The buzz this week in libraryland was about American Library Association annual meeting and BookExpo America combining conventions. My thought on it now is: why stop there? What other conventions could ALA combine with?
My personal pick would be the E3.
Agnostic, Maybe 
Andy, not sure about E3, but definitely think a meeting every other year would make more sense!
Like the PLA conference? That would cut down on expenses, but the conference itself is big business for the cities that it goes to.
Why should we combine conferences? ALA is huge as it is. Why make it even more crowded and hard to get around? Why add to the possible expense, if combination means increased days? Why reduce the number of librarians who can attend (ie the system who sends 1 to ALA, 1 to other conference, now sends just 1 and the other is sol)?
Why put librarians in the position of not being the primary target of the con? Are we that insecure as librarians that we need a different, better con attached to us? And whatever conference is picked, will that marginalize the librarians who don’t want/need/know that 2ndConWithALA?
I think these are all good questions for another post. I was just asking for a “what if…” fanciful sort of answer.
ALA has already stated it is not selling to Reed
http://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/inside-scoop/ala-not-selling-trade-show-reed
Yes, I know this. I was just asking the fantasy question of, “what if ALA combined with other conferences?”
When you get a chance, you could ‘fix’ my comment above — should just be the one sentence. 🙂
Done!
I vote for SXSW, although E3 would be very cool, too.