American Libraries

David Lee King: We're here at ALA Conference. Let's go inside and look at the exhibits. Cut that part out. Okay, the most important part of exhibit hall here is the swag. Let's go find some swag. I'm looking for swag. Have you found good swag?

Attendee: There is shirts, bags, those conference holder thingys.

David Lee King: Oh, cool. The Polaris booth has hats—that’s pretty good. T-shirts if you listen to the World Book presentation.

Exhibitor: You sit through a four-minute presentation about our standing order plans, you get one of these.

David Lee King: Captain Picard has come to the exhibit hall. Arnold old is here. Give me an “arrgh!”

Pirate: Arrgh.

David Lee King: There we go. Tom Peters and I are flipping each other off right now with our flip video cameras. Cool.

Tom Peters: This is like looking in a mirror with a mirror behind you.

David Lee King: That’s scary. What are all your gadgets for?

Attendee: Because I'm a high tech, high wire, plugged in researcher at that library here to help young researchers work gamers, they’re bloggers, they're plugged in, they sleep with lists of cited references under their pillow at night. I'm telling you, we are ready.

David Lee King: I'm going to a session that’s not in the convention center; it’s at the Hyatt, which is two or three blocks away. So I'll show you how to get there because that's how these big, huge ALA conventions are—people are staring at me because I’m talking to myself, walking through the convention center with this camera aimed at my face. So I’m a weirdo. Anyway, this will show you how to get to a conference if you don’t take the shuttle. Passing all the taxis while I walk. I don’t know if you can see or not, but there’s a stoplight way down there. I have to walk all the way down there, and then turn right. I have made it to Harbor Boulevard and now I am turning right. All right, Wilken Way. Wilken Way? Is that what my map says? You’ll have to pardon me, I’m a geek so I took a photo of my map with my finger pointing to where I’m supposed to go. Oh, man, the map doesn’t say Wilken Way. Ok, when in doubt, use the power of Google Maps on your iPhone. Here’s a Hyatt. I wonder if this is the Hyatt I’m supposed to go to. I’m supposed to go the Grand Ballroom. Here’s the Grand Ballroom. Now let’s see if I can find my session. Let’s go into The Gaming Room and see what’s going on. All right, I don’t know if you can hear me or not, but we’re at the Blogger’s Salon. So let’s see who’s here. All right.

Attendee: Hi, David.

David Lee King: Hello. Anyone ever wondered what council does? I have no idea, so let’s go take a peek.

Councilor: …and we may or may not understand it. And I would venture a guess that probably the vast majority of the general membership of ALA doesn’t have a clue, either. And if ALA…

David Lee King: Oh my gosh, that looks boring. We’re at Disneyland. Here’s what geeks do at Disneyland. We’re all like instant messaging and Twittering and stuff.