If you've spent much time around librarians online over the last few days, you're probably aware of #arcgate. If you're not, I'll try to recap it quickly. A librarian blogger went to ALA hoping to get ARCs (Advance Reading Copies provided free by publishers to help generate buzz) for some books she was looking forward to. Because she was busy being active in other parts of the conference she didn't get to the exhibit hall to pick up ARCs right away and noticed that by the time she got there, most of the ARCs were gone. After she got home she found a video from a couple of bloggers (who are not also librarians) who had taken home literally hundreds of ARCs. She wondered if ALA could be handling the ARC distribution process differently. Chaos ensued. I'd been going back and forth about whether or not I should add my opinion to the fray, but then Miss Julie pretty much covered it for me .
A relocated librarian tries to make sense of information overload