We've Come a Long Way, Baby...

Okay, a part of me has a problem with "borrowing" a phrase used in promoting tobacco products.  But what the heck -- that phrase pretty much sums up how I feel about Playaway when comparing our first presence at the biennial Public Library Association conference to our more recent exhibition, which took place just a couple of weeks ago in pleasant Minneapolis, Minnesota.  Our first showing was primarily a two-person team showing off our 50 or so titles (at the time, of course) at our tiny, bare-bones 10' x 10' booth.  Boy, how times have changed...

The Playaway Booth at the 2008 PLA show was absolutely rocking.  Our two hundred square feet were completely filled with friendly, eager librarians craving more information on the 1,200+ titles we now have in our collection (not including the 600+ additional titles that Recorded Books offers)...from start of show to finish.  Those librarians had good reason to arm themselves with our info.  After all, 6500 libraries and schools can't be wrong!  That's the approximate number of schools and libraries now circulating Playaway titles.  Not bad progress in the past two years, eh?

I know I'm a bit biased, but it sure seemed like the energy we had going on this year was pretty special.  I wonder what PLA 2010 will be like...