Annual Conference Registration Strong, Executive Director Fiels Tells Council

ALA Executive Director Keith Michael Fiels delivered a conference update yesterday to members of the ALA Council, the Association's governing body, via the Council's electronic discussion list. "I wanted to provide everyone with a status report on how the Annual Conference is shaping up," he said, emphasizing that "given the economy, registration has been quite strong."

The text of his message:

As of Friday, June 11, attendee preregistration for the 2010 ALA Annual Conference now stands at 12,556, compared to 13,023 at this point for the 2009 Annual Conference. Registration is up for a couple of groups:

At this point there are 401 international attendees registered, compared to 358 in 2009.
There are 1,106 students registered, compared to 1,042 in 2009.
There are also 188 retired members registered, compared to 131 in 2009.

Registration will continue through the end of this week and on site.

650 conference attendees have purchased tickets for the Scholarship Bash (at the Newseum)–and tickets will be for sale on site.
131 have registered for Libraries Build Communities volunteer service (working at 3 public libraries, 11 school libraries, and other D.C. community organizations).
Over one thousand have pre-registered for the Advocacy Day Rally on the Hill.

The ALA Virtual Conference–two days of programming selected from sessions offered by groups across the Association, plus some special "virtual-only" sessions–will be held on July 7 and 8. The live Virtual Conference has a separate registration, but will also be available after the live event to anyone registered for Annual Conference. The 2010 Virtual Conference features two "virtual-only" keynotes: George Needham and Joan Frye Williams will discuss "Creating Relevancy for Users" and Karen Hyman will discuss "Reinventing Your Library for 2010." There are also "virtual only" author lunches (bring your own lunch): Booklist's Brad Hooper will interview Dwayne Betts, and Donna Seaman will interview Adriana Trigiani.

Sessions selected from the main conference programs were recommended by sponsoring divisions and other groups and are targeted to a broad audience including staff from different types of libraries and different job specializations. Session titles include:

E-books: How Do You Know It Was Worth It?
Taking the Library With You: VR Going Mobile
The ADA, Diversity, and the Workplace: Managing for Success Starting Out?
Start with You: What Every New Librarian Needs to Know
Top Trends in Academic Librarianship
Help for Hard Times @ the Library
"Social Lives" and Information Literacy: Repackaging Classic Content for Millennials
Open to Change: Open Source and the Next Generation ILS and ERMS
Yes We Can: Collaboration in a Changing World of Services and Information Data

At this point, there are 108 individuals and 26 institutions registered. Each institution has 15 “seats," and we anticipate that all will be filled. This means that we can already expect at least 500 participants. (Registration for individuals is $69 and for institutions, up to 15 IP addresses, is $300.) More information on the 2010 virtual conference may be found on the ALA 2010 Annual Conference home page.

Staff from American Libraries, the Public Information Office, Membership Development and Conference Services will be expanding coverage of events, programs, socials, and speakers during ALA Annual Conference this year through the ALA “Base Camp."

Look for enhancements on the ALA homepage from June 23through July 1, including a Twitter feed tracking the conference tag ‘ala10’, a news tab aggregating blogs from around the Association, and quick navigation to key conference resources. American Libraries magazine hosts the conference landing page at www.americanlibrariesmagazine.org/ala10, which shows the Twitter feed plus ALA’s Flickr, YouTube, LinkedIn, expanded blog coverage, and daily online versions of Cognotes.

Fiels said this morning that, "given the economy, everyone has been watching registration closely. We're thrilled to see such a strong showing. I was impressed at the positive spirit and enthusiasm at both the AASL and PLA conferences this year, and look forward to a great D.C. conference. Times are very tough, but people seem to know that we need to keep looking and moving ahead."

He added that "hopefully, base camp will make people who can't come feel like they're part of the conference. There are so many great presentations and so many great ideas, this is part of how we're trying to help those who can't come benefit from the biggest learning and networking experience of the year."

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