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Library Journal Design Institute, Denver

Sunday, May 6, 2012

I’m going to focus on some highlights, rather than rehashing the entire Library Journal Design Institute, but overall it was a timely, highly worthwhile event, a solid mix of panel sessions and interactive problem-solving sessions. Most of the attendees were from public libraries, but there were a few academics, and the ones I spoke with were in agreement that academic librarians can learn a lot from studying public library design (not just facilities, either, but services as well).

The informal theme of this institute — I think I heard LJ has done about 20 of these? — is, in Joseph Sanchez’s terms, “library as question mark.” Sanchez, from the Auraria Library at the University of Colorado, was on an opening panel where he and Matt Hamilton from Anythink Libraries talked about the impact of changes in the reading ecology on how library space is used, with a lot of conversation about users creating digital content. Traci Lesneski from MS&R talked about the library as extrovert: more transparent, more visible — a point that resonated as I thought about our library becoming more proactively welcoming.

Nevertheless, for all the talk about content creation, library gardens, gaming, and so on, implicit in all the sessions that day was the idea that when users walk into a library, they want to see people and products (versus wandering into an empty space –  I saw this at a fairly new university library where my first thought was that the first-floor lobby was a missed opportunity).

Those products will probably include books, but can also include DVDs and other media. In some cases, the users themselves may be the attraction, on display as they create, browse, and read (not unlike watching the pizza maker twirl his dough). And build in a visible location for a helpful human presence — call it a librarian or library worker, but I hear the word “concierge” a lot these days (waving at West Hollywood!), and think that’s a good fit for that role.

There were tours the previous day which my travel schedule didn’t let me attend, but I did get the tour of Denver Public Library, which for me had several ah-hah moments. As one librarian, a facility manager, observed, I got the tour I needed. It’s a midcentury building about the same age as my library, and it had a renovation and expansion in 1990 led by Michael Graves. So their challenge was to preserve an iconic look and feel while bringing the library into the technology era. I don’t have those challenges per se, but renovating a pre-technology building with “good bones” is certainly relevant.

Two Benches, Paired

Two Benches, Paired

Plus I saw Michael Graves benches scattered about DPL, and thought, Perfect. Benches. Which leads (rather loosely, like a dog galloping ahead of its owner) to a point made at the Institute: the project lead for a library design need to be outgoing and friendly, but also firm. That describes me to a tee on my best days. (I will refrain from commenting on what I’m like on my worst days.)

The leader must also have strong and well-communicated ideas and opinions–like, those benches are a great fit — but be flexible. One strong idea I had early on (courtesy of Linda Demmers, a bit more on her below) is that our library would absolutely need a thorough facility inspection before any other design activity moved forward (with the exception of the computer classroom), and that’s wrapping up as I write this. (By the way, who knew there were so many ways to use asbestos?).

I was right, and sticking to my guns was the right thing to do. It doesn’t mean I’m always right, or that, when I know I’m right, I always stick to my guns, but when I’ve got the Greek Chorus of Experienced Library Administrators chanting “You’ll be sorry if you don’t do that,” I do try to do the right thing.

I realized as well that I am beginning to synthesize and organize my ad-hoc education in library facilities. During one interactive session, people discussed how to guide users through a library. “Power paths,” I peeped up. I had seen an example of these in a public library when Linda Demmers came to our library for a day-long consulting visit and did a slideshow. Think of how Ikea pulls you through a store.

There are many ways to design a path, and they don’t have to be underfoot, either — think of that part of O’Hare where you are guided through a connector by undulating lights. The group liked the power-path idea, as did the architects (for whom it wasn’t a new concept, as became apparent when they pulled out their drawing, which sure enough featured a power path).

I’m also getting to the point that I feel I at least know the major vendors in the field and can pick out an Agati easy chair at 20 paces, plus figure out whether that media desk is from Steelcase or KI. But even more significantly, I’m feeling the landscape of this knowledge area and beginning to understand where my rather significant gaps are — for example, sustainability.

