One of the most interesting and informative parts of each ALA conference is the Auditorium Speakers Series along with the opening and closing general sessions.  The Auditorium Speakers Series includes distinguished speakers who are journalists, authors or activists.  There were 10 speakers in the series and I had the opportunity to hear 5 of them plus the opening and closing session speakers.  My dance card included Jamie Lee Curtis, Sally Ride, Tam O’Shaughnessy, Dean Koontz, and Khaled Hosseini.  The opening speaker was Ron Reagan, a popular political commentator and the closing speaker was Diahann Carroll.      

Each of the speakers brought great enthusiasm to the program and ideas that are good for librarians to hear and learn about.

Sally Ride and Tam O’Shaughnessy provided an upbeat take about science in the schools.  Sally is the founder of Sally Ride Science (http://www.sallyridescience.com) which helps young people get engaged in science.  It was particularly interesting to learn about research that shows that boys and girls in grades 5 through 8 are equally engaged in science.  By the time girls are in later parts of high school that has significantly changed.  What can we do about that and how can libraries encourage the continuing interest in science?  Ride has a new book series entitled Totally Amazing Careers in Science. 

Khaled Hosseini, author of The Kite Runner, provided interesting insights into his writing process and spoke about his commitment to speaking out about globally displaced populations as one of the results of his writing success.  He also spoke about his observation of watching the movie being made.  He described it as “the ultimate in collaboration.” 

Jamie Lee Curtis was the Public Library Association President’s program speaker as well as part of the auditorium series.  Ms. Curtis delighted and enchanted the audience.  She discussed how she became an author of children’s books and we all enjoyed hearing her read Big Words for Little People, her latest book.
 
The opening general session speaker was Ron Reagan.  He described being from a family of “inveterate readers.”  One of the most important things in his young life was to order books at school and getting to read them the day they arrived.  His passion for libraries and what they stand for was evident in his speech.  The ideal that libraries are “on the ramparts of defending freedom from passing ideology" is an important principle, and he maintained that we must stand for freedom everywhere.  It was an uplifting speech and once again made me proud to be an American Librarian where we do stand for those freedoms.

Diahann Carroll was the closing speaker.  The speech was a “conversation” between Sarah Long, past ALA President and NSLS Director and Ms. Carroll.  Ms. Carroll talked about how difficult it is to write a book with a collaborator.  She worked with more than one collaborator prior to her first book being published.  The informal conversation included observations about racism and her thoughts that greed is one of the fundamental causes of racism. 

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