternoon’s featured speaker, author John Grisham, shared his experiences with libraries, namely how libraries helped him sell the first 1,000 copies of his book, A Time to Kill. We shared a clip of that speech on the Member Blog earlier, which you can see here.

Following the performance was another crowd favorite, Battledecks. Battledecks represent the ultimate challenge for a public speaker as they are challenged to give a coherent presentation based on hand-selected, seemingly unrelated slides that they see for the very first time live on stage. American Libraries blogger/librarian Jason Griffey won the competition. An excerpt from his presentation can be seen here.

Since many of you are on your way home right now, I hope you have safe and pleasant travels! Moreover, I hope you’ve enjoyed the experiences, discussions, and thrills of Conference as much as we appreciate your participation at ALA10.