MLA 2024: Fred and the Avenging Chicken go to Portland

In May of 2024 the Avenging Chicken and I returned to one of our favorite conference cities--Portland, Oregon. Portland has a lot to offer: Powells Books, food carts, great public transportation, and, oh yes, a library conference. After I got back home, things happened and it took me almost a year to write this. I hope I can put the 2025 MLA Adventure online in 2025.

We lost our cat in January, but Schooner is there to help me pack.	Waiting for the BWI parking shuttle.	We go through BWI security and head towards our gate. My wife and I are great fans of our local farmers’ market, so it’s nice to see one here. I’m especially partial to fresh-picked bottled beverages, straight off the vine. Too bad they’re closed.	BWI recently renovated their bathrooms, and now the stalls go all the way to the floor and don’t have a large gap in the door. Common in Europe, but astonishingly innovative in the US.
Early morning is the best time to watch airplanes as they feed on passengers.	We fly over a large woolen blanket.	Denver airport! It has grown since the last time we were there.	And soon we arrive in Portland.
The light rail system whisks us to our destination.	Well, actually we have to change to another line, so we have a few minutes to look around. I figured that this sign had to have a story behind it. It does.	We got to Portland a couple of days before the conference statrted so we could recover from jet lag and explore a bit. For those days we stay at University Place Hotel, run by Portland State University. It’s not as opulent as some, but it has a nice courtyard overlooking the pool. It’s open only in the summer, so we couldn’t go swimming.	In the morning we meet a group starting out for North Dakota. The Avenging Chicken wishes them luck.
Downtown Portland, which has an amazing population of bronze wildlife	A trip to Mill Ends Park, the smallest park in the country, was high on our agenda.	More wildlife.	The Benson Bubblers are bubbling cheerfully. The water’s good, too!
We stop for a cup of tea before heading to our main Friday destination.	And there it is—Powell’s Books. Note: I have received no compensation from Powell’s for featuring their store here. Not even a free tote bag.	First stop, as always, is the humor section.	A Blondie collection from the early 1940s. Do I buy it? (Spoiler: yes.)
A stop in the books on books section comes next.	Powell’s knows their customers—I rarely see a shopping cart in a bookstore, but they have them here. Good idea, too!	We visit the Rare Book Room. Last time they had an incunabulum and they let me touch one of the pages. Looks like somebody bought it, since it’s not there.	We meet Kate Flewelling of Director of the Boston University Medical Library in the Rare Books room. She recognized The Chicken, and she’s worked with my boss. The world can be small at times.
And now over to the History of Medicine and Illness section. I recognize a few of my favorites.	After three or four hours, it’s time to leave.	The hotel restaurant has an amazing collection of local beer.	This happened last time, too. I can’t take The Chicken anywhere.
We bid farewell to University Place Hotel…	...and head to the convention center.	We check into our room.	Jim Westwood of MLA assists us with registration.
But how is The Chicken going to get to the other side?	Nothing is happening at the conference until later, so we head to Portland’s legendary Saturday Market. They’re celebrating 50 years of operation!	Food carts can be found all over Portland, including at the market. I choose a cuisine I haven’t tried before. Good!	There are also dozens of craft vendors. I buy my wife a shirt that says “I speak dog.”
A brief rest at the fountain outside the market before we head back to the hotel.	Looking out our hotel room window. Blue sky in Portland is a rarity.	Breakfast at the hotel shop the next morning. The place is filled with librarians.	We put up our poster.
I’ve worked a lot of craft shows, so load-in looks familiar to me. The big difference is that the fixtures are much, much heavier.	The conference officially begins! We meet Amy Blevins, MLA President, at the opening session.	And Kristen Sheridan, Barbara Slover, and A’llyn Ettien, all of of Boston University, and Liz Jenkins, of Yale.	I don’t think I’ll ever have as many ribbons on my conference badge as Julia Esparza, but that’s ok. I have a chicken.
The Portland Saturday Market is open on Sundays, too, so I went back for lunch. The neighborhood where I live has a very large Ethiopian polpulation, so this might seem like carrying coals to Newcastle. To my great delight, I find some new dishes.	Yum! I want to try making lentil cakes at home. Not injera, though—I can buy it freshly made at a local shop.	The market is located on the bank of the Willamette river. We go for a stroll.	Back to the conference! Nicole Contaxis (NYU) and Aileen Alfonso Duldulao (Oregon Health Authority) talk about data equity.
