I feel the need to dissect the 2009 LITA National Forum in gory, gory, blow by blow detail.
I'm sick and tired of going to Library conference after Library conference and usually coming to the conclusion that once again my Fraternity, Alpha Phi Omega, could have done a better planning job than the conference committee. I love college students. They're smart, they're hopeful, they're energetic. I don't mean to belittle them, but shouldn't a "professional" organisation of researchers be able to pull off a better conference than a bunch of well meaning young adults who have far less in terms of resources at their disposal?
Now I've by no means gone to every Library conference there is to go to, but I feel as though I've been to a fair enough number of them to be able to assess what's going wrong and what's going right. I *have* gone to a metric tonne of APO conferences, and I've had a blast at just about all of them.
I'm not out to hurt feelings here. I'm just hoping that someone, somewhere on a future planning committee might read this blog and heed at least some of my unsolicited advice. We all know that ALA isn't seriously listening to any feedback. Wouldn't it be great to have splendid conferences?
As always, I can't bitch about this stuff and not help to fix it, so feel free to dial me up and put me to work.
#1 Check the Bloody Calendar
When setting a date as college students, we were careful to use the grapevine to ascertain whether there was a large protest at the Capitol, another Fraternity or Sorority event taking place on campus, or any other big festival that might cause traffic tie ups or hotel room booking problems. We also had to ensure that we weren't booking against other Fraternity events. Logistically this can be a bit tricky to pull off, but historically it's not so bad since annual events tend to take place about the same time each year. A little advanced planning before anything at all is set in stone generally pays huge dividends in terms of hassle and rates for your attendees.
LITA utterly failed in this regard.
The Mormon Convention took place while we were there, driving up costs, hotel room rates, causing traffic jams, and transportation problems. It is their city, not ours. This could have very easily been avoided since it's right smack dab in the middle of the first page of the LDS website. The barest bit of thought would have avoided this conflict. Now, spotting that the National Hardware Retail Association's conference was the same time would have been a bit harder, but hotel representatives or someone in the travel business might have been able to spot this.
Historically, LITA conferences have occasionally conflicted with other Library conferences, too. I realise that they can't arrange conference about every tiny local association, but can we manage to schedule so we're not on top of say NELA or another large regional conference? If the ALA Website was worth a damn, you'd be able to do this with an at a glance group calendar accessible at one click from the start page and easily modified by round table heads. It still only takes a couple of clicks to get to the ugly crappily organised list of conferences and events that makes the cut for the website, even though it takes a bit of effort to suss out when these conferences actually are. Just sayin'.
Why the weekend?
I realise that some folks will be able to head out since they won't have to beg off of work, but this really wrecks havoc
#2 Mucking About With Hotel People
I've ranted many times about how suck we are as a field at salary negotiations and negotiations in general. Women Don't Ask (http://www.womendontask.com/) for reals, for serious. L2Read, it's relevant.
I can count how many times I've stayed in a Library conference hotel on one hand with fingers left over. It's not because I don't like spending downtime with my colleagues. It's all about the bottom line.
Unlike salary negotiations, there's not much in the way of smoke and mirrors when you negotiate with hotel management for a block rate quote. I have done it successfully before for my Fraternity, it is not a scary process. I'm not being fair in that unlike the average woman, I draw immense satisfaction watching hotel people squirm when confronted with facts, I relish forcing a better deal at the auto dealership, I am a female negotiator, hear me roar. I can only imagine I will negotiate hotel block rate quotes many, many more times in future. It'll make me even better at it. Notice that I said "quote" here, and not "contract." I really hope I'm wrong about this, but it seems like ALA isn't shopping their quotes about before they sign on the contract dotted line.
Or even bothering to check the Internet before going into negotiations.
As an information professional charged with conference planning, wouldn't you do at least a cursory search on hotel rates during your preferred dates? Wouldn't you want to bring a piece of paper in with you that showed a reasonable rate for one person's stay so that you had a ballpark idea of how much it ought to cost? Wouldn't you investigate all the venues that might accommodate your group to see which one was truly best suited to your needs and the needs of your participants rather than simple reliance on a big brand name?
I'm not shilling for them, but I'm going to use hotels.com here, because it's a good source of data that's relevant to my point and easy for most folks to access.
LITA's "special rate" for the Convention Centre Hilton was $130 per night. If they had bothered to visit hotels.com or another travel site prior to negotiations, they might have noticed as I did, that at one point it was about $108 a night. Real special, huh? Smells suspiciously like rack rate, if not rack rate plus. If the dates of the conference had been 6-8 November 2009, still stubbornly on a weekend, still stubbornly at the Hilton downtown, hotels.com lists the rate as $91.09 a night.
I chose to stay at the Hilton Airport for $60.72 a night. I do not have hundreds of people behind me for bargaining power. I have but my keyboard and my brain, which is surely far outmatched by many minds at LITA.
We're better than this, guys. Let's do better next conference.
My Fraternity was often able to negotiate frills into the hotel deal to sweeten the pot, too. Let me say that again. *My Fraternity* was able to negotiate a better deal with hotels. Put yourself in a hotel manager's shoes. Picture merriment, bathtub liquor, lots of additional noisy guests, inevitable complaints. Librarians can't benefit just a little from our stereotype for a change? Really? Now Alpha Phi Omega does arrange its own security detail and to this day has a relatively rosy relationship with many hotels, but honestly folks, I think ALA should hands down beat the college crowd any day on room rates. My Brothers often were able to get free hotel rooms or a free suite as part of the final package. This helped defray costs for our speakers. If we hit one out of the park, sometimes we could get free refreshments.
For non major cities, an average APO conference usually costs about $50-$60 bucks a night. For major cities, that creeps up, but I'd aestimate about $75-$110. ($90 is pushing it for college students, and it should be pushing it for Librarians, if you ask me.) Salt Lake is not a major city. This was not downtown NYC, Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami, or any place else bubbling over with excitement. We asked people or their institutions to shell out more than twice as much as they really needed to.
#3 Must Registration Be a Pain in the Arse?
Don't get me started, Wilbur. ALA for at least the last 4 years has stubbornly decided selectively that some speakers should throw money at them for the opportunity to speak. I can only imagine I'll have a separate blog post all about this.
http://www.theshiftedlibrarian.com/archives/2005/12/13/why_im_not_joinin...
