Memo about change in conference location

TO: NJLA Members and Friends

From: Pat Hannon, NJLA President, Pat Tumulty, NJLA Executive Director,

Heidi Cramer, NJLA Conference co-chair

Peggy Cadigan, NJLA Conference co-chair

Nancy O’Grady, NJLA Conference co-chair

The NJLA Annual Conference is a much-anticipated event. It is our one opportunity every year to come together as a library community to share, learn and network with our colleagues and friends. NJLA’s Committees and Sections spend hundreds of hours planning for conference. We want it to be perfect. Unfortunately, sometimes no matter how hard you plan, things happen outside of your control. This was one of those times.

First, the good news. We are moving this year’s Spring Conference to the beautiful Ocean Place Conference Center in Long Branch. The conference dates remain the same – April 19 for preconferences and April 20-21 for the conference. NJLA has had many wonderful conferences at the Ocean Place. The facility provides a terrific atmosphere for a conference with wonderful meeting rooms, a large exhibit center and excellent hotel facilities with superb amenities. It also has hundreds of free parking spaces just steps from our conference activities. Please visit
http://www.oceanplace.com for more information on our “new” location.

Now, the bad news. We certainly were not looking to move the conference this year but felt we had no choice for the comfort and convenience of our attendees. When the NJLA Conference Committee met with the representatives of the East Brunswick Hilton to make the final arrangements for our conference, we were told very disturbing news. The Hilton had just learned that it was going to have to close a large portion of its parking garage because of safety issues. Instead of having access to approximately 600 parking places for our conference,
we were only going to have 250-300 parking places onsite (including parking for registered guests of the hotel). Conference attendees would have to be shuttled to the hotel from the Loews Cinema on Rt. 1 approximately 5 miles away. The Hilton has had little experience providing transportation for a group as large as ours. In addition, the off-site facility does not provide any type of shelter in case of inclement weather. Most of our attendees, speakers and exhibitors come by car and expect to have to have convenient parking and access to their cars. The Conference Committee knew that shuttles from a remote parking lot would be problematical, unpleasant for attendees, and found this to be unacceptable.

It was an extremely difficult decision to move the Conference, but for the comfort and convenience of our members we feel this is the best solution.

We encourage you to think about staying overnight at the Ocean Place. It is a terrific hotel with plenty of amenities such as a health club. By staying overnight you will have the opportunity to enjoy the evening activities, relax, and socialize with your friends. The hotel number is
800-411-7321 and the conference code is NJL. The room rate is $129, which is approximately the same cost as the Hilton because parking is free at the Ocean Place. In addition, the Ocean Place will permit our attendees to use the health club facilities at no charge. If you have
already made a reservation at the East Brunswick Hilton we will contact you about changing the reservation.

This was a totally unforeseen situation. We have enjoyed our conferences at the East Brunswick Hilton and hope to have the opportunity to go there again. Unfortunately, the parking situation presented to us this year was intolerable.

We are pleased to extend the early bird registration option through Friday, April 2. We’re able to accept credit card and voucher registrations via fax.

Our website at http://www.njla.org will soon feature updates and additions to the conference plans including program descriptions and author/book signing schedules.

We thank you for your patience and understanding. If you have any questions please contact us at 609-394-8032. The 2004 Conference program is outstanding and we know you’ll have a terrific time. See you at the Shore!

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