Most of all I realized I’m catching the facility bug. There was a time when a renovation or new-building project only interested me in the most abstract, utilitarian manner possible. I have even felt relief that my career had not overlapped with anything more involved than upgrading computers and so forth. Now I’m genuinely excited to be on this journey; it is a big part of what puts spring in my step as I walk into the library every day.

Anyway, the following is just a pastiche of ideas gleaned from the day (sans synthesis, but with a bonus digression or two). LJ also encouraged everyone to see the LandMark Libraries discussed in their May 15 issue, and to watch for the July 1 issue for academic libraries.

  1. Content creation is more than just about digital experience — it can include visual, applied, and performance arts; crafts; library gardens; etc.
  2. Using local materials roots the building in the community
  3. IT costs are hard to quantify because you always want more
  4. Under-carpet wiring has improved a lot (aside: I remember dealing with an under-carpet wiring issue over a decade ago that was originally presented as an electricity shortage; staff were actually taking turns using computers because there “wasn’t enough electricity.” My dad was an electrician, among other things, and that popped my B.S. flag. Sure enough, there was plenty of electricity, once it had wiring to flow through).
  5. Openness and flexibility can interfere with comfort. Broad open spaces don’t make us feel comfortable, and don’t make us want to linger. Look at creating rooms within rooms. (We have these spaces under stairwells I’ve wanted to equip with easy chairs, small rugs, and hanging lamps. Maybe this will help me find the time to do this.)
  6. Lighting: libraries tend to use the same lighting everywhere in public areas. Focus more on task lighting — it’s more flexible. The brightest light is not the light you always  need or want.
  7. A good design must be founded on sustainable principles (this is one of the Landmark Library guidelines).
  8. Develop a strong statement that establishes guiding principles for the project. People may come and go from all parts of the project; the project needs coherent, continuous coherent direction.
  9. Yes, you need good signage: big, simple, and clear.
  10. Question assumptions.
  11. Get big results from small decisions.
  12. Bring in the light (walking through the Denver airport where there was a display on city architecture, I learned that’s called “daylighting”).
  13. Think privacy, but think collaboration.
  14. Rediscover quiet (amen on that one: one of my summer projects is to visibly zone the library into noise levels).
  15. Respect history.
  16. In comparing construction costs, be sure you’re comparing apples to apples.
  17. Keep your facilities people involved.
  18. There is no greener building than the building that already exists.
  19. Don’t build a 15-year building; don’t make them so  cheap that they can’t last a long time.
  20. There is no value in value engineering. “Value engineering” only prolongs the problem ; it will end up costing you more. N.b. those comments intrigued me even as they resonated. Worth hunting down relevant articles.
  21. Hiring an architect with a lot of library experience is a cost-cutting exercise; it’s incredibly important to the success of this project.
  22. Design spaces that can be used for a variety of purposes and at different times.
  23. Look at your existing assets and find ways to leverage them better.
  24. Drywall on masonry is  putting 15-year material on top of 100-year material.
  25. Sustainability is ultimately about using less.
  26. A great location makes it much easier to get people in the library.
  27. Be buyer-aware about the people who are going to use your money.
  28. Integrated project delivery is the newest PM approach; the whole team is put together at the beginning. Instead of silos, the team is more like a studio.
  29. Watch out for project soft costs: construction, land, shelving, furniture, technology, infrastructure for wiring for phones, computers, etc; adding more books, collection development, research to start the project, site surveys, geotech consultants, lawyers for reviewing contracts,moving costs (especially if doing the project in phases), developing a phasing plan.
  30. Costing sustainability: don’t guess, bring an energy analyst on board to work with the design team to evaluate cost decisions.
  31. LEED isn’t the be-all end-all of sustainability, and can be an expensive, difficult direction. You can design a sustainable library you’re proud of even if you don’t get a plaque. (That said, I bet a workshop or class about LEED would be a great introduction to sustainability in construction.)
  32. Nobody said this, I just thought it: “iconic” seems to be a synonym for “expensive and difficult to renovate.”

So yes, it was worth it. As with most activities, networking with others was a major part of the experience. There’s a lot of wisdom in LibraryLand, and some of it is translated into building and updating enduring and beloved landmarks.