Heidi Reis and Soph Myers-Kelley talk about body donation programs. It’s harder to get in than I thought.	We attend a wellness forum.	We meet more people, including Kristin Chapman of Danbury Hospital, Danbury CT.	...Shannon Jones, former MLA President and another collector of badge ribbons…
And a whole crowd! I tried to get pictures of their badges so I could identify them, but it didn’t work—I didn’t hold my phone steady. I'm sure we'll be seeing a lot more of them in the future.	We attend the opening of the exhibits. We meet Darth Vader, who plays bagpipes on a unicycle.	The opening of the exhibits is always popular. There were fewer exhibitors this year, but still plenty of people to talk to.	The buffet stations are popular, too. This year they featured local beer.
Ayaba Logan, Medical University of South Carolina, and Tara Douglas-Williams, Emory University, are enjoying the exhibits.	Again? I can’t take The Chicken anywhere!	Next day! The clouds are back.	We attend "Do you see me?": the lack of representation of diverse skin tones in medical education.
And meet Liz Suelzer of Advocate Health, Milwaukee, WI.	Back to the exhibits. We’ve been customers of TDNet for years, so their booth is first on our list to visit. We say hello to Doug Madigan.	Then to Elsevier and their ClinicalKey exhibit.	I thought we were registered for a lunch seminar, but apparently not. We have lunch with members of the Hospital Library Caucus instead.
The picture on this web site, and a few other places, is from 2017. Maybe this is a good update? Or does it look like we're glaring at each other? (Upon further reflection, I decided that I need to use a different picture. Thanks to digital photography, I have lots.)	We run into Susan Keller. She recently retired as the librarian at Children’s National Medical Center, right next to where I work.	No MLA conference would be complete without the Janet Doe Lecture. This year the lecture featured a panel of Doe Lecturers from the past ten years.	Two new friends: Adela Justice of the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Texas and John Mokonyama, of Penn Medicine, Chester County Hospital, West Chester, PA.
Poster exhibit time! This is the reason I could come to this conference, so I need to make the most of it. Deborah Keene, Chief of Library Services at VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System, and Heidi Patterson, H.J. Heinz Veterans Library, both in Pittsburgh, come within range so I tell them about what we’re doing.	There weren’t long lines of people waiting to talk to me, but I did get enough people to make the trip worthwhile.	Looking out at the Portland Convention Center.	Ariel Pomputius talks about a collection of walking guides she and a colleague designed for areas around the University of Florida Health Science Center Libraries. I grew up in Gainesville, home to the UF, and my father taught at the medical school, so we have an interest in the area.
Time for the NLM update!	Afterwards we chat with Diane Babski, NLM's Director of User Services and Collection Division. NLM decided not to have a booth in the exhibit hall this year—the number of visitors had declined to the point where it was no longer cost-effective.	Nisha Mody was at the exhibits to promote her trauma-informed care course. I’ve been asked to do several searches on trauma-informed care, so we stop to chat with her.	Kate Pascali is our Wolters-Kluwer contact, and a visit with her was high on my list.
More of Portland’s famous rain.	The exhibits begin to wind down. When your exhibit is a poster printed on fabric, load-out is a lot easier.	We run into Michelle Kraft.	And then see some lightning talks.
The closing session.	A final look out the window.	The Chicken was disappointed to find this wasn’t a typo. Yes, I used the same joke in Atlanta. It’s called recycling and is very popular in some places.	Back to the airport.
It’s not rush hour, so there are seats available.	In the airport. The Chicken emerges after going through the scanner.	We fly over snow-covered peaks. Either that or it’s powdered sugar.	We change planes in Denver and end up in Baltimore.
This isn’t our shuttle, but ours comes soon enough.	Home again! (Re-enactment—it was actually dark when we got home.)	"And remember, if you ever need to fill a blank spot in a photo album, you can't go wrong with a picture of a teapot." --Henriette Avram (attrib.)	"And remember, if you ever need to fill a blank spot in a photo album, you can't go wrong with a picture of a teapot." --John Cotton Dana (attrib.)