Last Friday, a couple of UNP staff members journeyed across the country to Philadelphia to join in the march of the librarians as part of the American Library Association’s (ALA) midwinter conference. A highlight of the ALA conference is the vast exhibit hall packed with vendors of products (books and journals, digital resources, and library equipment, to name a few) that the attendees peruse between sessions and appointments throughout the meeting. With a desire to increase awareness of the University of Nebraska Press within the ALA community, we reserved a booth space, shipped our books and supplies, and were a first-time ALA exhibitor.

Here’s a look at our booth. Being so early in January, we’re in between our two seasons of books, so while our display copies highlight Fall 2007 books, many of the book cover images on the display in the back offer a sneak peak at the Spring 2008 season. We covered a wide variety of subjects-anyone not familiar with UNP books could see at a glance that we publish everything from Native American Studies and World History to Sports and cookbooks. Our conference giveaway was a big draw, too; one lucky librarian won a bountiful basket of books from the At Table series, along with some essential cooking supplies.

Here’s another photo of just one corner of the exhibit hall, which was housed within the Philadelphia Convention Center. Keep in mind that our exhibit space was in the "2000" row. (you see the "600" and "700" rows here.) I wish I had taken a poll on how many hours it takes to tour the entire hall. I personally tried to make it through a row or two anytime I took a break, but depending on how long I had already been on my feet, that was a little ambitious.

The exhibit hall closed on Monday, so after three days of exhibiting, we packed up and headed back to Lincoln with tired feet but also with the hope that we had successfully introduced our books to an important group of people.