Finally, this is an area where I want to grow. As noted on Facebook and Twitter, at the closing reception I asked a library director, how can I learn more about library building projects? There’s so much to know! Him: um… by reading books? OH RIGHT, BOOKS. I’ve found two to start with (and I visited Donald Barclay’s library and he knows whereof he speaks); recommendations welcome.

 

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ALA Council: How can I serve you?

Saturday, May 5, 2012

I’m humbled to be reelected to ALA Council for what will be my fourth term, and congrats to Barb Stripling (ALA President), Trevor Dawes (ACRL President), Cindi Trainor (LITA President), and everyone else elected yesterday. As a sign of the times, I first learned this yesterday from a dear colleague’s post to my Facebook wall. So this is an unusually short post from me, because I’d like to shut up and listen: how can I be part of the change you want to see in ALA?

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My San Francisco

Sunday, April 22, 2012

I missed a weekly post due to the blowback from my wild travel experience, which not surprisingly, given my exhaustion and my exposure to so many travelers, was followed with a monster head cold which stubbornly clung to me during a Very Important Week that broached very few opportunities to rest. (I am already worrying that on the flight to New Zealand I will get appendicitis, even though I have never had a problem with my appendix and am overall in excellent health. Perhaps I should pre-tape my talk, if nothing else than to ease my mind.)

I feel unprepared to write this post, but I urgently need to write about something other than work (let alone tend to any of the “small” work-and-professional chores continuously piling up like dirty laundry), this being the part of the semester where we stumble about with dead-man stares, fantasizing about the week after Commencement, which while full of its own responsibilities, will feel like a spa experience compared to the annual end-of-year crush.

So consider this the first of occasional posts about my fair city.  N.b. If you’re planning a trip, don’t feel you need to leave Union Square or Fisherman’s Wharf, or pass up a trip to Alcatraz or the redwoods for my suggestions. My San Francisco is a homebody’s place, and you’ll enjoy your visit even if you never discover the Vietnamese crab at Thanh Long (a mouthwatering meal there a decade ago inspired me to take a cooking class for Dungeness crab, now our favorite winter “home cooking”), nosh on warm piroshki from the Cinderella Bakery, stroll down Irving Street on a sunny afternoon, or climb up the steep, steep stairs of Grand View Park for a stunning 360 view of the city (a walk I took daily until we joined the Millberry fitness center at UCSF, where I treadmill and read with an equally stunning view of SF’s nicest hilltops).

It’s just so wonderful to live somewhere that the ordinary rarely is!

Things-to-do: One of our favorite Sunday-afternoon activities is to head to Crissy Field, in the Presidio, where I sedately jog and Sandy strolls. It’s an inconvenient drive from the Inner Sunset, where we live, but it’s so extraordinary to cavort directly under the Golden Gate Bridge, and the convenience of the lovely and eponymous Warming Hut and the seductive fragrance from the Let’s Be Frank hot-dog stand make it all so civilized.

Food and Drink: Caveat: our prandial excursions to be convenient, price-smart, and not a drawn-out affair. We only rarely get to a fancy restaurant for a signature meal out, preferring small plates and more casual experiences. So take that in context when I say some of my favorite restaurant/bar experiences from the past couple of years include Manna (small neighborhood Korean joint, inexpensive, terrific ban chan, and I can get my favorite dish, duk bok gi), Magnolia (food and beer are nothing spectacular, but it’s a comfy place with great people-watching, and it’s on the 6 line), Marnee Thai (numinously delectable Thai food right down the hill from us), Hog Island (good oysters for sure, but also best grilled cheese sandwich EVER–courtesy of a lunch treat from a friend), the hash browns at Art’s Cafe, the chowder (and just about everything else) at Bar Crudo, where we had dinner New Year’s Eve (and where I am scheming to return as soon as possible), and the nibblies at Blush, which is a perfect-for-us tiny wine bar in the Castro that has four Belgian beers on tap, very nice wine, pleasant, smart servers, with superb ambience and people-watching.

It’s been a couple years since we went to the Mayflower for dim sum, which either means we need to get there or find a new place — I think my SF citizenship is revoked if I don’t have dim sum every three years.

