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After arriving on Thursday afternoon and practicing our preconference presentation a few times, Lauren P. and I headed to our preconference on Friday.The preconference was held in the Fairmont Hotel, which was just around the corner from where we were staying, so we didn’t have far to travel!The session went really well and went by a lot faster than I thought it would.I feel like the participants learned a lot from our presentation and walked away with some great ideas from their time discussing their projects with their colleagues around the table.Kathryn Shields, who interned with the Reference Department last year, attended on behalf of Cognotes, the conference newsletter, and wrote an article on the preconference that appeared in the Sunday newsletter!After the preconference was over, we met Susan at the LITA Happy Hour and had a good time catching up on what she had done that day.

This was my first ALA, and I had filled my calendar with lots of great sessions to attend and places to visit.This was plan quickly modified after the first session I attended, ACRL 101.I connected with the ARTS section of ACRL and attended their section meeting and, after the EBSCOHost Academic Libraries lunch, the Dance group.It was really helpful to discuss what was going on at our different institutions, especially regarding visual resources departments and the situation with BHA, one of the most important arts databases, which may be shutting down due to funding issues.I was also able to connect with an arts librarian at University of Virginia, Lucie Stylianopoulos, who graduated from Wake Forest and has a focus on archaeology, and with Susan Wiesner from the Dance Heritage Coalition.Saturday nights’ social event was the Proquest Scholarship Bash at the Art Institute.I hadn’t been to the museum in over 10 years, so it was exciting to wander the halls with Susan, and remember all of the fabulous, significant pieces they have in their collection!”I didn’t know they had that!” was a common exclamation!