25,000 Librarians Descend on Our Nation's Capital

That's right, 25,000 of us traveled to D.C. for the annual conference of the American Library Association. Buns all a wavin'. I did a lot of work-related conference going, but you don't want to hear about that. You want to hear about the fun stuff.

I did get some sweet behind-the scenes tours of a couple of Baltimore libraries. The Peabody at Johns Hopkins:

We got to see a couple of fetish items--fore-edge painted books, that is.

This one is a first edition of Winnie the Pooh.

I also visited the Pratt.

We saw a lot of cool stuff here, but probably the strangest is their lock of Edgar Allen Poe's hair and piece of his coffin along with one of only four surviving photographs of him.

Back at the conference, I got to see Toni Morrison speak--always a treat. I was also thrilled to see Natalie Merchant perform songs from her new album, "Leave Your Sleep".

If you haven't heard it yet, definitely listen to "Janitor's Red Haired Boy" and "If No One Ever Marries Me." Especially if you are a huge literary nerd like I am.