If Rodney Dangerfield were a librarian at BEA, he might say: “we don't get any respect.” (Dangerfield, M.L.S., has excellent grammar.) Librarians are considered the dowdy, poor relations at the BEA publishing family reunions. We pay less to attend, and we don't spend much money there, and so our long-lost cousins in publishing are not always overjoyed to see us at the party. Last year at BEA, I was amused by the special “librarian-friendly” welcome mats in selected booths, which made me wonder what that implied about the others. But librarians are a big part of BEA—and we could be even bigger.
What do librarians do at BEA? We wait patiently to meet our favorite authors and collect heaps of conference swag (though there was noticeably less swag at last year's conference). In 2009, I watched a book being made on the Espresso Book Machine and received it literally “hot off the press,” still a little warm and sticky, like a loaf of fresh bread. I was thrilled to have had three of my entries published in the wildly entertaining three-day BEA publishing experiment BOOK: The Sequel.
BEA is not just fun and games for librarians, however. As selectors and purchasers of books for a significant percentage of the reading public, librarians are often the first to know when a title is going to be hot. And as Readers' Advisers, we have a great deal of influence over what people choose to read. We may not make the big orders at BEA that some vendors do, but we certainly remember what we see there, and we order plenty of titles for our libraries when we get home, often multiple copies. I am still astonished by those in the publishing world who see libraries as their competitors, rather than partners. In the minds of many, libraries still equal “free” books—but we first have to purchase the books.
Publishers should welcome—and BEA should more actively encourage—librarian attendance. Unlike bookstores, we are not beholden to bestseller lists. We give equal time to literary or experimental fiction, or anything we think might be of interest to our patrons. While many in the publishing world bemoan the death of literary fiction and the rise of the vacuous celebrity autobiography, remember that librarians will champion your entire list—not just the few titles at the top.
There are, of course, portions of BEA with librarian-centered programming. It is always a pleasure to meet publishing professionals like Talia Sherer at Macmillan or Virginia Stanley at Random House, whose memorable rapid-fire pitches are a conference highlight. Library Journal's pre-BEA “Day of Dialog” for librarians is a good place to meet and mingle as well as to keep up with the trends in the field. And the publishing contacts I made at last year's BEA were invaluable to me as the programming chair for the newly established Empire State Book Festival in Albany, organized by the New York Library Association. This year's inaugural event, April 9–10, attracted approximately 3,000 people—and festival bookseller Blackwood and Breuer Ltd. sold thousands of books. We expect an even larger turnout in 2011.
At this year's BEA, for the first time, there will be a full week of book-related programming in New York City. As a New Yorker, I hope to participate in several events, including a free reading with Jonathan Franzen and David Means at the Brooklyn Public Library. But this may not be an option for librarians traveling to New York just for the conference. Despite the shift to midweek, I fear that librarian attendance will dip this year as a result of slashed library budgets. That's unfortunate—from my perspective BEA is the conference highlight of the year, but for many it is probably harder to convince library directors of the need to attend a publishing conference rather than a library association meeting. Perhaps if BEA organizers showed us a little more (as Dangerfield would say) “respect,” maybe including us in the description and mission of “The premier North American publishing event,” our attendance would be an easier sell to our directors. For example, there is a widget on the BEA homepage that reads, “BEA is library-friendly,” but as of last week it did not link to any supporting content.
BEA could benefit from more librarians, and librarians could benefit from going to BEA: so it's time to help each other out. Additional programming directed toward librarians would be a good start. It would also be nice if all booths were assumed to be “librarian-friendly,” and we could retire the special welcome mats. And publishers, consider reaching out and giving librarians your time at this year's show. We may not be placing huge orders at your booth, but your investment in us will pay off down the road.