Alemany Market

Alemany Market

Favorite Farmer’s Market: the Alemany market, the oldest in the city. The Ferry Market is the place to bring out-of-towners so they can admire the $4 bell peppers and the artisanal peanut brittle. The Alemany is where you go for serious weekly shopping (and the market is very intense just after dawn, I assume from restauranters), not only for the best NorCal produce at the best prices, including things you’ll be hard-pressed to find anywhere else (yesterday I bought blood limes, among other unusual citrus), but also great food stands. Papusas one week, tongue tacos the next, and always the Hummus Guy with his Vaudevillian schtick and yummy baba ghanoush. Be prepared: it’s in a sketchy part of the city and I’m surprised I haven’t broken an axle in the parking lot, apparently last paved in the Eisenhower administration.

Favorite Theater: the Castro, one of the last big theaters, where sitting in the dark among fellow travelers I have hummed along with the SF Gay Men’s Chorus’ Christmas concert, laughed during the ridiculous Umbrellas of Cherberg (a ludicrously bad movie can be a wonderful group experience), and cried during the pre-release screening of We Were Here, a movie about the AIDS era.

Back to the annoying chores that demand completion — but perhaps I’ll squeeze a blood lime in my tea and think about our next humble-and-wonderful quotidian excursion.

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American Airlines: Social Gurus Extraordinaire

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Hard to believe, right? I associate American with slightly tired upholstery, old planes, no plugs (on the planes or in the waiting areas), long flights without food to be had, and a web presence that proudly shouts 2002.

So Wednesday mid-day, as we were supposed to be descending into Dallas — I was planning to hoof my way to a tight connection to Austin — I realized that the cloud mass to my right seemed all too familiar. I had seen it before, more than once, I was sure. Sure enough, the pilot’s voice announced, very calmly, that we were circling, due to tornadoes on the ground.

Tornadoes on the ground?

This was a plane without wifi (of course), though I saw some folks surreptitiously fire up their phones to try to find a signal (and I can’t fault them, though I decided to wait until we were somewhere on terra firma). So we circled a while, and then diverted to San Antonio, where we all sat on the tarmac listening to the same phone recording telling us to call back later because the lines were tied up.

At 2:25 pm it occurred to me to tweet my plight to @AmericanAir. At 2:26 pm I got a direct message (private tweet) in reply.

Tweeting with American Airlines

Tweeting with American Airlines

In the next 36 hours, I had to decide whether to fly back to DFW or deplane in San Antonio (I deplaned, later catching a Greyhound bus to Austin, more about that below); figure out when and how I was returning to SFO; and otherwise navigate an unexpected turn of events caused by 12 tornadoes suddenly scudding across Texas. The whole way I had The @AmericanAir account on Twitter as my wingman.

Some Twitter accounts are staffed by marketing shills; some by empathetic but not particularly adept company reps. I got the 20-year company veteran. She (we eventually talked by phone) was professional, caring, smart, expert, and full of good ideas.  Knowing I really wanted to make my talk in Austin the next morning, she didn’t push me to return to DFW. When my record locator vanished from the airline’s website, she reassured me my reservation existed. When my flight was canceled (as I learned from an airlines robocall), she assured me I would be rebooked soon–and I was. When my flight details didn’t show up in my account, she tweeted them.

I only had one time when I felt unnerved: when after deplaning in San Antonio I realized there were no rental cars left, the airport’s cell signals were weak or nonexistent, and the airport’s “information centers” were staffed by cranky good ol’ boys who couldn’t be bothered to help me find a way to get to Austin from San Antonio. “You’ll have to look that up online,” sniffed one of them. For ground transportation I had no angel on my shoulder. I finally found a spot where I could get on AT&T and bought a Greyhound ticket online,  then cabbed it to the station.

Now, about Greyhound. I got almost a 50% discount for buying my ticket online. But I can tell you this: most of the people in the dilapidated station were on the analog side of the digital divide; they weren’t in a position to buy tickets online. I demonstrated how an iPad worked to no less than three people; as the bus pulled out (close to an hour late, due to a flat tire — it was definitely not my day for travel karma) I brought up videos of the tornadoes on request of the woman sitting next to me. I am certain the fellow in front of me, who shyly told me he was on his way to another halfway house, could have used the $12 I saved more than I. That online discount only benefits the people who least need it.

