I’ve been following the developments in where ALA Annual 2006 will be, since there is a small, but not miniscule chance that I will be attending. I was chatting to Jenna a while back (before Katrina) about how I hoped to attend ALA and IFLA in 2008, and she said “why not come to New Orleans in 2006?” Well, why not! New Orleans holds great interest for me as I’ve not travelled to the US South before (except Florida), I love Cajun food, and it’s the home of many great horror writers. Will there be another blogger gathering?

I have mixed feelings about the announcement that ALA will be in New Orleans post-Katrina. I am hoping that it will still be a good Annual to attend, as a first-timer, and I am also hoping that ways we can help the local economy will be promoted prior to the conference. I shun chain hotels, restaurants, stores etc at the best of times, but here’s hoping ALA goes the extra mile in its American Libraries restaurant and hotel recommendations in New Orleans. There have been some excellent suggestions on the SRRT list that ALA should build time to volunteer into the programme.

The rough plan so far is to take a month off next June/July, starting in Tokyo, heading to ALA, then New York for a couple of days, Paris for a week, Antwerp, Amsterdam and Copenhagen, stopping in Mumbai on the way back. Time off work permitting, of course.