BEA 2011 Recap

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Sorry for the late post, everyone!

I got a little caught up celebrating over my Publishers Weekly article that ran this morning and lost track of time. Okay, okay; I also had to watch this ridiculously cute cat video that people have been sending around the office. But now I'm really getting down to business, so I thought I would post a super quick recap of our BEA 2011 events.

Monday night we kicked off the conference with the Annual BookExpo America Librarians Dinner, presented by AAP and Library Journal. Nancy Pearl hosted the event with some great authors including, Dava Sobel, author of A MORE PERFECT HEAVEN. Oh, and the dessert was divine!

Tuesday we started off with The Great Readalike. If You Like This…You’ll LOVE That! in which a few of our favorite librarians sounded off about which books you might have missed in a few popular categories. If you want a taste, Lesa posted her readalikes on her blog! Then there was Back to Basics. Why Home Economics Books are the New Retro Chic, a fun panel introducing some great DIY topics to share with your crafty patrons. The BEA Librarians Author Lunch hosted by Nora Rawlinson of EarlyWord was overflowing with very excited (and very hungry!) librarians. We ran out of chairs fast, but thankfully everyone was fed. During the lunch Tom Perrotta, author of THE LEFTOVERS, told stories about his library experiences alongside other great speakers such as Chuck Palahniuk, David Baldacci, and more. Talia finished up the day giving book recommendations at the AAP Annual Librarians Book Buzz and a panel on Hot Fall Book Club Titles. Curious what she recommended? To name a few:

THE LETOVERS (Perrotta)
GLOW (Ryan)
THE SISTERS (Jensen)
THE AMERICAN HEIRESS (Goodwin)
THE HYPNOTIST (Kepler)
KILLED AT THE WHIM OF A HAT (Cotterill)
FREEDOM (Franzen)
BY NIGHTFALL (Cunningham)
THE MARRIAGE PLOT (Eugenides)
BEST FRIENDS, OCCASIONAL ENEMIES (Scottoline & Serritella)

Wednesday we sat in on a few informative panels discussing the future of collection development considering financial cutbacks, technological transition, and the ever-changing role of the librarian. Hearing about how these changes are tangibly taking shape in libraries straight from the mouths of librarians is invaluable to us and makes conferences like BEA entirely worthwhile. We finished up our conference at the 3rd Annual Librarian Shout ‘n Share which was a riot! Talia and I both added a few books to our TBR piles, were serenated with a little BROETRY, and learned a valuable lesson: never give librarians squeaky horns!

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All in all we had an amazing expo! Thanks to everyone who made it great.

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