Other things and overall thoughts

And so, I reach the end of my time in Chicago and at ALA. The conference is pretty much done, and I'm flying home tomorrow. It's been a great experience, and as well as the thought-provoking sessions I attended, I got to meet a lot of people and spend plenty of time poking around the exhibits, which seemed to cover not only all the major things but anything and everything even vaguely related to libraries. I was a bit like a kid in a candy store (or a Jane in a bookstore) at times in the exhibition hall, particularly when I was in the publishers' section - all those pretty pretty books - but there were also plenty of potentially interesting and useful things I found out about. It was one of those places though where I really wished for an endless supply of money so that I might actually be able to take some of the shiny stuff home with me, but it's always nice to window-shop! I've also really enjoyed being in Chicago, my second visit to the city, and the feeling of being part of something with a whole lot of other people - the camaraderie in the queues, keeping up with the chatter (and the snark) on Twitter (see #ala2009 and #totebag), the more social events both formal and informal. ALA was as big and busy as I had been warned it was, but I always found it good-natured and inclusive. Maybe that was because I'm a wide-eyed newbie and only went to things that looked interesting (plus I got my book signed by Neil Gaiman and am still coming down off the high from that), but in any case I'm very thankful to OULS for funding me to come.