I was hoping that since GLLS didn't charge me a registration fee that LITA wouldn't. Consistency across ALA national events would be logical, right? Ah, how terribly wrong I was. How fortunate for me to secure the "discounted" rate of $290 for a conference I was not incredibly interested in attending. This definitely wasn't insult to the injury of a nearly cross country flight and hotel room.
Would it be okay if I just showed for my poster session and left immediately after my session was done? No, no it would not. Does it matter that I'm not even an ALA member thanks to boobery like this? No, no it did not. Would ALA at least have some shred of decency and not charge someone that doesn't have a regular source of income? Nope, sorry, look elsewhere. Pay up, shut up, or don't show up. This pseudo policy will definitely land us with the younger professionals we're looking to attract.
Adding further insult to the injury of insult to my injury, no reliable, simple, secure electronic registration and payment for you!
My Fraternity has managed this for more than a decade using PayPal or other means, and simple registration forms one did not have to login to access. We'd then compile the data, run the credit card numbers when we had to, print the badges and we're good to go. We got to handle group institutional payments, too, so don't go thinking our job wasn't as complex.
Yes, I realise that there was online registration for the conference at large, but the iteration I saw didn't seem to include a way for non ALA members to get to it, and also largely seemed to produce a paper form which would be mailed in. I was asked at one point to mail in a paper form and cheque. No phone number to dial up. This is where I put my foot down. No, I will not hop on the metro, head to the bank, go through a half hour of security to get inside, pay a fee for a cashier's cheque OR get new blank cheques, which may or may not arrive in advance of the conference, that will cost me money for something I'll never use again SINCE THE WHOLE WORLD TAKES PLASTIC (even at powwow!), drop the entire mess off at the post, then hop back on the metro for the ride home.
I was going to pay at the door, thanks very much, since at very least they might manage to build up some guilt before conference (they didn't) or at a bare minimum I was assured with my own beady little eyes that my credit card information wouldn't be mishandled.
No, no, it's okay. I'm certain that having a tiny slip of paper in circulation with my full debit card number on it will do wonders for my credit score if it falls into the wrong hands when it is inevitably lost. So yeah, some of registration hassle is my own fault for researching and presenting a topic. I'll do my best to avoid doing that in future until ALA straightens their stuff out on the toss money at us anyway policy.
When college students are more reliable at handling confidential information than a formal organisation of information professionals, something truly terrible has happened.
The one smart aspect was the onsite printer for at the door registration, so I didn't get an old fashioned marker nametag. Hooray.
The idea of having a foldable schedule that slips in behind the nametag was brilliant. The execution of it was disastrous. Honestly, a glossy grey pocket schedule with 4 point font on it? This is a good idea in a profession that values optical benefits since we're mostly hard on our eyes? We get two Fridays in LITA. It's a good thing I know what topics there are in the poster sessions! Having a map on the schedule - good idea. Having it so tiny and blurry that it's not terribly helpful - poor follow through.
Needless to say, I consulted often with the Hilton fish to see where my stuff was. One of the organisers pointed out that there were quick schedules and even handed me one, which was possibly the only time any of the organisers were helpful, but I did my best not to roll my eyes and explain why I wasn't using the tiny, tiny schedule. Think 50% reduced size 2000 Florida Election ballot and your head will be in the right place.
Base registration costs for my Fraternity's National Convention for students was $75. The full package with a few dinners was $175 for alumni. Some small souvenirs are rolled into that cost. Local conferences are about $45.
#4 We Don't All Earn What Keith Fiels Does - Consider Mass Transport
Your site should have it. Simple as that. People want to see stuff when they come to conference, even if we often fail at it due to time constraints.
I knew in advance that I was in for a bit of hassle. I am spoilt by DC. I pictured transport similar to Albany, NY. You _can_ get from the Airport to somewhere else by bus, but it's going to take a bit of time. I figured by cleverly staying at one Hilton across town, they might well shuttle me to the other Hilton gratis, since my hotel advertised a free airport shuttle. Alas, they would not take me so far as their own hotel downtown. I'm a plan B and even C type of gal, so I looked on a map to ensure my hotel was on a bus line. I also checked to see that it was within Irish Gimp Standard Constitution Walking Distance. I realise that no one else uses IGSCWD, I mention it because I'm not above gimping my way around using shank's mare given flat surfaces.
Luckily for me, most of Salt Lake City is flat, which is surprising given the mountainous backdrop. There are areas about the temple that are far from flat, but it's no Seattle by comparison.
The quality of mass transport in Salt Lake City is abysmal. Busses stop when they damn well feel like it, where they damn well feel like it. I was passed by 6 busses on the way back to my hotel from the Hilton Convention Centre. It took me 3 hours to get from one hotel to the other. It took me two hours on arrival to get from the airport to the Convention Centre since a suspect was loose on the bus and UTA didn't think to send a second to come and get the people still waiting at the airport. These were both on Friday when the schedule was more favourable than Saturday and Sunday. Once again, weekend conference not helpful to the wallet. Even with a splurge on a taxi, my work on my hotel reservation meant that I still came out ahead even if a little frazzled.
I couldn't help but grin as I overheard a guybrarian speaking to an eLITAst about taking the bus to the conference. I thought "Fair play to you" to myself as he related that taking the bus gives you a bit of perspective about a city that you don't get from taking a cab. The conference Librarian looked horrified by the thought of anyone taking the bus with the rabble.
In selecting a site location, my Fraternity plots out distance to the grocery store, distance to attractions, and distance from regular mass transport. When bids originate from locales that don't have mass transport, it's a strong negative absent a pedestrian friendly design. Cab fares are a luxury for a lot of us.
#5 We Don't All Look Like Keith Fiels Does, Either
Sorry, I've not had money to blow on my wardrobe ever. Yes, I really do belong at your conference. I let my ideas and not my dress speak for me. Thankfully, the contingent from my alma mater, who I've never met before this conference, realise the value of the person over the value of the ensemble. I felt at home with them, and I needed to tug myself away from them in order to meet new people I might not be exposed to elsewhere. Cheers UIUC.
