ALA Cognotes New Orleans Highlights Issue - (Page 1)

ALA Cognotes HIGHLIGHTS ISSUE 2011 ANNUAL CONFERENCE NEW ORLEANS HIGHLIGHTS ISSUE June 23-28, 2011 (first photo) Author, cartoonist, producer and game designer Jeff Kinney delivers his Auditorium Speaker Series presentation. (second photo) Exhibit Roundtable Chair Gene Shimshock, ALA President Roberta Stevens, and the ALA Executive Board conclude the Opening General Session with a virtual ribbon cutting to open the Exhibits floor. (third photo) ALA attendees fill the show floor for the Exhibits Opening Reception. Molly Shannon’s Characters Grace the ALA Stage By Frederick J. Augustyn, Jr. The Library of Congress omedian in television roles such as “Saturday Night Molly Shannon keynotes the Closing General Session. Live’s” Super Star Catholic school girl Mary Katherine Gal- wanted to be a performer and loved lagher and in occasional parts on playing tricks. Shannon herself lived other programs, actor in Broadway’s for the St. Patrick’s Day show for “Promises, Promises” and now author which she performed while a student of her debut children’s book Tilly the at St. Dominic’s Elementary School. Trickster (Abrams Books for Young Always dreaming of going to New Readers), with illustrations by Ard York (she recounted how once she Hoyt, Molly Shannon starred as the and a friend boarded a plane in the featured speaker at ALA Annual’s days of lesser security and had a day Closing Session. She reprised how she of it, contacting her father after the began her acting career influenced by fact), Shannon graduated from New her own early experiences. Her father York University’s Drama School as a raised her in Cleveland, Ohio after student of serious drama and classic her mother, a librarian, died together comedy. with one of Shannon’s sisters in a car Gallagher was already one of accident. Her dad, hard working as a her alternate personas at NYU as consummate homemaker, had himself » see page 16 Gardner Details History, Touts Properties Of Wikipedia At President’s Program By Frederick J. Augustyn, Jr. The Library of Congress LA President Roberta Stevens at the President’s Program held on June 26 introduced and interviewed Sue Gardner, Executive Director of the Wikipedia Foundation. This is a non-profit charitable organization that presides over Wikipedia, one of the most visited websites, recently celebrating its tenth anniversary. Used more than 400 million times every month, Wikipedia is a cooperatively written and edited reference source and is open, mutable (with archival retrieval of previous iterations of articles) and strives to be quality-based without being tightly controlled. In 1990 Gardner began her career in journalism with Canadian Broadcasting Corporation radio. She maintained that Wikipedians (those who write for and edit Wikipedia articles), contrary to what many may believe, are actually lovers of more traditional informationdispensing institutions such as public broadcasting and libraries. C A Sue Gardner During her half hour presentation, followed by a Q and A based interview by Stevens and an open question segment, Gardner made the case for how Wikipedia fits into the evolving climate of free information, budget sustainability, and democratization. Quoting Charles Van Doren from 1962, she said that “the ideal encyclopedia should be radical. It should stop being safe.” The idea of Wikipedia was based on the » see page 16 Dan Savage Tells ALA It Does Get Better By Brad Martin LAC Group t the Opening General Session of the ALA Annual Conference June 24, Dan Savage, author of the syndicated column “Savage Love” and the Editorial Director of Seattle’s weekly newspaper The Strange, described the rapid evolution of the “It Gets Better” A campaign that he and his husband Terry Miller began as a way to speak directly to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) youth. Savage told the audience of coming out to his parents over thirty years ago, and of how far we have come as a society since then. He said that in many ways there has never been a better time than now to be a young person who is LGBT. “At the same time, however, if you’re a kid who is being bullied as a result of your sexual orientation, there has never been a worse time,” Savage explained. The “It Gets Better Campaign” started with one video posted to YouTube talking about the joys of » see page 11 http://www.alaannual.org http://www.alaannual.org/content/bookshelf

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of ALA Cognotes New Orleans Highlights Issue

ALA Cognotes New Orleans Highlights Issue