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Lake Placid, Adirondacks USA - More than a thousand members of the New York Library Association (NYLA) are expected to attend the 125th Annual NYLA Conference and Trade Show in October 2015 in Lake Placid, N.Y.; the hometown of Dewey Decimal System founder Melvil Dewey!
Established by Melvil Dewey in 1890, NYLA is the voice of the library community in New York, offering a variety of services and programs to meet members’ needs, including professional development opportunities such as the NYLA Annual Conference. The NYLA Annual Conference and Trade Show, held each October/November around the state, offers educational opportunities for all segments of the library community, including a wide variety of programs, special events, networking opportunities and vendor displays.
Dewey is widely known for inventing the Dewey Decimal Classification System, a method he developed in the nineteenth century to classify and shelve items by using numbers to represent subject content - a system that is used in 200,000 libraries around the world.
Coincidentally, Dewey is also connected to a significant period of Lake Placid's history. The community’s history as a winter resort began with Melvil Dewey, who owned the Lake Placid Club. Dewey imported winter sports equipment to Lake Placid from Europe in the fall of 1904 and for the first ever winter season, opened the Club for lodging and outdoor recreation. America’s First Winter Resort was thus born and still thrives today.
The NYLA group last held its conference in Lake Placid in the early 1990’s. As the conference grew, space became limited in the existing conference space. When the new Conference Center at Lake Placid opened in the spring of 2011 with its flexible meeting space and technological infrastructure, the group was thrilled to return to the Adirondack resort.
“The NYLA conference requires 500 sleeping rooms within walking distance of the conference, and at the conference itself, the size and set‐up capacity of the rooms can vary greatly,” said NYLA Executive Director Jeremy Johannesen. “The Conference Center at Lake Placid perfectly meets all of our specifications, and being located in the heart of the village allows attendees to walk out and right onto Main Street to browse the shops, experience the great restaurants and of course, enjoy the breathtaking fall foliage!”
The sales strategy for the Conference Center at Lake Placid is conducted cooperatively by the Lake Placid CVB/Regional Office of Sustainable Tourism (ROOST) and the New York State Olympic Regional Development Authority (ORDA). The strategy includes attracting a combination of regional day business, and multi-day, town-wide conferences, which are typically booked up to four years in advance.
“NYLA is uniquely tied to Lake Placid’s history, and brings a significant number of attendees to the region,” said Maryjane Lawrence, director of marketing for the Conference Center. “As is always our hope, the conference will expose new future leisure travel visitors to our spectacular destination, and they’ll see it at its colorful best!”
“Without a doubt, the Center’s biggest initial draw for meeting planners is the naturally lit space and views of the Adirondacks” said Denny Allen, Olympic Center manager at ORDA. “After that, of course, they certainly appreciate all of the contemporary amenities and technology the building offers.”
The Conference Center at Lake Placid was designed with its location in the Adirondacks and contemporary meeting market needs in mind. Technologically savvy and environmentally sound, the Center incorporates optimized energy performance, renewable, recycled materials and natural daylight, and offers over 90,000 square feet of flexible meeting and exhibition space, with a total of 12 breakout rooms available for concurrent sessions, state of the art audio visual technology, a ballroom and a full service production kitchen.
For more information about NYLA, visit nyla.org, and for the Conference Center at Lake Placid, visit meetingslakeplacid.com.
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