I received an e-mail message earlier this week from Dick and Marjorie Waters of Godfreys Associates, library consultants in Rhode Island, letting me know that they had send a letter to the Rhode Island congressional delegation---Senators Jack Reed and Sheldon Whitehouse and Representatives Patrick Kennedy and Jim Langevin. "With all due respect to ALA President James Rettig," Dick Waters says,

The opening date for registration and housing for the ALA Annual Conference in Chicago, July 9 – 15 will now be on Monday, January 5, 2009. This is a change from our originally published date of January 2nd. The ALA offices now will be closed on January 2nd, therefore, we delayed the opening because we want to make sure we have all our staff available to answer any questions or solve any problems you might have. January 5 will also be the date the Bundle buyers will be able to go into the system and make their housing

ACRL 2009 will challenge you to push your boundaries and promises you the opportunity to explore new ideas, engage in new learning, and extend our collective vision of the future of academic and research libraries in the 21st century.

Ten years ago, for a moment, Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, then a U.S. representative in Congress, was the darling of school libraries in Chicago.