I figured that it was just my grumpiness at the fee that soured my networking. As I made the rounds, I found that my grumpiness really wasn't the only factor, as other folks felt left out at this conference, too. After the conference let out, I found another straggler and went to lunch. We were arguing rather passionately about the problems within the field, and specifically how anti-social this conference felt to us when I noticed my colleague looking past my shoulder. Suddenly she firmly said "Would you like us to move?" to the couple behind us. I was about to apologise for getting a bit loud when your man declares that he's in the Library business, too. Oh really? So you'd rather chase us out of our booth and not hear about our opinions than join us at our table and debate with us? We flagged our waitress over to switch tables. By the time she came back round so that I could order Mr. Fussybritches a stiff drink on my tab, they had vacated. I suppose this sticks out so starkly in my mind since he was young like we were. I suppose he wanted the volume of a traditional Library to carry over into a restaurant, or perhaps he felt perverse satisfaction in bullying his female colleagues.
This was the worst example I have from conference, but I met a number of people that expressed that the atmosphere of the event was not welcoming. People that looked different from one another. That thought different from one another. Enough lip service is paid to diversity that you'd think this wouldn't happen. Even when the diversity isn't racial or generational, many people were turned off from this conference by how cliquey the core group was. Even though namebadges were cleverly a different colour for new attendees, some old hats were given cold shoulders.
While the committee were wearing buttons to distinguish themselves from other attendees, the general attitude that they conveyed was rather brusque. Moods catch. Maybe some of the storm was from waking up at 8am on a weekend, and that's if Utah was your native time zone.
On the positive side, there was sufficient time padded into the schedule to allow for networking.
I have only ever felt unwelcome amongst one all male Chapter of my Fraternity. We bend over backwards to ensure that our Brothers feel welcome wherever they might find themselves. Even as an alum, I feel welcome when I return on occasion to a conference thrown by a Fraternity that is centered about its active student population. Some conferences are better than other conferences, but the worst conference I've been to in my Fraternity was by far better than LITA's national forum.
#6 Where's the schwag, man?
In my apartment, I have a china cabinet packed full of mostly Fraternity glassware. I've attended most of those conferences and special events emblazoned upon those glasses. It's a discussion starter and a really cool memento of my college years.
I'm not advocating for a 12" LITA Beer Stein, or a conference t shirt. But what tangible nicknack am I getting for my several hundred dollars in registration costs? Some conferences, like PLA, include a smart tote bag. There are a lot of clever office accessories that can be handed out for marketing purposes at conference that just aren't. They'd get people talking about going to conference and planning conferences.
I realise that tangible goods cost money. As a fundraiser, I realise that my Friends of the Library totes didn't cost so much that they weren't worth producing. I really do not see the harm in diverting $10 - $25 of a conference registration fee towards a little souvenir. If ALA can't do it for whatever reason, have one of your multi million dollar business sponsors pick up the tab.
#7 The Longer the Conference URL, the Better. Not.
http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/lita/litaevents/forum2009/index.cfm
Really? We all know how crap the ALA website is. You can't get round that by taking a small portion of the registration fees and shelling out for
or summat, and just linking back to it from the crappy, crappy ALA website?
Where the hell are my slides?
I can't vouch for the other presenters, but I'm sure you got my stuff. I see the big fat link at the top for the evaluations you won't read, but where's the link to the actual conference content? Where, where, where? Maybe it's on facebook, but I wouldn't know, cause I'm not on it! I can see my poster on Flickr, if I know what my poster looks like! Doesn't have my cheat talking notes, though, which I gave to the conference committee.
Conference slides and information should be carefully guarded behind the high walls of the ALA or another login, available only to those that shelled out a membership fee or conference registration. *sigh*
Did I mention that I couldn't be bothered using ALA Connect to send my stuff over?
My Fraternity either posted stuff promptly or handed out logins to presenters so that they could go and post their own materials on the conference website themselves. Some conferences were better than others for organisation and retrieval of content.
#8 Food, Glorious Food!
This was actually a highlight of the conference. I'm a traditionally built woman, I likes mah food. I worked in restaurants before working in Libraries until my gimpy leg forced me to give up my 16 hours of standing.
There was one hitch, and this is a very, very small percentage of any conference. I'm vegan this month. I was pleasantly surprised that there was plenty of breakfast food that I could eat. I expected a danish and coffee. There was plenty of fruit. For the folks I envied that were meat eaters, yummy eggs, rashers, muffins, breads, all sorts of food.
Lunch let me down, shockingly. There's *always* a salad at the lunch buffet. It's a rule. They will not let you out of culinary school if you don't put greens on the buffet line. There was some steamed broccoli raab that was tasty, but I was a little wary since it was so fresh from the sweat that it looked buttered. It was not. Neither were the cooked just right carrots. I was waylaid by an incognito fresh mozarella ball that was delicious. It was in my rough chopped tomato and olive bruschetta, and I ought to have known better. Alas, every salad on the line sported feta cheese crumbles.
I selected Thai for the networking dinner not only because the ex President would be attending but because my kitchen sense told me I'd have a better chance of getting some bunny chow. It didn't let me down. Vegan pad thai - score!
My Fraternity was generally careful to arrange things with catering so that it was possible for any habit to get a bite to eat at Conference. Sometimes this was overlooked. When it was observed, sometimes it wasn't as pretty a presentation, but we got many thank yous from vegans and vegetarians who came to our neck of the woods.
#9 Gosh Some of this Was Dry
Let's face it. We're not a very sexy profession ideawise. Cataloguing is not topping our list of leisure activities. IT is boring, boring, boring. I love dry topics, and I loathed the idea of going to some of these sessions. I'm a generalist, so really, truly, I'm willing to sit through just about anything that's well thought out. I skived off on Friday after the opening keynote, perhaps missing some good stuff, perhaps dodging a bullet. I did intend to return after dropping my luggage off, but I didn't end up doing so thanks to mass transport taking 3 hours for a 15 minute car ride.
But wait, David Weinberger makes a boring topic sexy anyway! That green architecture session sure was good. Folks raved about the lightning talks.
It wasn't all good, though. It will never be perfect, BUT I think it can be a lot closer than this conference had it. Let's shoot for an optimal mix of boring to sexy! When presenters enjoy a waived registration fee, or even better a paid hotel room or *drool* an honorarium, we strive to make sure our hosts feel like they got their money's worth. I know I cut corners and time spent on my speech that I wouldn't have had I not been forced to pay an expensive fee.
I was speaking with another Librarian right before the closing keynote. She confessed that she had never walked out of more presentations than she had at this conference. She astutely noted that too much of the presentations were self agrandising. They were more orientated towards look at my cool project than they were towards giving you the tools to replicate the cool project in your backyard. I knew what she was driving at, and I'll keep that in mind when I present from now on.
