Not so early birds

Did you register? Are you going to ACRL in Seattle? Along with many fellow ACRL members, I waited until last Friday to register for the 14th National Conference and take advantage of the $70 early bird pricing. Though a not-so-early-bird, registration was a breeze and even remembered to select volunteer and the All Conference Reception on my form. Thanks to my conference and flight buddy, fellow Library Cloud contributor Betsy, I already had a hotel reservation; a big change from ALA when I never seem to register soon enough to book a hotel room through the conference site. All that remained were our airline reservations from Columbus to Seattle, in my experience something that though usually costly is mostly a straightforward process. At least it was until this time.

I began with the usual suspects, Expedia, Travelocity, Orbitz, and AAA. It soon became apparent I was not to only late-bird who registered and began pursuing the airlines. Flights were available, but had only single seats remaining or were exorbitant in price ($450+) and flight time (upwards of 10 hours & some overnight). After twice selecting a flight only to receive a message indicating the price had increased between the time I first viewed it and clicked "select," something I have never seen before (false advertising?), I determined availability and demand were in fine form and abandoned my quest for the afternoon.

Tuesday afternoon I returned to the scene of the crime garnering the same results. A few more options, but most included flights via Georgia with extensive lay-overs. I finally went directly to the airlines and with Continental was able to book a reasonably priced trip with timely departures and limited layovers. Since our flight was verified later Tuesday afternoon, I can now say I am attending the ACRL conference, will not have to walk to get there, and will have somewhere to lay my head after a day full of conference activities.

Now, all I have to do is finish working with my poster session partners designing our LibGuides poster presentation. It's our first at ACRL and we are very excited!