The Texas Historical Commission held a press conference yesterday at the Bob Bullock Museum here in Austin. The chairman of the commission announced the purchase of Davy Crockett's last known letter before his death at the Alamo. The letter was purchased for over $500,000 (although the sellers reimbursed about $60,000 back to the State).

What is interesting about this fact is the amount of money spent on the acquisition. The State Library and Archives Commission is given no budget for this sort of purchase. And, I was frankly troubled by the fact that no "home" for the document was announced. Clearly, archives belong in the State Library and Archives.

Governor Perry attended at the press conference and lauded the purchase. While I'm very glad of his high level support for Texas history, I wish the role of the State Library and Archives Commission had been brought into this mix. Now the question remains: where will the letter be housed?

A couple of newspaper articles over the last few days have highlighted the "sagging" circulation rates for branch libraries in Beaumont. (You can find the articles at TLA's Texas Library News page (http://www.txla.org/html/NewsClips.html). In some important ways, the articles are positive because they point to the value of libraries and the need for local governments to support them. However, it is sad that the issue of libraries' declining relevance is stated almost as a given in some corners.

One of the key reasons for the statewide library visioning process (Transforming Texas Libraries) is to get us "in front of" rather than "behind" this question. We all deal with the growing threat of perceived irrelevance; I expect that looking at what libraries should do (and how they should be doing it) over the coming years will be a big step in helping us turn this tide.

The 2008 TLA conference Books, Bytes, and Beyond is 7 months away and the Local Arrangements Committee is creating a thread in this blog to keep you "in the know". We’ll post about 5 times each month up until March and then we plan to put something up almost every day.

Coming soon...

Before the conference:
•Speaker and program information
•Volunteer information
•Information on special programs like the Book Cart Drill Team performances
•Guest entries from presenters about their programs
•What to see and do in Dallas
•And most importantly, where to eat in Dallas

During the conference:
•Roving reports about conference programs attended
•Hot presentations you shouldn’t miss
•Important messages from conference speakers and organizers
•Authors and speakers blogging about their day at the conference

But what kinds of things do you want to hear about? Is there something about the conference you need to know about right now? Please post your questions/concerns in the comments section.