Well it has been a crazy, insane, and tiring stretch but I am done, fini, with conferences for the year. Now on to Information Literacy Immersion next week and then sigh, holidays. Every summer I plan on doing these side projects but I always run out of time. I just spent some time in my juvenile collection and I want to spank our shelvers. Are they really unable to read the labels or do long ranges of PZ cause them to zone out? In any case the collection needs to be weeded in a major way. Do we really need two editions of Childcraft two years apart?
It has taken me some time to process what I saw and heard in New Orleans. I am proud of my association for not yanking our conference out of New Orleans after Katrina but did we really help the people who most needed it? Many of the workers were driving in from Baton Rouge and elsewhere because housing is becoming horrendously expensive within New Orleans. I saw FEMA, EPA, and other government acronyms on the back of t-shirts in some of the most expensive hotels in New Orleans.
Talking to cab drivers, bartenders and others it would seem that FEMA is seen as more of a hindrance than a help. There were many permutations of how ineffectual FEMA had been plastered over dozens of t-shirts. Needless to say they weren't complimentary and the f word was used frequently. My coworker, D, and I took the train from Houston and we arrived at about 3:30AM. It was foggy and more than a little surreal as we slid past homes that were draped in tarps and trailers that sat on front lawns or in the street. Once in a while you would see a community of trailers and people would have tried to dress up their trailers with lawn ornaments or other decorations.
The one thing that I will take away from this experience is the belief that New Orleans will be rebuilt. The people who have returned and who are trying to rebuild their communities value the uniqueness of New Orleans. There is a fatalism here that I have not sensed elsewhere in the US and a black humour that would seem tasteless if used by outsiders. I don't remember the last time that I tipped so outrageously but for those who live and struggle to make it though every day there it does make a difference. I hope that the people I spoke with do benefit from the money spent by ALA members in meaningful ways. If nothing else we can act as witnesses to the fact that New Orleans is still in need of help and this is not something that one or twenty conferences will change.