I guess we need a better mix of how to and show and tell.
We certainly need a better template for conference planning. In the end, I can appreciate the time that the committee spent in pulling this off, but I lament what they missed. It's shaped my perception of LITA, and I doubt I'll return absent a colleague raving over a future conference. It's not JUST this conference, which I can't stress enough. When I think back on the Library conferences I've been to versus the Fraternity conferences I've been to, Libraryland loses hands down. I look forward to that changing someday. Let's roll up our sleeves and really innovate.
]]>I Saw It Again
*sigh*
As someone that was awarded an A in killing people, as well as someone that knows a whole heck of a lot of brave firefighters, I feel as though I can unequivocally say that, yes, we are in the same company as the Army and the Fire Department when it comes down to budget time.
"Why?" you ask. Perhaps "That's absurd!" you posit.
Nuh uh. Libraries at budget time are Monty Python's Black Knight. We declare loudly and proudly that we'll muddle through with our chins up, since it's merely a flesh wound. After all, everyone is being cut. Right?
Wrong. Very wrong.
I suspect that it's safe to put forth that more often than not the Library bears the brunt of the kick to the teeth, where other departments get a close shave and won't enjoy the stacks and stacks of canary copy paper this year. We're just a "quality of life" department, right?
Wrong. Very wrong.
And why do we line up for our kick in the teeth, our one cross each on the line on the left? Simply because we are terrible advocates. Throughout the year, we're awful at recording our best interactions. How many of us religiously escalate that Patron who sings our praises to town administration? No one is going to help us unless we ask for help. No one is going to want to award us budget money if it's a one man band.
Duhrectors set your Patrons, Staff, and Board upon town administration like Montgomery Burns' hounds.
I am dead serious. Every time I see one of those anti intellectual censorious policies proclaiming that only the divine Duhrector ought speak about budget matters, I want to take a ruler to the back of those divine hands like Sister Mary Joseph. You are begging, yes BEGGING, for a budget cut when the folks that control the pursestrings see only you once per year at budget time.
This is true in especial when we bring them The Charts.
Again, I want to take a ruler to the folks that show circulation charts at budget time. Numbers do not tell the story, they are for the appendix. The STORY tells the story. Tell them about the waves upon waves of unemployed that you help through the innavigable straights of the State website. Tell them about the dozens of Patrons you've helped file a FAFSA with. Tell them about the emergency assistance we gave during the last natural disaster. Tell them about the small businesses we've helped incorporate.
And better than that send the people you've helped to the Town Administration if they say the magic words. And many of them will say these, or something like them.
"How can I ever repay you?"
That is your cue to say "Actually, it would very much help if you went to so and so / the budget meeting and related that we were valuable to you as a taxpayer since we won't have the money to keep our doors open this coming year as we did last year."
Be honest with yourself - did your way work last time? We needs capitalise off of the wonderful relationships we've built, in especial when we need those relationships the most.
For heaven's sake, don't go it alone at budget time.
]]>The Open Movement and Libraries
Online -- February 1 - 28, 2009
$250 ($200 for Simmons GSLIS alums)
Am I the only one that sees something wrong with this picture? If we're talking about Open Source and Open Access, why are we insisting on closing doors by charging several hundred dollars during a Depression? (Sure, folks are calling this a Recession right now, but that's another story.) The very nature of this screams professional hypocrisy to me.
Shouldn't our continuing education be offered for low or no cost, particularly when the medium of delivery is the World Wide Web? As an online alum, I'm well aware of the costs associated with setup. However, is this not the sort of thing our National professional association could sponsor? Wouldn't it be better for Simmons to offer one workshop or course per year with limited open registration for no or low cost? Could we take a SRRT sort of sliding fee approach, in particular when we're addressing access so that new voices can be heard? I'm not calling for all of the lecture series at Simmons to be free of charge, but wouldn't it be great to have a special lecture series every now and again that's readily available? The Boston Athenaeum with the cooperation of the Boston Public Library offered one such series.
Perhaps I was just spoilt abroad during my junior year. At Trinity College, all of my extracurricular clubs were to charge no more than 2 quid for membership. I joined practically everything that appealed to me. Further more, the Classics department sponsored receptions either gratis or for extremely low cost in order to bring in as many students as possible. The government defrayed the cost of tuition to the point that the cost of attendance per year including fees was several hundred pounds.
The Library and Information Science field routinely cripples itself by not providing extensive, rich opportunities to learn at little or no cost. Let's move away from this in future.
]]>"Hello?"
"Yes, ma'm, we're conducting a survey. We aren't asking for money, and it'll be brief..."
My curiousity was piqued.
"Where do you turn for reliable information?"
This took me very little time, maybe a quarter of a second casting about, before I emphatically responded.
"Librarians!"
Yer man thanked me and hung up.
I hmphed, and the little Mister said "That's not someone push polling is it?" Which was about par for the course, since he usually knows what I'm thinking. The call did have the feel of a push poll to it, and LIS seemed to be the ultimate aegis against slime.
Funny, innit?
]]>*************
-----Forwarded Message-----
From: Keith Michael Fiels
Sent: Sep 5, 2008 3:49 PM
To: ALACOUN
Subject: [alacoun] Message from ALA President Jim Rettig
Dear Colleagues:
Over the last several weeks, there has been considerable discussion and many questions raised about the constraints imposed by federal law on ALA as a nonprofit charitable organization. On the other hand, there has also been considerable interest in having a forum available where ALA members could freely discuss political topics and the current election in relation to library issues.
ALA, because of its 501(c)(3) tax exempt status, is expressly and absolutely prohibited by the U.S. Internal Revenue Code from engaging in “political speech.” This means that ALA resources, including electronic discussion lists, blogs and wikis, cannot be used for “the support of, or opposition to, a candidate for public office”. Political speech is different from “lobbying,” which seeks to influence legislation or regulation (ALA continues to lobby aggressively for libraries within federal guidelines).
The consequence of violating this legal prohibition is the revocation of tax exempt status. No warnings are required, and the IRS has repeatedly revoked the 501(c)(3) status of organizations considered in violation of these regulations. The absolute prohibition on political speech by associations like ALA is serious — and the “zero tolerance” enforcement policy of the IRS has been upheld by the courts, including the Supreme Court. We - ALA officers, staff and members - are required to comply with these laws until such time as Congress changes them. In doing so, we protect the interests of the Association and its members - present and future - and preserve ALA’s ability to advocate aggressively on behalf of libraries and the public. Simply put, the loss of our 501(c)(3) status would have a catastrophic impact on the Association.
