The other side of the booth
August 23, 2010
APS booth at StampShow 2010
I’ve written before about my experiences attending technology conferences as a librarian outsider. Last week I got another perspective on conferences and trade shows as I sat on the other side of the booth at the American Philatelic Society’s StampShow in Richmond.
It was an exhausting–but exciting–four days. Many APS members came to the booth looking to meet “the new librarian.” It was great to meet so many library users in person, because most of them use the library remotely.
I got used to saying, “I don’t know, but I’ll see if I can find out,” pretty quickly. When interviewed for this job, I said that I would learn about philately in part from library users, and I learned quite a bit at the show, both from talking to people at the booth and from listening to my coworkers answer questions.
I’ve gotten a taste of being behind the scenes at conferences before, by doing program planning for APLIC and for the SLA Social Science Division, but now that I’ve done everything from shake hands with a famous keynote speaker at a fancy dinner to pack up the booth at the end of the show, I have even more appreciation for what it takes to put on an event like this.








I couldn’t run for a month, but I am back out there and will be at the start line in Hopkinton on April 19. I was able to recover so well because I wasn’t worried about going to the doctor — I had good health insurance. I went first to my family doctor, then to the emergency room, and then to a wound care specialist. (Apparently frostbite is not that common, even here in central Pennsylvania!) This experience made me think about the kinds of choices people make when they don’t have insurance. What if I had to choose between treating my toes and paying the heating bill?