It was a pleasantly busy conference. Pat and I have been conference roommates for five years (and friends for many more). She lives in one of the northwest suburbs and we joke that we have to travel across the country to visit. I serve on several committees. I'm no longer accountable to a library board or staff, nor do I have to keep receipts to get reimbursed. I can go to sessions and hear speakers that pique my interest.
Database publisher Alexander Street held a breakfast with New York Times columnist Bob Herbert. He gave an introduction to his documentary film about the black middle class, Against All Odds. He said he could not overstate the importance of voting, reminding us that it's state legislatures that draw the lines that create wildly gerrymandered districts.
ProQuest's breakfast topic was "Shore to Shore How Europe's New Data Privacy Laws Help U.S. Libraries." (The EU is way ahead of the U.S.)
I went to four new-books events, starting with HarperCollins' Library Love Fest
PenguinRandomHouse had an author lunch. Their giveaways came with this nifty Jane Austen tote bag.
The Assn. of American Publishers hosted a breakfast. No tote bags, but more advance reader copies. Among the authors who spoke: Sandra Dallas, who lives outside Denver. Her new book will be published in June.
My Colorado friends, both P.E.O. sisters, were my guests at the Gala Author Tea on Monday afternoon. I hadn't seen either Lorraine (friend since grade school) or Eva (friend since the 1991 White House Conference) in years.
(And the carrot cake parfait had daisy decor -- that's the P.E.O. flower.)
The Retired Members Round Table had an exclusive tour of the Western History Collection at the Denver Public Library. We saw John Muir's spectacles, a first edition Book of Mormon, a 17th century illuminated antiphony (hymnal of Gregorian chant commissioned by a Spanish religious order for their New World outpost), a rare map (no others have turned up), and more.
The Denver Art Museum is across the street from the Denver Public Library. A major exhibit of Degas opened the weekend of the conference and I got to see it right after the DPL tour.
Speaking of proofreading, these were at the University of Chicago Press booth. There's a new edition of the Chicago Manual of Style. (6.19 refers to the use of semicolons in series.)
And, yes, I shipped books back home. How many will I read before the Annual Conference in June?
Erm, so the citation of 6.19 was in error? I'm firmly in the Oxford comma camp, so completely agree that a comma goes there. Loved the quote by Degas (I'm assuming)! My eyes are watering in sympathy as I look at all those books to be read. I'm also a correcter/commentor of signs (not terribly worried about which of those gets -or or -er). Glad you pointed out such an egregious error (both times)!
ReplyDeleteMy biggest beef these days is the use of prepositional pronouns as the subject of a sentence. It's so common I'm afraid it will become accepted. My 7th grade English teacher is rolling over in her grave.
ReplyDeleteIt's especially painful listening to professionals do it, usually in interviews. When it's writers, I think to myself, "I guess s/he's got a good editor!" I was diligent about correcting my kids as they grew up ("Me and him..." "He and I..." "Mom! You weren't there!") to the point where they called me the Language Nazi. At least they know the rules now, and sound like intelligent adults.
DeleteI guess we hijacked Nann's post, didn't we?
Sandra Dallas! Her book. "The Quilt That Walked to Golden" is amazing and I re-read it all the time! The story of her family's arrival in Colorado interspersed with many other stories of same. Great pioneer stories and there really was a quilt that walked!
DeleteThat's quite a stack of books! It's seriously going to cut into your quilting time to read all those ! How far do you get in a book before you decide it's not worth your time?
ReplyDelete