More than 15,000 librarians who can afford it will converge on Orlando, FL, to attend the 2004 annual conference of the American Library Association (ALA). ALA is in pretty good shape, and the conference looks like a winner, something the association needs to beef up revenue. ALA has record membership, an increasingly comfortable and strong executive director in Keith Fiels, and relatively few internal issues to disrupt its dealings with government attacks on free expression and library funding. ALA's experiment with online balloting was a great success and increased member participation, despite a few glitches and mix-ups. The librarians who come to Orlando will enjoy more than 2000 programs and meetings listed in the Conference Program. They feature something for nearly every type of library, every specialization in library work, and every level of library worker. This year, again, there is almost too much emphasis on digital libraries and new technology and how it impacts the future of libraries. Beyond that, however, strong programs deal with the rising concentration of publishing in large corporations, the impact of ever-growing copyright protection on free access to information, and emerging models for scholarly communication, like open access. Solid programs on various aspects of intellectual freedom―from the Patriot Act and patron privacy to censorship―will help librarians cope with true believers and FBI agents.
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