Reed Exhibitions, parent company of BookExpo America, is in discussions with the American Library Association regarding the possibility of taking over ALA’s annual convention in June and midwinter meeting in January.
According to Publishers Weekly, the “process is far enough along that Reed has talked to a number of the major trade houses about the prospect and about the idea of combining BEA with the ALA annual meeting.” If a deal is reached, “Reed is believed to favor locating BEA and the ALA annual meeting in 2012 in Chicago, creating in effect two shows under one roof.”
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Reed as in Reed Elsevier?
Really? There’s serious discussion of turning libraryland’s premiere conferences into tradeshows run by an arm of Elsevier? What a wonderful idea…and just as I’m on the verge of dropping conference attendance anyway.