Special Events

Details on Special Events, Speakers and other Events occuring during the Annual Conference will be added as they are confirmed. All events below are included in a full conference registration unless the description indicates that addition registration is required.

• ALA Awards Ceremony and Inaugural Banquet
• ALA/Proquest Scholarship Bash
• Opening and Closing Sessions
• ALA Auditorium Speaker Series
• Bookmobile Sunday
• Chicago Tours
• Council and Membership Meetings
• Fifth Annual Bookcart Drill Team World Championships
• Libraries Build Communities

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Just Added!! Wait Wait....Don't Tell Me!-SOLD OUT!
Thursday, July 9, 7:30- 9:15 p.m. (doors open at 7:00 p.m.) VIP seating is SOLD OUT!

Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me!, National Public Radio weekly hour-long quiz program sponsored by ALTAFF in partnership with Conference Services will feature host Peter Sagal, official scorekeeper Carl Kasell and a panel of the nation’s foremost pundits, including Paula Poundstone, who will play this witty and quirky weekly quiz show during a live taping at the Chase Auditorium. Each show features eight quizzes based on events from the week's news. Four of the games include listeners who call in to win the most coveted prize in public radio – veteran NPR newsman Carl Kasell recording the greeting on their home answering machine. The “Not My Job” segment, where guests are pushed to talk about something they know nothing about, is played on behalf of an audience member, who can also win Carl Kasell’s voice on his or her home answering machine.
Register online or use event code AL4 (general seating...SOLD OUT), $30 or AL5 (VIP seating...SOLD OUT), $40 on your registration form.

Both events will take place on Tuesday, July 14. The Awards Ceremony will take place from 5:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m. and the Inaugural Banquet will take place from 7:00 p.m. -12:00 a.m.

All ALA recognition awards will be presented at a special awards ceremony immediately preceding the Inaugural Banquet. (Tickets not required for Awards Ceremony) The awards being presented include: Beta Phi Mu ,W.Y. Boyd Literary Award For Excellence in Library Literature, Marshall Cavendish Excellence in Library Programming Award, Melvil Dewey, Equality, Gale Cengage Learning Financial Development Award, Greenwood Publishing Group Award for the Best Book in Library Literature, Ken Haycock Award for Promoting Librarianship, Paul Howard Award for Courage, ALA Information Today Library of the Future, Joseph W. Lippincott Award, Schneider Family Book Award , Scholastic Library Publisher, Sullivan Award for Public Library Administrators Supporting Services to Children, HW Wilson Library Staff Development Award, World Book/ALA Information Literacy Goal Award.

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ALA/ProQuest Scholarship Bash-  Saturday,  July 11 at 7:00 p.m.

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Opening General Session- Saturday, July 11, 5:30- 7:00 p.m.
McCormick Place West, W-375
Featuring Christie Hefner

A passionate advocate of freedom of expression, social justice and equal rights and opportunities for women, Christie Hefner will speak at the ALA Annual Conference’s Opening General Session. Hefner is a director of the Center for American Progress, a think tank dedicated to improving the lives of Americans through ideas and actions by combining bold policy ideas with a modern communications platform. Previously, Hefner served as chairman and CEO of Playboy Enterprises, overseeing policy, management and strategy in all areas of the company for more than two decades.
     As an advocate for First Amendment rights, she created the Hugh M. Hefner First Amendment Awards in 1979 to honor individuals who have contributed significantly to the vital effort to protect and enhance those rights for Americans. Since then, more than 125 advocates for First Amendment freedoms have been recognized with the award. In 1993, the Playboy Foundation established the Freedom of Expression Award at the Sundance Film Festival to honor those documentary films that best educate the public on issues of social concern. Hefner has promoted equal rights and opportunities for women in both the political and corporate realms. She was the first woman elected to the Chicago chapter of the Young Presidents’ Organization and has worked hard to increase the number of women serving on corporate boards nationwide. In 1991, Hefner was inducted into the Women’s Business Development Center Hall of Fame for “opening doors and building opportunities for all women entrepreneurs.” Hefner has also distinguished herself as a committed HIV/AIDS activist, dedicating time and resources to many AIDS-related programs.
            During her tenure as chairman and CEO of Playboy Enterprises,Hefner recapitalized the company, making it the first New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) corporation allowed to issue a second class of stock with disparate voting rights. She restructured operations and initiated the company’s highly successful electronic and international expansions. Extending its magazine franchise overseas, Playboy now is available in 25 localized foreign editions and is the bestselling magazine in both the U.S. and the world.
            Hefner has spoken to audiences around the world on a variety of topics, including: the creation of brands and global multichannel marketing, the merits and benefits of developing and running a family business, women leaders and women in business, how to create a successful international business model, the ever-evolving media and its importance, First Amendment rights and their commercial impact, and insight into the American consumer.

