I’m attending ALA Virtual Annual Conference and agreed to liveblog the conference for ALSC (Association for Library Services to Children), to make sure that I pay attention and take notes!
I have to say that I wasn’t planning to go to the physical conference, so I hadn’t been paying much attention to virtual conference plans. Then last week I opened an email at 12:45 that said registration for the virtual conference closed at noon Central time – 15 minutes after I started reading the email. But it also said that the registration fee was drastically reduced for ALA members thanks to generous donations from sponsors. (Plus no hotel or flights!) I didn’t have time to think about it – I registered right away!
But today there have been a couple of bumps in the road. I looked at the schedule and saw the opening session was at 10:00. So I made sure I could get into the livestream about 15 minutes early. Oddly, a countdown clock said it was 45 minutes before it would start. I saw something on a different page about technical difficulties, so I thought that was it. I worked on something mindless on my computer so I could jump to the opening session whenever it did begin. I think it was about an hour later that I looked back at the schedule and saw all the times were Central Time. Oops! Oh well — now I know for the rest of the conference.
When the opening session started then it was the perils of working from home — a grounds crew that must have been hired by my condo’s management company began pruning branches off trees right outside my window and running a woodchipper. Seriously. For hours. If you’ve never been right next to a woodchipper, it turns out they are exceedingly loud. My windows are usually pretty good about cutting down on noise outside. But this is extreme.
Anyway, I’m glad I have something positive to listen to, to try not to think about this roaring in my ears! And I don’t have to figure out how to mail books back! Posts about today’s sessions to follow.