For more information about the IRS prohibition on political speech by 501(c)(3) tax exempt organizations, as well as links to additional information, please see the Marginalia blog posting at http://discuss.ala.org/marginalia/2008/03/12/election-year/
Some members have inquired about challenging this prohibition. Given that the Supreme Court has upheld this IRS regulation, a legal challenge would not be a wise use of ALA resources. Other members have pointed out that there are exemptions for universities and that churches appear to be granted more latitude by the IRS. Both of these statements are true, but do not affect the rules for charitable organizations such as ALA.
Notwithstanding this prohibition, many ALA members have expressed an interest in discussing the election and the candidates in relation to library issues. While this discussion cannot legally occur within the ALA 501(c)(3) structure, the 501(c)(6) ALA-Allied Professional Association does open up new opportunities for such discussions. As a 501(c)(6), operating under different IRS rules, ALA-APA can legally provide a forum for such discussions.
To this end, the ALA-APA Board has authorized the creation of an ALA-APA Forum discussion list to discuss mutual issues of interest to librarians and other library workers, including political issues and candidates. This list is open to ALA members and others. To subscribe to the APA Forum, go to:. http://lists.ala-apa.org/sympa/info/apaforum
Questions have also been raised about the limitations placed upon American Libraries and AL Direct. While stories that may be construed as supporting or opposing any candidate for public office are prohibited by the IRS as political speech, AL and AL Direct will continue to provide factual information and breaking current news on library-related issues, including those involving candidates for public office, as it occurs.
In closing, I would encourage you to distribute this information to any and all ALA discussion lists and member forums. Also, if you have any questions, please contact Karen Muller, the ALA Librarian, at kmuller@ala.org.
Sincerely,
James Rettig
ALA President
ALA-APA President
**************
My kneejerk reaction was that they were seriously misconstruing the actual interpretation of laws on the books if not the letter of the law itself. So I screamed for the comfy skirts or possibly pants of a Law Librarian. You know, that brave man or woman you ought seek shelter from in a legal shitestorm. The ones that actually *know* what the hell they're doing, instead of pretending to know.
Unable to hear back right away, and extremely fidgety from way too much caffeine and World of Warcraft, I set about looking for real guidelines, not fakey organisational ones. And here we are, incredibly simple to find in plain English from the IRS.
http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-tege/2008_paci_party_letter.pdf
The whole document is only 3 pages on my viewer and worth every word.
"The prohibition on political campaign activity applies only to tax-exempt charitable
organizations, not to the activities of individuals in their private capacity. The political campaign
activity prohibition is not intended to restrict free expression on political matters by leaders of
charitable organizations, including churches, speaking for themselves, as individuals. Nor are
leaders prohibited from speaking about important issues of public policy. However, for their
organizations to remain tax-exempt under section 501(c)(3), leaders cannot make partisan
comments in official organization publications or at official organization functions, including
official church publications and functions."
That seems far afield of this:
"We - ALA officers, staff and MEMBERS (emphasis mine) - are required to comply with these laws until such time as Congress changes them. "
It would sure as heck seem to me that Library related issues are important matters of public policy to me. It would also seem that having a non official forum related to discussion of political issues in which our *leaders* did not take an active role in would be a good thing. (Yes, they have a right to as individuals, but safer, methinks to steer clear of them if yer name be Keith Fiels or Jim Rettig. In especial since you think all folks ought be censored, not just you.)
Either we stand for intellectual freedom, or we do not. Either we truly promote democracy, or we do not. We ought to change our official stances to reflect that this organisation uses its discretion perpetually on intellectual freedom and matters of censorship, just as we play at Democracy when we feel the need.
For what it's worth, I didn't renew my ALA membership, and am happy to not be a member when it's apparent the leadership by and large is continuing the same squelching that's been going on for years.
Also of note is a councilor with their head screwed on: Elaine Harger of SRRT. (Do we see a pattern here? SRRT rocks!) Thank goodness someone immediately called out the bad decision.
]]>Come to the dark side!
Kirin Tor server, we just got started.
]]>Like pornography, we tend to know who deserves one of those jobbies when we see them. Something resonates in us, and we think "Yeah, they deserve it."
I'd love to see the feelings set aside for substance.
I have an albatross, called a Distinguished Service Key, from my Fraternity. I still chalk this up as mostly accidental. I have to wear it once a year lest I offend my Chapter. When I think back to an early discussion that predated that award, one of the older Brothers outlined the qualities folks that bear one are meant to have. He and I had many philosophical conversations, and much of the wisdom he imparted to me has resonated far outside the Fraternity.
One of the things he said that day was "Just because things have always been that way doesn't mean that they're right or the ideal way for things to carry on." That came back to me loud and clear as I heard excuses for a candidate not being a recipient. "These people had to wait several years, you know." Which brings me to the second bit of advice.
When there's a long line for an award, hand more out.
Is there something wrong with acknowledging everyone that's made a difference? Some folks seem scared to death that lengthening a list of recipients somehow cheapens an award. I feel that the opposite is true. When good candidates are disenfranchised, the award loses its sheen for lack of meritorious people sporting that award. These things fester - people notice when folks are left out, and it sparks nasty backroom discussion. Are those numerical limits on something so beyond data a sensible way to proceed? This can be particularly true when a committee does not observe it's own history.
If you're one of the chosen committee members, know the history of your own award.
As the hot air was escaping, both in pixel and in voice, I couldn't help but think "Hmmm, I know that it's not strange to give out more than this year's tally..." just as I was shocked that initially the mistake of not knowing the cycle of the award was evident in an email. Not only that, but the same email let me know the actual recipients well ahead of the game.
Know it, but don't be a slave to it.
Every now and again, someone so different comes along that they break all of the rules. There are superstars that come along at very young ages. The science community comes strongly to mind. The achievement of a generation might happen in one's thirties; this was the case with Watson. Does this make it less than a lifetime achievement? Does anyone dispute the value of DNA being discovered towards the beginning of one's life? Should we make a value judgment about someone's dedication to a given geography?
If it's a lifetime achievement award, think about age.