Closing Session- Tuesday, July 14, 8:00 - 9:00 a.m.
McCormick Place West, W-375
Featuring Steve Lopez

The Closing Session will feature Steve Lopez, Los Angeles Times columnist and author

of The Soloist, recently adapted into a major motion picture. Lopez joined the staff of The Los Angeles Times in May 2001 after four years at Time Inc., where he wrote for Time, Sports Illustrated, Life, and Entertainment Weekly.

Prior to Time Inc., Lopez was a columnist for The Philadelphia Inquirer, The San Jose Mercury News, and The Oakland Tribune. His work has won numerous national awards for column writing and magazine reporting.

A California native, Lopez is the author of three novels and a book of non-fiction, THE SOLOIST: A Lost Dream, an Unlikely Friendship, and the Redemptive Power of Music. The Soloist is the moving story of a remarkable bond between a journalist in search of a story and a homeless musician struck down in his prime. It is a captivating true story of humanity and misfortune, courage and perseverance, the strength of art and music as a redemptive force, and the power of friendship to change lives.

When Lopez first saw a homeless violinist standing on a busy street corner in downtown Los Angeles, he was sure it could be good fodder for at least one column. Dressed in rags and clearly livingout of the shopping cart next to him piled high with belongings, thetousled vagrant was playing Beethoven on a battered two-string violin.

The music was a little scratchy and tentative, but even to Lopez’s unpracticed ear it was clear he was no beginner. The man was suspicious of Lopez, and everything around him, and it took several weeks of encounters before he offered the reporter his name: Nathaniel Anthony Ayers.

In the 1970s, Ayers had been a promising classical bass student at one of this country’s most prestigious music schools until he lost his ability to function. Overcome by schizophrenia, he dropped out and returned home to Cleveland. His family watched helplessly as the smart and smooth-talking man of the arts drifted in and out of treatment for years, trying medication, counseling and shock therapy, none of which helped for long. Ayers ended up in Los Angeles and had been wandering the streets for several years when his path crossed with Lopez in 2005.

Despite knowing little about Nathaniel’s illness, Lopez was determined to help. Struggling to figure out an appropriate role in Nathaniel’s life, he seeks out mental health professionals, advocates and activists. Virtually all the experts tell Lopez what he doesn’t want to hear: there’s no easy or quick fix. But they also tell him that if he sticks with it, he can make a meaningful difference in Nathaniel’s life.

Besides the many difficulties and demands of helping Nathaniel, Lopez finds himself unable to walk away. And although Lopez holds on to the hope that Nathaniel might one day get past his fears, past the cyclical descents into paranoia and rage and give medication a try, Lopez comes to understand it’s not that simple, that there are no magic pills. He learns to accept Nathaniel as he is, and to see hope in small steps. Filled with humor, pathos, and drama, The Soloist is a remarkable story about lifelong dreams and the extraordinary resilience of the human spirit.

Sponsored by Penguin

 
Sponsored by Hachette Book Group

Wanda Urbanska

Sunday, July 12, 10:30 - 11:30 a.m.

