Washington, DC 21-26 June

My few days in Washington, DC went by in a whirl. On arrival, I was invited to dinner at Old Ebbitt Grill, a Washington eating institution, by Linda Jordan, a librarian from Oklahoma. She signed up to the Welcome To Your Library e-list a month or two ago, and I subsequently discovered we would both be in Washington for the American Libraries Association (ALA) annual conference. What a warm welcome and a pleasure to make face-to-face contact after e-mail exchange.

Next day, I met with Susan Kent, who until recently was responsible for the branch libraries in Manhattan, but is now about to move to Los Angeles. I owe her a special debt of thanks for putting me in touch by e-mail before I left the UK  with lots of the people I have met on this trip. We talked about public libraries and their future, managing change, and a host of other things besides. Somehow two hours flew by and I know we’ll stay in touch. Then it was off to meet Ginnie Cooper, who has relatively recently moved to DC to run (and transform) the public library service. It only took about ten minutes before we were deep into a conversation about public value and the book by Mark Moore on this topic. She introduced me to two of her colleagues, but soon it was time to leave, as she’d invited me to a dinner reception held by the Urban Libraries Council. This took place in an amazing venue, the Cosmos Club, which was only a few minutes walk from Dupont Circle, where I was staying and where Ginnie lives. 

I had a wonderful time and was treated as a very special guest, with public credit given to the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust. It was an honour I hadn’t been expecting. And that’s not to mention I was also treated as an old friend by a number of people I had already met on my travels! I was very privileged to sit next to Clement Alexander Price, who is Professor of History and Director of The Rutgers Institute on Ethnicity, Culture and the Modern Experience at Rutgers University.  He is also a Trustee on the board of the Urban Libraries Council. The conversation was equally stimulating with Guitele Nicoleau, who is on the board of library trustees in Washington, DC. I plan to stay in touch with them both once I return to the UK.

The following day I made a beeline, in the enormous exhibition accompanying the ALA conference, to the Office of Citizenship, US Citizenship and Immigration Services stand. They have just launched a Civics and Citizenship Toolkit, with a free copy for every public library in the country that registers to ask for one. Talking to staff, I discovered they had recently met with Patrick Wintour from the Employability Forum in the UK, and had noticed he had scribbled furiously when they had talked about their work in the US with public libraries. I already know Patrick, so clearly need to give him a call when I get back! The director is due to visit the UK soon and staff on the exhibition stand were very interested in him including libraries on his visit, so I shall be on the case about that too.

Later I met with John Gehner, Co-ordinator of the Hunger, Homelessness and Poverty Task Force of the Social Responsibilities Round Table of the ALA , as I was due to speak at their conference session the next morning, on Serving low-income people effectively: ideas and practices for libraries.We spent a very enjoyable evening together . The conference session went off well, with (at a guess) about 100 people in the room and a lot of interest and questions at the end. In the event there was just one other speaker, from the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty (very interesting for me on policy and statistical context setting).

Then it was time to party at the REFORMA reception at the Venezuelan Embassy.  REFORMA is the national association to promote library and information services to Latinos and the Spanish speaking and they certainly knew how to party. It also meant I met Loida Garcia-Febo, whom I will be meeting in Queens. Monday night was another reception, this time hosted by webjunction (see entry for Seattle) in conjunction with Ginnie Cooper (see above) and Deborah Jacobs, head of the library service in Seattle.  Yet another wonderful venue - this time the Tabard Inn.

I wasn’t going to let a conference and a few social engagements get in the way of being a first-time visitor to Washington. Writing this now I’m not too sure how I managed this, but somehow, between whiles, I walked and walked. I also followed a tour of the Library of Congress, visited the Lincoln Memorial and various monuments on the National Mall and the botanical gardens. I also visited two delightful museums, though perhaps not the most obvious ones in Washington, the Phillips Collection (I always love the feeeling of the hand of an individual collector and their tastes rather than the feeling of an institutional approach) and the Freer Gallery of Art, part of the Smithsonian, which has a fantastic collection of Whistler paintings and some beautiful Japanese screens. In the Phillips Collection I discovered for the first time the work of Jacob Lawrence and bought his book, Great Migration.

I feel exhausted just describing some of what I’ve been up to in the last few days, but though tiring, it has been very stimulating and I have made lots of new contacts and friends.

Next (and last) stop on this part of my travels: Queens and Manhattan.