I went to the ALA Midwinter meeting in Boston for one reason, and one reason only:
The swag
The hot young librarian guys
The Polaris Bar
The Dance Librarians Discussion Group.
The DLDG didn’t bail, like the other ACRL Arts section groups did, and hold a virtual meeting. Oh, no! The dance librarians would sweep bodily into Boston, and I would leap into the conference room to meet them, land gently, and dazzle them with my charm and wit until they begged me to come to their vast, extremely well-funded, always bustling dance libraries upon graduation.
The plan was nearly foiled at the outset by my choice of footwear. I hobbled into the conference room, gritting my teeth and cursing Steve Madden. Still, I pasted on my best smile and prepared to schmooze the hordes dozens two people who sat at one end of the table. One was the charming organizer of the meeting (who was not, technically, a dance librarian, but a Manuscripts and Special Collections Materials Cataloging Librarian and a dance lover); the other was the delightful scholar, choreographer, company director, also-not-a-dance-librarian presenter, who would be speaking about her book; then there was me, the lowly (and yet surprisingly, probably irritatingly un-humble) wannabe dance librarian. Fifteen minutes into the meeting two other librarians came in, who had inherited the positions of performing arts librarian at their colleges, and were hoping to glean some wisdom from the cranial archives of dance librarians in the flesh.
We chatted, but I confess: I wondered if there really were dance librarians, and if so, did they have some superpower that, say, made them invisible or gave them x-ray vision or something. Maybe they hovered somewhere near the ceiling, eyes a-twinkle, giggles at the ready as we discussed the problem of there being NO ACTUAL DANCE LIBRARIANS AT THE MEETING.
There are some pretty big dance libraries/archives/collections around the country. (I Googled it, so I know whereof I speak. Because Google knows everything and reveals all. I bet if someone asked Google to show up at the Dance Librarians Discussion Group it totally would have. All hail Google!) So with all that material being cataloged and indexed and archived and circulated and digitized, why the silence, dance librarians of America? Are you like the mysterious superhero, hiding in your dance cave until some desperate balletomane flashes the Capezio signal? Or are you more like the shimmering unicorn, once described in husbandry books as if it wasn’t a legend at all? Are you in fact a mythical creature now encased only in the imaginations of poor LIS graduate students? Perchance you, dance librarian, would have appeared if I’d clapped my hands and said, all bated breath and shining eyes, “I DO believe in dance librarians!”
Well, I have two words for you, dance librarians of America. (Actually, three initials and a word…maybe two words, because then it’ll be really clear and I don’t want to be misunderstood and have to face another sorely disappointing DLDG experience, because then I might have to change my career plans altogether…I’m thinking health sciences thanks to a vendor who actually SHOWED UP at ALA Midwinter and DID chat me up…but of course, that’s his job. He’d be a pretty rotten salesman if he didn’t chat me up.)
I forgot what I was talking about.
Ah, yes. I have three initials and seven words for you: ALA Annual Conference in the capitol! Be there!
