Dan Savage was the opening session speaker at ALA Annual. He writes the Savage Love column for the Seattle Stranger and is the founder of the It Gets Better Project. At ALA, he spoke primarily about the evolution of the It Gets Better Project (the goal of which, for those who haven’t heard of it, is to show gay teens that their future can be better than their present), and why, despite the massive popularity of the videos, he wanted to make a book as well: “I’m a print guy and I think books are magic.”

Well, that went over well in a crowd of librarians. But beyond a simple love of books, he said, “We also did the book to challenge school libraries and school librarians.” Some kids may not have internet access, but most have access to libraries, and over 1,500 copies of the It Gets Better book have been donated to libraries.

Overall, I enjoyed his talk very much; he’s an articulate and funny speaker, and a champion of libraries. Got the conference off to a great start!