I was also scandalized by the poor condition of the San Antonio terminal. San Marcos and Austin had pleasant little terminals. San Antonio was depressing: all scuffed walls and weary chairs.  Greyhound is a for-profit company that sells services to the less fortunate in society. People rely on Greyhound because we, in our wealthy society, don’t provide affordable ground or fixed-rail transportation between cities. They could care a little more. A lot more.

Anyway, I had a bit of an adventure, an extra night in Austin, and an angel from Twitter watching over me. Maybe I was meant to be in that Greyhound station, just to be reminded of my fortune on this side of the divide. In any event, kudos to American Airlines for being the one thing I thought it wasn’t — a 21st-century company.

 

 

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Perhaps we shall meet?

Sunday, April 1, 2012

I had been patiently waiting for the new edition of the Penguin History of New Zealand. I had the impression that a sparkling updated edition would be published this March –  I can’t remember why I thought that. Then I did a little research and realized a new edition was likely not forthcoming, at least not one written by the original author.

With that in mind, I’m updating my friends on my goings-on for the next few months, in case we overlap on this side of the heavenly divide. And here’s a link to a summary and audio of the panel discussion I was on last month at the Independent Book Publishers Association meeting in San Francisco with Peter Brantley and Sarah Houghton. As fun as that was (the room was packed!), the best part of my morning there were the one-on-ones with authors I did after the panel — how satisfying in a biblish manner to connect with authors and answer questions.

April 3-4, ER&L: As noted last week, whooshing in and out of Austin to participate in a closing panel.

April 12, OCLC member webinar: “Join us for a live, one-hour Web session and hear from Karen Schneider of Holy Names University as she discusses how WorldCat Local transformed her users’ library experience.” Wait, that’s me! And I need to do my slides! It should be fun. Standard disclaimer: no software by itself can tranform user experience — but combined with an awesome Team Library, WCL has played a key role.

April 27: DPLA West, by Digital Public Library of America (San Francisco). I didn’t realize this event was happening until I saw a travel scholarship for it. Since it’s $4 round-trip for me, I passed on the scholarship, but I am looking forward to rubbing shoulders with the bibliodigerati.

May 4: Library Journal Design Institute (Denver). “This one-day educational seminar brings together leading architects, librarians, and vendors to address the challenges and opportunities we face in building anew, renovating, or upgrading existing buildings…” LJ’s institutes are generally quite good, and I chose this one as part of my DIY effort to learn about building projects. The orientation tends to be public libraries, which in my book is a plus — lots of emphasis on curb appeal and user comfort.

June 21-26: American Library Association, Anaheim. Speaking of digerati, I’m going to make every effort to attend the Opening General Session, featuring Rebecca MacKinnon, global information activist and author of Consent of the Networked, and David Weinberger’s talk Saturday morning. What outstanding choices! I’m also pondering attending the ACRL Standards workshop, particularly given its utility for accreditation self-study.

September 23 – 26: LIANZA, Palmerston North, New Zealand. See this earlier post. I am thinking I will need to take two or three personal retreat days after Commencement to work on my presentation, catch up on reading, and wrap my head around both the travel logistics and the event. But I’m thrilled to be attending and glad that I am being challenged to think so broadly and ambitiously.

Also, I’ll be in Seattle for ALA Midwinter (January 2013), and I’m thinking about ACRL 2013. Day-in and day-out, I’m focused much lower on Maslow’s Hierarchy than some of my peers; it doesn’t mean I’m not interested in digital humanities or RDA or CNI or Educause or other trends/threads in library services. I’m just focused where I need to be focused for the near future.

See you on the road!

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Ruminating over Leadership

Monday, March 26, 2012

During Holy Week, I am making a short pilgrimage to the ER&L Conference in Austin to participate in a panel on leadership with Bonnie Tijerina and Char Booth. We met last week to explore this panel and review possible questions we’d field.

I think particularly for women, the hardest part of leadership is owning it. This is in part because there are still so many messages in society that men lead and women follow (look at the disproportionate number of men holding high-level library administration positions).