I know that I just warned about size of achievement being the main factor, but I'd be foolish to not admit that age plays a roll. So formalise that. Defer to veterans over rookies IF (and I think it's a stinky if) an arbitrarily decided upon number of awards is triggered. Just as health should factor into things.
Is a committee still a valid structure?
This will vary. But if we continue to essentially shy away from controversy through selecting people that are neutral, it boils down to a popularity contest. Doesn't that mean that we ought to just vote, as for Homecoming Queen?
When people fight for their man, they aren't necessarily fighting the committee.
I didn't have problems with the other recipients. They were all meritorious; some are just more equal than others. This was NOT the case with the Edwards, of course.
]]>http://prattsilssitesucks.wordpress.com/
It serves to spotlight how awful a lot of our stuff is, but more importantly, how one might improve things in future. I must say (and I really, really, hoped against hope I'd never have to) that I think the Pratt site trumps ALA's in terms of confusion.
]]>This has led to a scary amount of paperwork in paper form related to copyright. Some of it quick, easy, logical, and non restrictive (Thanks MLA and Code4Lib) and reams of scary paperwork from ALA.
Now, were ALA doing me the fine favour of publishing a book, I'd not have me feathers ruffled right now. That's officially a big deal and a lot of hassle to take on. However, this is a tiny opinion piece in an issue of Public Libraries where I rant about the MLS. I've had to fax things over two and three times and the forms keep changing and getting more restrictive and less logical every time I put my signature to paper. My husband's sick of having to send out my faxes and I'm sick of signing my rights away on something that ought to be public domain.
Why is it that ALA stuff is not issued under Creative Commons share and share alike? Why do we insist on charging folks for knowledge that we ourselves create? How is it that we chafe at restrictions others put on the flow of information and yet unnecessarily place restrictions on our own field literature? Don't we pay for this stuff with our membership fees and generate this content with our own minds? Can't we at very least make the leap into the electronic realm in terms of the forms?
]]>Maybe reading The Diagnosis forced me to mull things over even more lately, but I've always kind of felt like we don't spend enough time with Patrons. One of the most rewarding things about rural Librarianship was not having someone standing about with a whip giving me agita about how much time I spend per Patron.
I've also wondered about conferences. Have we priced folks out? I went to a small Conference lately that seemed in line with some tenets I've thought on since hearing about Library camp. It was small, which lent to meeting new people. It was only a day, which would have included folks that couldn't afford a hotel stay, not to mention the costs for coverage at a small Library.
The raffle at the conference went towards defraying costs for paraprofessionals at the State Conference. National Conferences are probably always going to stay above a certain pricepoint - they have to be held in major cities to fit all of the participants and metropoli cost $. I just shudder when things at a smaller level copy a larger.
I hope to see Library Camps take off. I also hope to see virtual meetings pick up steam. We can't afford the alternative of leaving people behind.
]]>They should be.
However, the whys of why they should be have been contorted.
I can't help but wonder how many people read things in their entirety or even carefully scan before they go commenting about them.
First, folks are seriously misconstruing the rules YALSA uses in determining the Edwards.
http://www.ala.org/ala/yalsa/booklistsawards/margaretaedwards/maepolicy/...
This is *not* an endorsement of someone's life.
In this case, it is *not* even a lifetime achievement award.
It's a recognition that these two works have a large impact on Children, which they unquestionably do. I don't believe that any one of us is calling for the removal of the works from Library shelves OR stating that they do not believe that they are popular works.
However, the spectre I raised at the time was this:
Is there enough evidence _within_ the works themselves that would lead one to the conclusion that the literature at hand might not be conveying the sort of message Librarians would be happy having Children learn?
Are the books, or elements within the books, homophobic? Are there other messages within these books that are unsavoury?
That's not to say that we don't agree that Children can learn whatever they please, that's to point out that in giving an award, we're essentially honouring content.
Again, we're condoning content NOT lives, BUT would the content at hand cause a Librarian of intelligence high enough to be alloted a place on a distinguished panel to smell something fishy and check it out?
In specific, I raised a question about the choice of diction behind the main enemy in the tales - the buggers. Did the author know the derogatory meaning of that word?
I read the 1991 hardcover of Ender's Game and the 1999 hardcover of Ender's Shadow before writing this entry.
After reading them, I believe that the awards committee ought to have smelt a rat and ought to have researched more thoroughly after closely reading these. I allege that their reading of these books was entirely inadequate. They even missed that this was the *third* invasion and not the second, as is stated on the Margaret A. Edwards website.
"Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow both published by Tor Books, present a future where a global government trains gifted young children from around the world in the art of interstellar warfare, hoping to find a leader whose skills can prevent a second attack upon humanity by the insect-like aliens descriptively nicknamed "buggers.""
If they missed something so blatant as the chronological sequence of attack, what else did they miss? This wasn't the second attack upon humanity, this was a third preemptive war against a little understood enemy.
In simply reading the introduction of Ender's Game, we're treated to a heavy dose of the Mormon faith. I am not condemning anyone's religion. However, I think if you write about it, and it's included in the material you'll be judged on, it's fair game to wonder about the precepts of a given religion in relationship to the work at hand.
What happens when we google in "Orson Scott Card Mormon"?
We come up with a very highly ranked article he authored entitled "The Hypocrites of Homosexuality".
http://www.nauvoo.com/library/card-hypocrites.html
This is what I would consider to be a tiny modicum of due diligence on behalf of the committee. Wouldn't you want to know if the works at hand were going to be pushing a religious agenda? Wouldn't you want to know if this were religious allegory disguised as Science Fiction? I frankly don't give a hoot if someone or something's proseletysing or no. But, would the average ALA member be comfortable with saying that the works allowed a child "thoughtfully to build a philosophy of life" if they are religiously charged in an organisation that claims to pride itself on neutrality? (We are not neutral, and needs admit it, but that's a different matter...)
Once that box is open, once that search was run, one would have been able to spot the homophobic undertone a mile away.
Even if that line of thinking were missed entirely since someone skipped the introduction, one ought note that in Ender's Shadow on page 35 we have this interesting little chunk
"To compare him to the Buggers? Or I should say the Formics, since they're saying now that Buggers is a bad word in English, even though I.F. Common is not English, even though it began that way, don't you think?"
So we know that he knows how loaded that word is. If he had made a woody enemy and labeled them the faggots, would there be outcry? I frankly think the only reason he didn't was that at that level of obviousness, he never would have been able to sell this tripe to a publisher.
