Topics, Dates Announced for 2001 PLA Spring Symposium

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
JUNE 2000
FROM: KATHLEEN HUGHES
PLA COMM. MGR.
312-280-4028

The Public Library Association’s 2001 Spring Symposium will be held March 1–3, 2001, at the Palmer House Hilton Hotel in Chicago.

Topics for this year’s Symposium are (one more program still to be announced):
Emergent Literacy: Reading Development in Children
Digitization
Emerging Formats: DVDS, E-books, and more
Planning and Designing Library Buildings.

The Symposium also will feature an opening general session, author luncheon, and a PLA store. Registration forms will be available in September. PLA members will automatically receive this information; registration and program information also will be available on the PLA website, www.pla.org.

PLA is a division of the American Library Association.

Youth Activist, Author, Poet Luis Rodriguez to Keynote PLA’s President Program

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
JUNE 2000
FROM: KATHLEEN HUGHES
PLA COMM. MGR.
312-280-4028

Luis Rodriguez, poet, publisher, and author of the award-winning, international best-seller Always Running: A Memoir of La Vida Loca, Gang Days in L.A., will be the featured speaker at the Public Library Association's (PLA) President's Program, during the 2000 ALA Annual Conference in Chicago. The program will be held Saturday, July 8th, from 2–4 p.m., in the Grand Ballroom at the Intercontinental Hotel.

Perhaps best known for his memoir on coming of age in East Los Angeles, Rodriguez also is an internationally recognized poet. His books of poetry, Poems Across the Pavement and The Concrete River have won the Poetry Center Book Award from San Francisco State University and the PEN West/Josephine Miles Award for Literary Excellence, respectively. He also is the author of two children’s books, America Is Her Name and It Doesn’t Have to Be This Way: A Barrio Story.

Rodriguez also was instrumental in starting Chicago’s Guild Complex, the largest literary arts organization in the Midwest, and its publishing wing, Tia Chucha Press. He is also one of the founders of Youth Struggling for Survival, a Chicago-based nonprofit community group working with gangs and young people.

Luis Rodriguez’ appearance is sponsored in part by LIVE! at the Library 2000, an initiative of the ALA Public Programs Office that helps libraries explore important issues and ideas through “live” appearances by authors and artists. The project is supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest Fund, and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and libraries are invited to apply for program support.