MLA is in Honolulu, Hawaii this year and I get to go! Isn’t it exciting?! Well then, why do I feel so guilty for being able to go? I didn’t pick the location. Any time I talk to anyone at my work who isn’t going, I feel as though they think I’m going on vacation on the company’s dime and I’m not going to do a lick of work.
I get the feeling that some librarians were immediately turned down when they submitted their travel request just because it is in Hawaii. Everyone assumes it is going to be so expensive. The hotel is cheaper than Chicago was last year! The airfare is more but maybe only a couple hundred more than if you fly from Indianapolis to San Francisco. If you take the price difference between the Hawaii hotel and the Chicago hotel, you have your couple hundred dollars. Plus, there are some really good deals to be found.
We are “going green” with our booth again this year. One way we want to do this is by making sure we don’t bring too many handouts and giveaways. So, I e-mailed the MLA Show Management to see if they had any numbers yet of attendees. They said “MLA is down 35% from MLA ’08, which is not bad given the weak economy and low registrations for other meetings in the US. We anticipate reaching numbers ranging between 800 and 1,000.” Not too shabby. I’d travel 5,000 miles for that.
I love going to MLA. I love to see my customers and catch up and meet the people I’ve only spoken to on the phone. I love to tell everyone about all the new things going on in the library division and to get a lead for a potential new customer. When I’m not in the booth, I like to attend the plenary and poster sessions. I like to walk around the exhibit hall and see all the familiar faces from past meetings. I like having coffee with my colleagues and dinner with my customers. I like hanging out with the people I work with in the booth and discuss things we’d like to do for the library division in the future. If it means I have to go to Hawaii to do all this, well I guess I will have to make that sacrifice.
See you at MLA. Please stop by our booth #811 and say “Aloha!”
