Get Ready for ALA Annual-- Tomorrow with a Free Book Buzz Today!

While ALA Annual 2021 officially begins virtually tomorrow for paid attendees, there are also things that are available to participate in outside of the conference itself for FREE and for All.

Today, I will be highlighting some of those things...1 of which is this morning. and passing on a few ALA Virtual guides for you to refer to.

Before I begin, I wanted to let everyone know that I am NOT presenting by choice this year. I need a break from being the talent at these things, but I will be attending and enjoying the inspiration.

Here is the American Libraries official ALA Annual Preview.

Here is the Library Journal Official ALA Annual Preview.

Both of those links will give you a good sense of the highlights and what to expect. Even if you are not attending, I would look these over as they give you an idea of the overall themes and issues. Also they will help you to make sense of the Twitter chatter.

Speaking of, whether or not you have a Twitter account, I highly suggest you use this link to follow all of the #ALAAC21 action and discussion. Again, you do NOT need to have an account to read what is going on at this link. And you definitely don't need to be an attendee. Library Twitter does a great job of sharing information. Please take advantage. 

Another excellent resource that you can use to help readers whether you are attending the conference or not is the ALA Galley Guide compiled by Library Journal. Click here for access to the PDF with all of the titles and details. 

But also, click here for my 2019 post where I outlined how to use the Galley Guide as a resource in your libraries regardless of whether or not you attend the event. 

And, Booklist has a few of their in-person ALA events set up as FREE webinars outside of the dates of the conference. Click here for all of the FREE Booklist upcoming webinars and here for the FREE archives of past webinars.

I would like to point out 2 of those  events which I will be attending. Links go directly to their registration pages:

• 2021 Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence Gala: June 24th 3pm Central: Celebrate the 2021 Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence at an exciting virtual gala hosted by Booklist and RUSA. Hear acceptance speeches from Carnegie Fiction winner James McBride, for Deacon King Kong (Riverhead Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House, LLC), and Carnegie Nonfiction winner Rebecca Giggs, for Fathoms: The World in the Whale. (Simon & Schuster). Our keynote speaker will be novelist and journalist Thrity Umrigar, the best-selling author of, among others, The Weight of Heaven, The World We Found, The Story Hour, Everybody’s Son, and The Secrets Between Us. This free, one-hour celebration is sponsored by NoveList.
• Booklist Read N Rave: June 28th at 10 am central. This is where a panel of librarians take the books they heard about at ALA for which they are most excited and rave them quickly for everyone to know about. I have been on this panel multiple times before. It is a lot of frantic work for the panelists, but it is also pure joy for them and the audience.

Click here to register

But first, the library marketers have teamed up for a FREE Book Buzz this morning. You can click here to join, or check out the recording of this buzz and all past ones anytime on the ALMA YouTube Page here. I am all signed up. Maybe I will see you in the chat!

Even for the "Zoomed out", there is a lot going on over the next week or so in relation to ALA Annual and a lot of it is free. I hope you can find a moment to engage with the learning and inspiration.