But for all leaders, the more experience we have leading in any role — internal or external to our official organizations — the more nuanced our approach to leadership and the more we are aware of what leadership actually takes. We get smarter, we ask ourselves harder questions, we see more angles to every issue, we want to examine things more closely. We have closets full of “lessons learned.”

And quite often the most powerful leadership is happening invisibly around us, in ways we will never know or understand. There are many moving mountains in ways that will never be officially recognized, and not always out of modesty. Some of the best leadership needs to happen very quietly, tiptoeing in with little cat feet.

Some parts of leadership are simply quite boring. Yes, you heard that: leadership involves doing things that are dull, annoying, even stupid. I think of the public library directors sitting in town meetings year after year, listening to reports about dog bites and minor rezoning requests. Yet they do it to ensure that the library has one more soupcon of visibility.

I think of me, volunteering as secretary to Faculty Senate this year (ONLY this year, I keep reminding them…). Is it leadership to spend my personal time formatting minutes? Yes, because building and maintaining strategic relationships is part of leadership. (This role also ensures that I’m paying attention to what’s going on at Faculty Senate–not a bad idea, as I’m a voting member.)

So I’ll go ahead and claim my situational leadership, both externally (as in my leadership with Internet filtering in the 1990s — which I did without official blessing from any internal or external organization) or internally (with several libraries and library organizations that needed coherent vision and a push forward).

That Certain Someone

When we reviewed the questions we might consider, I particularly liked, “Can you name a person who has had a tremendous impact on you as a leader? Maybe some one who has been a mentor to you? Why and how did this person impact your life?”

It’s interesting that people (and I include myself) always read this in a positive way. I rarely mention my first full-time job, in a juvenile court system, where my boss’s boss staggered in roaring drunk every morning to create havoc in a department that was already frantically busy handling the overnight intake. Or the “leader” of that court system, who I naively visited (I was all of 19) to report the situation, as if he didn’t know it. He sat there in his fancy suit fiddling with his watch band, waiting for me to leave.  After I had moved on, that woman had a heart attack one morning, driving into the court’s parking lot, and before she died at the wheel of her car she injured several people, one badly.

Then there was the captain at the airbase in Germany who sexually harassed two young female airmen every day, leering at them and talking openly of their breasts and so forth. He did this in front of me, knowing that in a corrupt system I had nowhere to go — and by this, I refer not to the military at large, but to the private hell of that sad location. I reported him, and in time he was duly promoted. Your tax dollars at work.

I’ve had other lame jobs, but in comparison, most of those have been silly-lame, not deeply depressing like those positions. I guess it’s a matter of comparison.

But as I’ve said, most of us dwell most of the time on the good. I’ve had two bosses who were there for me in a crucial way during my first decade in LibraryLand. One, Bob, was not really my boss; he was my projector manager when I was a contract librarian at the Region 2 EPA library. I officially reported to a guy several states away whose previous job had been supervising clerks at Toys R Us; I don’t recall meeting with him more than once. But Bob was the one I looked up to.

Bob, it turns out, was a lot like Josephine (Jo, as she goes by), my boss two positions hence. Optimistic, supportive, a person of good ideas and even better questions; a model of integrity, patience, good humor, and openness. Bob managed to provide quality IT services for a federal agency — in retrospect, knowing the agency as I came to understand it during my short time there, quite an accomplishment.

In the same vein, Jo went to ballot four times to get the library she dreamed of approved by the voters, and never stopped being upbeat or forward-looking. She wasn’t naive or oblivious; she just knew what served her better.

Last week I had wonderful news that a small but crucial project I have been striving toward had been recommended for funding. I let myself bask in  it a while, recalling the evolution of this idea and its long, slow foothold in the mind of the right PTBs (powers-that-be). I reflected on the gradual progress from “that’s not how it’s done” to “well, maybe” to “we’re thinking about it” — and onward and upward, always with the support and good advice of my boss.

