I admit that when I start reading a journal called “Information Technology and Libraries” at 3 a.m., I’m not really looking to have my mind blown. Not that ITAL hasn’t published many excellent articles, but the sheer wonkyness of even the best writing in ITAL can usually help my mind cycle back down enough to make sleep a possibility.
So I was really surprised by Marc Truitt’s editorial in the June 2009 issue, “ALA and our Carbon Footprint.” The title drew me in, but the disclaimer really made me sit up. “Before proceeding, I want to state very clearly that — as with anything else I write in this space that is not explicitly attributed to someone other than myself — the reflections that follow are my own thoughts and views.”
I thought that’s what was meant by “editorial,” but Truitt goes on: “They in no way are intended to represent the views either official or personal of LITA or ALA officials or employees.”
So what were these views so scary we needed a disclaimer?
For the first half of his editorial, Truitt argues that we in ALA are being piggish (to use my word, which does not represent the views of ALA staff, my next-door neighbors, or the cat in my lap) to meet twice a year face-to-face, something he demonstrates ably by calculating the metric tons of carbon dioxide produced by people flying to the ALA Midwinter meeting. Truitt recommends that ALA offer registrants the chance to purchase carbon offsets.
Well-put and fair enough. I think it’s simply a matter of time before cash-strapped libraries simply drop the hammer on meeting twice a year. What ALA will not do for itself — restructure its revenue model around modern business practices — the profession will do for ALA.
But in the second half of his article, Truitt takes on OCLC, not by arguing that with WorldCat Local it is overreaching, but that it isn’t extraordinary enough; and that (based on comments by a friend of Truitt’s) we needed to get out of the business of cataloging ordinary books, leave that to some not-quite-distinct Amazon entity, and focus on only cataloging rare and unique local materials.
I have wondered, while listening to yet another sales pitch, I mean presentation, about “the cloud,” if the triumphalism of OCLC wasn’t a day — or decade — late and a dollar short; if they weren’t in fact addressing yesteryear’s problem. (If you’re curious about the “cloud,” it’s the place you send your money and your intellectual property rights after you sign a contract with the Big O.)
If Truitt’s thoughts scared some ALA lifers to the point where he had to issue entirely pointless disclaimers, well, good on him. He’s not saying anything we all don’t need to hear.
Posted on this day, other years:
- Farewell, Tim Russert - 2008
- Britannica Stirs the Pot - 2007
- Another library travesty - 2006
Not only that, but some of us can’t go to meetings where the only reason to go is membership in a professional organization and “networking”.
Remember what Mark Felt is reputed to have told Woodward and Bernstein: “Follow the money” — well, who really benefits from these conferences? The attendees? The vendors? The association?
Technology is not the answer to everything—there are few things more disturbing than looking at a giant screen on stage and realizing that the image on screen is the speaker’s left nostril—because some people have a ton of equipment and NO IDEA how to use it.
But overall, it seems much smarter to use the technology we’ve got now and coordinate smaller meetings in regional areas than to pull x-thousand people together every winter and summer. Maybe ALA should take a good hard look at its members and their financial situations … and the same for ACRL.
Regarding cataloging only rare and unique local materials—yes, great idea! I’m certainly qualified for that, and available.
Of course, the quality of records that you might see for everyday average books in WorldCat, input over the past 5 years or so, is somewhere between bad and dreadful, but isn’t that to be expected? So many libraries have decided to do away with MLS catalogers that we won’t really see the folly of their decisions for a few more years. By then, I fear, no one will even be able to effing read the writing that was on the wall, ugh, I mean the catalog card.
Frankly, I think the carbon offsets argument is bogus. I don’t accept that it’s the organization’s responsibility to nanny its members’ choices about the environmental impact of participation.
(Full disclosure: I’m the guy who responded to a survey about “how can we make ACRL Seattle greener” with the suggestion “It’s a pedestrian-friendly city. Run fewer buses and let the able-bodied bloody well walk.” So maybe I’m just a meaner nanny myself.)
But I do agree that we need to take a hard look at what Midwinter is for, and whether it’s accomplishing its mission.
The primary purpose of Midwinter is “expediting the business of the Association.” I suspect it does get a lot of work done which wouldn’t happen without a face-to-face sitdown. (Geez, sounds like The Sopranos when I say it that way.) But could we accomplish the same work with regional meetings more flexibly scheduled and technologically enhanced? No… I think we’d accomplish a heck of a lot more. But could we empower the committees to schedule their own meetings without blowing the Open Meeting policy?
Recruitment is also a major function of conferences. I’d leave it to ALA to respond about the effectiveness of Midwinter as a recruitment tool. (If I’m remembering the data I saw a couple years back correctly, we get a lot of new members from the location of the conference, but retention past a year or two isn’t impressive.)
But I think the real killer, as we’ve all already said, is that Midwinter, by design, isn’t effective as a professional development event. As a manager, I don’t get good enough ROI on those dollars… so I recommend people not spend them at Midwinter. That won’t change unless Midwinter itself starts to add more value.
Joe, I believe organizations can and should exercise social responsibility, and that it’s not “nannying” to do this.
The Open Meeting policy is easy to resolve. (Even aside from the question, what’s “open” about requiring people to fly cross-country to sit in on a meeting?) Just provide tools to allow people to participate, view, and read transcripts or recordings of meetings. That feels a lot more open than what we have now.
Thanks for your thoughtful comments on my editorial, Karen.
At possible risk of beating this to death, I want to observe that a close reading of my column would make it clear that I’m not a particularly enthusiastic advocate of carbon offsets; I did call them “bleeding heart environmentalism”, after all. I see credits as a distinctly less-than-optimal, second-best choice for showing leadership on the question of our jetting to-and-fro. I advocate them only because I’m skeptical that in the near term we’ll do what we really ought to do…
Personally, I think that we need to get beyond the talk about ALA’s marketing model — which I agree is dated and wrong-headed, with the vendor tail wagging the organization dog — and think about the vastly
larger question of whether this sort of professional activity is *responsible* behavior these days. To me the CO2 numbers suggest very strongly that it is not. I think we really should be focusing on moving to embrace appropriate technology tools — whether as humble as the phone or as sexy as web2.0 collaboration applications — as means to a greener way to conduct our business. If the outcome of this shift happens at the same time to be friendlier to our institutions’ and our own pocketbooks, so much the better.
My CAD .02. 🙂
The librarians in charge of the Foundation Center’s 400-odd collections across the U.S. and Canada just had a virtual conference a few weeks ago. Not to leave less of a carbon footprint, but because lots of libraries are too broke to fly people around. The concept worked o.k., and will no doubt get better as it progresses.