At the TLA Booth~~Guest Blog

For the first time ever, GLISA representatives were at the TWU SLIS booth during TLA Annual. If you’ve never been to TLA, the exhibit hall is a city long block of vendors and authors, all hawking their wares. It is an amazing, busy place. At the SLIS booth, future students are stopping by for information on the school and program. Former students are stopping by to visit with professors. Current students are also visiting, but it is with these folks that I wanted to chat.

Web Administrator Allison Renner designed a terrific banner for us to hang in the booth. I had it printed at Staples and we placed it right next to the SLIS banner. It was a great piece of marketing that will be used again next year, I hope.

Our first day, officers Tracy Jolivette, Paloma Lenz, and I all took over the booth during lunch hour. And what a busy lunch hour it was! Between the three of us, we could barely keep up engaging all the visitors. That hour, we met several current SLIS students and invited them to become GLISA members. With the enticement of a free tumbler, a few did. Former GLISA President Elizabeth Hollenbeck also stopped by and supported us by purchasing a heavy canvas bag. There were a few transfer and not-yet-students whom I tried to convince, that when they were ready, GLISA would be waiting for them.

@GLISAatTWU officers manning the @twuslis booth at @TXLA #txla16 pic.twitter.com/YHzIujIR0z

— la paloma (@pL0La) April 20, 2016

The following day, there were some scheduling conflicts, read: I screwed up. For some strange reason, I never bothered to check Paloma and my schedules against the exhibit hall schedule. Anyway, it worked out that I stayed at the booth during lunch again. This time. I had Drs. Vardell, Jeng, Hoffman, and Richey, the GLISA advisor, to visit with. Despite having had almost daily interaction with Dr. Richey, this was the first time I had met her in person. I don’t know what she thought about me, but she was much like I expected, friendly and cordial and utterly professional.

I spent almost no time in the exhibit hall this year; freebies just weren’t doing it for me. The two hours I did spend there were about forging relationships and making new friends. I hope to see y’all there next year!


Christine De Angelis is conference junkie who is also a one-woman fan club of Clayton Genealogy Library’s director, Sue Kaufman.