We also know that children curse. I've never had issues with children cursing or swearing. It's a great way to explore language. I cheered when I heard about An Encyclopaedia of Swearing. I immediately purchased it for my Library knowing that teens would be attracted to it like a magnet. The deeper lesson was that they would get a love of etymology. For a wonderful example of realistic Children's swearing, I'd point out Snow in August by Hamill. That is precisely what New York City kids sound like.
This swearing is different. This swearing is loaded. This swearing has an unusual preoccupation with male sex organs and arses. I'm _not_ claiming that swearing in general doesn't have a preoccupation with those things. I _am_ claiming that when folks swear, they throw in other types of swears for colour. Yes, military swearing tends also to have this preoccupation. However, I think the swearing I was subject to in the Army was more diverse than this. There's a creativity to swearing that is absent. I smell a rat. I smell an agenda.
What I can't grasp is why the committee didn't read more than a few surface levels deep in this allegory. We know that it's allegorical from the introduction to Ender's Game. I'm sure that the committee respects the companion pieces for their contribution to the bildungsroman genre. Certainly that's the most obvious layer of the onion, but when the author warns he's being clever, look out below. "Remember, the enemy's gate is down."
If the award SOLELY recognised Ender's Game, and homophobia was the only problem, I might still be on the fence, but I doubt it. But taken together, as the committee by its own rules was meant to do, I feel strongly that they ought to have copped onto the rampant homophobia.
Women's rights factor into the equation just as largely for me. If anything, the issues I had with the female characters in the novels were LARGER than the problems I had with the war on Gaydom.
We're fed a hypothetical, but more advanced, civilisation where children are taken for battle training. Somehow, the ratio favours boys far over girls. Really? Okay, fine. Suppose I buy this discrepancy (which I do not; I've simply had far too much exposure to fit women within the military) and suspend my disbelief. We're given an occasional girl in the ranks. Heck, one of them makes it to Ender's final showdown as part of his squad.
And when the world literally needs her, what happens?
She breaks down. Before this stage of things, we're led to believe that she betrays Ender. This is muddled; maybe she was a Judas, maybe she wasn't. We're never quite certain she was a genuine traitor. She admitted that she was in order to make things easier, which of course leads us to question whether she truly wanted things to be easier or no. Petra is weepy. We don't really hear about her performance as an Army Commander.
Okay, so Petra is a minor character. What of Valentine, Ender's sister? She gets to play second fiddle to both Ender and Peter. Persuasion might win out over might, but Card decides not to actually allow that to occur, so she's shuttled off into space to colonise. Ah, what a wonderful wife of the universe.
Poke in Ender's Shadow fares no better. Bean selects her for her compassion just as much as he selects her for her incompetence as a leader. Poke ends up dead at another boy's hands. Isn't that a bit fishy? A tomboy of the streets that can't defend herself?
Women are weak. When they're not, they're easily tricked or can't be relied upon. If they are serving as nurturing mothers, fine.
So, here's where it gets interesting if you take the time to run a google search on Mormon treatment of women.
http://www.exmormon.org/mormwomn.htm
But worse by far, if you do the incredibly easy search for Orson Scott Card Feminism on google, here's what I got as my first hit.
http://www.ornery.org/essays/warwatch/2006-02-12-1.html
Is that search too much to ask for? If someone read this and had questioned the female "protagonists", would his personal views provided an answer for how to take his somewhat sarcastic allegory?
All of this aside, there are brilliant works that have yet to be recognised that are sitting on our shelves. They are worth more than these two by far. The overall quality of these two books is just not that wonderful. For a really painful analysis, courtesy of an external wikipedia link from Ender's Game, read this:
http://www.starshineandshadows.com/essays/2004-03-15.html
Any way you look at this, it's wrong. If you were using the committee's own rules, this award is not meritorious. This is pulp sci-fi. This is not Bradbury. This is not Asimov. Isn't that the stuff that award winners are meant to be made of? How has this broadened the minds of a young person? I see these two novels presenting a formulaic rigid life structure, not widening "a window on the world". Either you are right or wrong, and taking the hard right - blowing up a planet now and asking questions later - is pushed harder than a bad sommelier pushes vinegary wine.
If you take the path that the committee could only give the award based on the materials at hand, there is enough evidence to overwhelm a decision to grant the award. If you're taken in by the sideshow of an author's opinions also weighing into the selection process, then things get truly ugly.
I'm just frightened that the committee didn't read past the most basic levels at hand. In not carefully forming an opinion based on the works at hand, in not researching at the most cursory of levels, they have failed us.
]]>In today's Times, there's a great article.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/11/movies/11scot.html?_r=1&8dpc&oref=slog...
I agree wholeheartedly.
Is the jig up? Are folks more receptive than our Field might be willing to admit?
]]>Traditionally, folks make resolutions that they break later on in the year.
We know we're going to break em, but we make em anyway. This is good. This is much better than not bothering to try and be better.
So, as I am given to preach, here I go.
If you get the chance this year to pull someone up to you, please do so.
I was having a conversation with my Maths Doctor Friend Donna. Donna is great. Our relationship has really morphed and grown and done extraordinary things over the years.
I spoke with her about Library junk, which she gets by proxy, as pretty much all of my very tolerant friends do. I honestly think the whole lot deserves honorary MLS degrees. I also spoke about my career and studies.
In the process, she expounded on a depressing epiphany we've both shared.
This epiphany is nothing new, but the metaphor has only been applied to one or two things and not really in the right combination.
Basically, we both think there's a glass ceiling.
Feminists will say that there's a glass ceiling there since we're women. But that doesn't feel quite right. There are very real barriers, but I've seen some women break through with my own beady little eyes.
Social justice folks will say that it's an oligarchy. But that doesn't feel quite right, either. There are folks up there that started humble.
Minorities will say that there are barriers that are racially charged. I am certain there's an electric dog fence for people like myself. Yet there are a couple of fighters out there that disregard the pain of crossing that line to get to the other side.
Films like Idiocracy and random episodes of the Simpsons tell me that I really don't want a true system of governance by the intelligentia.
Donna's take is to just settle if you can't make it up there. Try, but lower your expectations if you don't make it, since mathematically, most folks won't end up where they want to be. More importantly, that awful gap between expectations and actuality leads to Horrible Stuff.
There's just one problem, and it's an old one with me.
I don't want to.
