Chicago was fun.

I’ve been feeling ambivalent about the Internet lately, and about the pressure I feel to maintain a presence on it. This post has been a long time coming because I feel like I have to acknowledge that this trip was rad because of the Internet, and I want to document how these tools enriched my conference experience since I’m always interested in hearing what other people have to say about this subject. On the other hand, I’ve held out hope that I was going to, maybe, actually write something thoughtful for the first time in 2 years, but that will have to wait for another post: my phone is on its last legs (does anyone have a Verizon iPhone 5 they want to sell me?), so it’s time for me to do a photo dump.

Like I said, pretty much all the fun stuff I did at Midwinter was thanks to the Internet. I posted in ALATT looking for advice on finding money to get to Midwinter, and found a really cool librarian to share a room with for super cheap (thanks VK, you are the coolest!). This same post led me to my ALA Bestie, Tiff, who was just as excited as I was to be in Emerging Leaders and who promptly made a Facebook group for all of us and got at least half our cohort to join before Midwinter. Found out through our Facebook group that another woman from our group, Allie, was going to be in town early, too, so we made tentative plans to hang out and adjusted them when this stroke of luck came along:

My (old? new?) friend Amanda, who I haven’t heard from in years, figured out from Instagram that I was in Chicago for librarian shenanigans. We were on a message board together several years ago, and I had no idea she’d 1) left Austin 2) moved to Chicago 3) become a librarian. She was kind enough to offer to give me and another person from the Internet I’d never met a tour of the Newberry Library. (Allie, thanks for being such a great sport about meeting 2 Internet randos on the same day!)

I’ve been promising to share these pictures forever, so here they are. I’ve worked in some pretty cool libraries, but this one was really special (GET IT?).

This lady knows how to give a tour. She lined us up for the obvious photo op right away:

There were some seriously cool maps up in there, but they were tricky to photograph, so this is the only one you’ll see. There were also the cool tiny globes that sailors could refer to.

Next, some super-deluxe Milton:

I think those are emeralds and rubies.

This is DEFINITELY a snakeskin.

I don’t even understand how this is possible.

A few other highlights:

A witch’s spell book (miss lady was not even trying to hide her activities, no decoder ring to be found)

What may be the oldest existing copy of Francisco Ximénez’s transcription of the Popul Vuh…

How do you take books in a covered wagon? Make the books ITTY BITTY. Tiny books (not to be confused with tiny hats)! Everyone’s favorite!

I wonder if people used magnifying glasses for these….

Thanks Amanda and the Newberry for a fantastic day!

My Emerging Leaders group is great (and adorable). We’re working for the Association for Library Services to Children to extend last year’s EL team’s research on valuation of library services.

Oh, and I met Cornell West. There were pictures on Courtney Young’s phone, but she probably deleted them because I was some rando who photo-bombed her. Still! Cornell West! He was just as awesome at speaking as you would imagine. Thanks for the photo, Mac!