 Wanda Urbanska is an expert, speaker and consultant on sustainability and green living. She is the author or co-author of seven books, including the forthcoming anthology, Less Is More: Embracing Simplicity for a Healthy Planet, A Caring Economy & Lasting Happiness (New Society: August 2009); Simple Living (Viking: 1992/ Blair: 2004); Moving to a Small Town (Simon & Schuster: 1996); and Nothing's Too Small to Make a Difference (Blair: 2004).
She is host/producer of Simple Living with Wanda Urbanska, a nationally syndicated public television series currently in its fourth broadcast season on selected PBS stations  nationwide (www.simplelivingtv.net). She has appeared on  the Today show, CBS This Morning and Oprah, and has been heard on NPR's "All Things Considered." O, The Oprah Magazine recently identified her as "the de facto Martha Stewart of the voluntary simplicity movement." She has published in the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, Mother Earth News, Natural Home, Rotarian, and American Libraries, among others. A graduate of Harvard University, Wanda makes her home in Mount Airy, North Carolina.

Sponsored by American Libraries

Junot Diaz exploded into the literary scene in 1996 with Drown, a collection of short stories that was one of the first books to illuminate the lives of Dominican-American immigrants.  Diaz’s first novel, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, is the winner of the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.  Moving from the hardscrabble inner-city neighborhoods of New Jersey to the barrios of Santo Domingo, and from the fear-plagued Trujillo dictatorship to the multicultural campuses of the contemporary United States, Diaz both redefines the immigrant experience and transcends it.  His fiction has been published in The New Yorker and The Paris Review, and four times in The Best American Short Stories. The New Yorker placed him on a list of the 20 top writers for the 21^st century. 
Born in Santo Domingo, the Dominican Republic, and raised there and in New Jersey, Diaz graduated from Rutgers and received an MFA from Cornell.  He lives in New York City and Boston, and is a tenured professor at MIT.

Sponsored by Penquin

ALSC President’s Program Featuring Melba Pattillo Beals

Monday, July 13, 8:00 - 9:30 a.m.

At the age of 15, Melba Pattillo Beals walked her way into the history books as one of the nine courageous students who faced down furious segregationists, the Arkansas National Guard and the Governor of Arkansas in order to integrate Little Rock Central High School in 1957.  She has written two bestselling books as a result of her experience, Warriors Don’t Cry: A Searing Memoir of the Battle to Integrate Little Rock Central High School and its sequel, White is a State of Mind: Freedom is Yours to Choose. 
Beals began her career at the age of 17 writing articles for major newspapers and magazines.  She earned a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University and worked as a news reporter for San Francisco's public television station, KQED, and for the NBC affiliate, KRON-TV.  Beals has also written numerous articles for periodicals including People, Essence and the San Francisco Examiner and is the author of a primer on public relations, Expose Yourself: Using the Power of Public Relations to Promote Your Business and Yourself, which was an industry bestseller.  In 1998, the nine students who integrated Little Rock’s Central High School were awarded the Congressional Gold Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest and most distinguished civilian honor.  Beals is currently professor and chair of the Communications Department at Dominican University of California.  She and her daughter, Kellie, are writing the screenplay for a feature film based on Warriors.

Sponsored by ALSC Charlemae Rollins Endowment

 
Lisa Scottoline

Monday, July 13, 10:30 - 11:30 a.m.

Lisa Scottoline is the Edgar-Award winning, bestselling author of Lady Killer, Daddy's Girl, Dirty Blonde and many more.  She currently has 25 million copies of her books in print in the United States and she is published in 25 countries.  Lisa loves her job and it shows in her writing. Her bestselling novels, set in Philadelphia and featuring gutsy and resilient female characters, have thrilled and entertained readers with page-turning action and her trademark wit and humor. Lisa has created an array of unforgettable characters, and continues to add to the cast with each new book. Many of her books feature the all-female firm of Rosato & Associates, while the rest introduce fresh, new, but equally compelling heroines all written in Lisa's unique voice. A lifelong Philadelphian, Lisa still lives in the Philadelphia area and enjoys writing about her hometown city.

Sponsored by Macmillan