If striving for a meritocracy makes me naïve, fine. Should we sell our dreams because they're hard to attain? Isn't it better to work hard and fail than to never attempt something?
I'm not looking to get my equestrian's stripes and then on to progress through the cursus just for myself. We've done that before. We've rejected the damned and the elect only to replace each political and social iteration with a new inner circle. But I like to think things get a little better each time one of those great advances rolls around.
This _is_ a Library Science issue. When I look around at the folks making the decisions and the ratio is still all wrong, we aren't doing a good enough job yet. When there are many more men in our best Directorships than there are at many of the lower ranks, it's off. When I look around at gatherings outside of the many good multicultural roundtables and for the most part see a very homogenous crowd, it's off.
There shouldn't be any shame in saying these things and there shouldn't be any offense taken in hearing them said. Our response as a field shouldn't be to ignore the problem because it's impolite. It should be to roll up our collective sleeves and help. Now. Not later.
Do I want universal change overnight? Where that would be nice, I know it's not possible. I just want things better at the end of my lifetime than they are now. I don't think that's asking too much. But it won't happen if we don't continue what was started before us. We've moved overt isms to covert isms. This is some progress, but it's still not enough. When you sweep dirt under the carpet long enough, you either get a lump or it comes out the other end. Let's work on erasing the covert altogether.
It's not just a minority issue or a women's issue, either. One of the largest reasons I strive as hard as I do was that I witnessed one of the nicest white guys in the world languish for no reason at the lower levels. Here was a good employee who reported to work, did his job, didn't clamor for credit, was morally great, pulled his part of the team share and really put his all into things. But he got nowhere. He was human, so he had flaws, but those were miniscule compared to his potential. I watched as he got passed over for promotion after promotion. I tried desperately to get him to believe in himself so he could get a much better post some place else where he would be appreciated.
What do we lose when we let this happen?
Is it worth it?
When you make a conscious decision to pass someone by because it might mean hurting your own progress, does it bother you at night?
Have you ever tried it to make sure that it does in fact hurt you?
I think we need to interfere more often. This is not just about what employee X can do for the Library. It's about what the Library can do for employee X from time to time.
We don't live in a golden age for employment where candidates spring up fully qualified from the ground with no effort on our parts. We're asking people to make a commitment to the field to the tune of $150,000 or more for those two diplomas. We're giving back $30-$40k a year for an entry level post. There are great Librarians out there really helping out. I know that the Director at Dedham takes people from square one and pays for college. Sure, some people take it and leave. Doesn't that help the field, though? What about the ones that stay? Are you going to get that kind of gratitude from a candidate that met the posting?
We aren't all Directors or HR folks. But we can drop a compliment here and there or serve as a reference when it will help.
Put your foot in the door for someone that needs a hand. I have a folder of thank yous from folks I've decided to interfere with. Believe me, that folder is worth its weight in platinum and more.
]]>I can't help but think over Shu, Ha, and Ri these last few days. I can only imagine it's been brought on by an awesome combination of extra karate and Nonaka and Takeuchi.
Anyway you look at it, by the mythical 1,000 night (or day) measure, I've left Shu. This is so both in Librarianship (entered round about 2000) and in Administration (entered round about 2003). I remember early Shu time, which was peppered by my reading field literature and occasionally pestering a Reference Librarian or 4.
And just as it's meant to be, at no point did I feel like BAM it's Ha time! Yet here I am, separating myself from myself ala Descartes, and I think reluctantly that it has to stick. At some point, those same Reference Librarians would duck and cover on my arrival lest they be hit by philosophical ordnance.
Someone posted for articles about feelings one had on the Master of Library Science degree. I can only imagine my negative take on its necessity will be censored as usual. Librarian as a title to me is almost synonymous with how I'd term someone sempai, sensei, or shihan. If you want to garner my respect, you have to tacitly earn it, not waive a piece of paper at me and demand satisfaction.
Let none of this mean that I think I'm super neato nifty keen. I just know that I know a trick or two that someone else might not have copped onto. And I'm generally happy to share. :)
As ever, it's ri that's a bitch. 2.73 years ain't a problem. 27.39 years is a wee bit of one. (Religiously it's rather scary that I'm about 6 years off that mark. *shiver*)
So I have to confess, as I've been trekking from Shu to Ha twice over, I've looked out for someone to take a few of the stones out of my path and toss them at my head when they least think I'm paying them heed. The pessimist in me thought "Right, never happen. I need a foul tempered Marpa, not that I'd ever equal his protégé." It's not that folks weren't masochistic enough to offer, it's that the fit never seemed quite right. Until relatively recently Shu and Ha wise. Which was shocking.
That would have been enough. Yet here I am barely Ha and I have folks expressing thanks for my trucs.
Just makes you wonder...
]]>http://www.smith.edu/libraries/staff/fivecoll/nextgen.htm
Amusing was that they referred to me and did so as "from the Guggenheim". I wish. I of course corrected that with the proviso that I would certainly entertain offers of employment from the Guggenheim. (Who wouldn't)
Anyway, this was awesome. It was awesomely awesome.
I expected there to be like 3 guys in a room at the top of the DuBois. It's cataloguing. Cataloguing is, as a schoolie once said "the broccoli of Library Science."
It was HUGE. Ginormous. The auditorium was full of folks. And yea, it was good.
David Lindahl has accomplished that which I have bitched about for at least 7 years.
I've never understood our propensity to fritter away valuable time correcting authorities and stuff.
I remembered the boy crunching enormous matrixes earning him the nickname Mr. 99.9% of the processor back when our love was young and he locked unsuspecting SUNY students out of their email and such for several hours to run his wicked CSI programmes.
And I thought "Self! Can't we just do that with cataloguing junk?"
And viola! David Lindahl did just that. He makes the computer check authorities. If there ain't one, it makes one. If there are several, it tells you it's pretty sure this record goes with this one. Computers dig matching. And really, why should we bother? Anyway, if it's only kinda sorta sure, you can have folks check manually. It reminded me straightway of Johnson's emergence. I imagine this routine getting complex and learning and being awesomely awesome even more so in future.
Anne Prestamo, the woman from Oklahoma, gave a mean presentation, too. Hooray for entertaining presenters. It left me wondering about how much filtering one could do of aquabrowser, for yea, the references to the old english stuff abounded in tag clouds, merrily dancing their Morris dance.
But cool. Read. Listen. A geek would.
]]>