Last night I attended my first librarian bloggers gathering, at Leslie Burger’s joint gathering for bloggers and librarians from the Gulf Coast areas of Mississippi and Louisiana that were affected by the hurricanes. It was the ideal merging of two groups - people who have lost so much and worked so hard to restore services despite massive personal losses, and some people who are ready and able to blog about all the things that they have been dealing with over the past few months.

The stats were overwhelming - so many books lost, so many homes lost, so many people displaced and staff that have left.

There is little evidence of the destruction in the city centre, but on the bus into the city from the airport damage was apparent everywhere. Having only witnessed Katrina from afar on television, it is unbelievable to be here and to even just imagine what it must have been like here last September.

As for the bloggers part, it was great to meet several people whose blogs I’ve been reading for a long time. A really fun night.

ALA has been good so far but I’m feeling like I haven’t actually been to many sessions - too much shuttling between hotels and the conference centre. But still, now I know what it’s like so next year when I’m at home, I’ll be able to understand the conference so much better when I’m following along online.