Funding problems and the impact of the USA Patriot Act were two of the dominant issues at this year's American Library Association Midwinter Meeting, held over the Martin Luther King holiday weekend in Boston.

With last fall's announcement that both Salinas, Calif., and Erie County, N.Y., were planning to close all their libraries as a backdrop, the conference opened with an Advocacy Institute, featuring ALA president Carol Brey-Casiano and Massachusetts Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey, who discussed how to raise the awareness of importance of libraries, which in turn will enable them to keep or get funding.

"For me," said Stephanie Bange, children's librarian for the Dayton-Metro Library in Ohio, "budget is of huge importance." Although her library system is rehiring people to fill positions that were laid off a few years ago, she worries that the state may need to cut back again. "It's always money," agreed Edna Hatchins, children's librarian in Cranston, R.I. "We had some bad years in Cranston, and branches were closed."

College libraries, too, are feeling the budget pinch. "Publishers said next year can't be as bad, but we haven't seen that glimmer of hope," said Anne McKee, with the Greater Western Library Alliance in Glendale, Ariz., which includes 30 academic research libraries. "Our consortium does a lot of sharing; we've got buying power. Even so, a lot of libraries are on their second or third year of cutting subscriptions and book acquisitions."

Still, John Nelson, president of BWI, which sells solely to public libraries, said, "We're seeing exceptional growth. Business is up significantly." He was optimistic about BWI's new e-book program, which enables librarians to order e-books like any other trade binding, without upfront costs or special fees. At Brodart, which used the conference to launch its new subscription program for DVDs, sales representative Guy McMullen noted that in his territory, which includes Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York, "I'm starting to hear upbeat things. Funding is heading in the right direction, even if it's not up to past levels."

A week before the conference began, the ALA announced that it would conduct Web surveys of academic and public library administrators to determine the impact of the USA Patriot Act on library activity. "How many years can we go on torturing Judy Blume?" asked Nancy Byold of the Capital Area District Library in Lansing, Mich., who is concerned about what she sees as increased assaults on First Amendment issues in general. While some librarians regard the act as "scarier than hell," for others it is a nonissue. "You destroy what you need to destroy," one children's librarian remarked. "It's not a problem in Rhode Island," said librarian Corina MacDonald. "I personally haven't dealt with it."

On the convention floor, the mood was generally upbeat, helped no doubt by a 23% increase in attendance, to 13,232 (which includes 3,204 exhibitors). "Boston turned out to be a terrific location," Laura Ayr, director of promotion for Perseus Books Group, told PW. "It just felt like a really lively meeting. Although the meeting concentrates on children's books, the spotlight on adult literature was well publicized and drew people to the booth." Although traffic was markedly slower throughout the show for those with booths on the upper level, publishers there were also satisfied. "We were pleasantly surprised; the show went well," said Dosier Hammond, v-p, sales manager for W.W. Norton. "It was relatively busy."

As in the past, publishers sold books at their booths for discounts ranging from 20% to 50%, but there were also a lot more freebies. "Yes, there are more galleys," observed Steve Geck, executive editor of HarperCollins's Greenwillow Books. "A lot of time the best use of your advertising dollars are the bound galleys." However, the fastest moving item may well have been a poster for Jim Edgar's bestselling Bad Cat. Workman reportedly gave out 500 posters in two hours.

Graphic novels continued to be a strong draw. At Fantagraphics, Charles M. Schulz's The Complete Peanuts and the Hernandez Brothers'Locas: A Love & Rockets Book and Palomar: The Heartbreak Soup Stories (Love and Rockets) attracted a number of librarians just starting to develop graphic novel programs. To help librarians understand the difference between manga and graphic novels, Tokyopop created a special guide, which was shipped straight from the printer.