Along the way I continually tapped my pool of experts in LibraryLand to reassure myself that yes, this is how things are done in the Real World, and continued to maintain my stick-to-it-ness both in my faith that I was right, but more significantly, that the problem was not one of being right or wrong, but of timing, being in the right place, and most of all, my ability to persuade.That’s not a matter of simple case-pleading; it’s a complex matrix of example-setting, seed-planting, stakeholder-building, marketing, and that palate-friendly sauce of patience and impatience that gives me the long view while keeping me on task. There isn’t a sign in our building that I haven’t pondered for its impact on our long-term capacity to grow and lead.

I also tell myself, time and again, that none of this is wasted effort–I’m learning, I’m growing, I’m contributing. I won’t always win the battles, but I’ll know what’s worth winning, and I’ll gain sheer knowledge on the way there. That’s not as fun as winning, but it’s not wasted, either. It’s worth smiling over.

I’m not going to get some shiny LibraryLand badge for my latest “win.” Yawwwwwn I got a facility assessment provisionally approved for funding yawwwnnnnn. Good people get stuff like that done every day, and who knows, others might have succeeded faster and better-er. But I am running the good race on my own terms, and embrace — and own — what I have done so far.

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Chauncey Bailey: Paying the Price for Free Speech

Sunday, March 18, 2012
Chauncey Bailey

Chauncey Bailey

Last week, investigative reporter Thomas Peele  gave a talk at my library (Holy Names University) about his book, Killing the Messenger.

I re-read the book this weekend to remind me of the details. In doing so, one of the key ‘details” that made my reacquaintance was the life and death of Chauncey Bailey.

Bailey wasn’t a perfect person. Gunned down at 57 while walking to work in Oakland, his best years as a reporter were behind him.  After a solid career at several major dailies, he’d had a few reversals of fortune before ending up at the tiny community newspaper where he was editor-in-chief.  If Bailey had been murdered for anything less than being the first U.S.  reporter in over thirty years to be intentionally silenced in the line of duty, none of us might remember him.

But in 2007, Bailey was still in the saddle, doing his best to speak truth to power — to unveil the decades of crime and dysfunction inflicted on Oakland by Yusef Bey and his cotillion of  thugs, sycophants, and wack-jobbies.

Killing the Messenger isn’t a perfect book. (Nota bene: there is no perfect book. Books are by people, and people are imperfect.) I agree with the Columbia Journalism Review that the first three chapters unnecessarily sensationalize Oakland.

But after that, the book hits its stride. We move back in time, to the origins of the splinter group of the splinter group once loosely associated with Islam. We see the great migration to the North and the great disappointment of African-Americans who learned that racism was endemic in our culture, not just the South. We see the movement westward. And in bits and pieces we learn about Chauncey Bailey.

I connected with Chauncey Bailey’s story. I know what it’s like to be 50-something and not be at the best place in my life. Right now I’m in a redemption curve. I’m the director of a incredibly small university library and we’ve done some great stuff. Chauncey didn’t get that opportunity, but in the right scenario, it might have played out that way.

Chauncey also reminds me of Warren, a smart and knowledgable contractor we worked with in New Jersey who was in his line of work because his high-powered industry began laying off 50-something men during a lean phase–and if you aren’t young, you don’t know what it’s like to be aging and jobless (a male friend of mine, turning 50, commented that he now knew what it meant to be female). Warren did well with his life — he died a few years back playing tennis, God rest his soul — , but I assume Warren had more than a few days when he woke up wondering what the hell happened.

After I finished re-reading Killing the Messenger, I played the what-if game for a while. What if the Oakland Post hadn’t spiked the story he wanted to publish. What if his killers had a different timetable. What if he had taken a different route to work that morning.

But in the end, there were no what-ifs. Chauncey was murdered. Thankfully, eventually, his death was brought to justice. With the help of his peers, he was able to file his last story.

I work in a small religious institution, which gives me latitude. At the beginning of our talk, I began with a moment of silence for Chauncey as well as for journalists everywhere. Not just to honor their deaths, but their lives. As we paused, the library filling with our breathing and our silences, I thought about Chauncey, putting on his suit, grabbing his coffee, walking to work. May we all live lives so righteous.

 

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Heartsick

Saturday, March 17, 2012

I realize this is old news for many of you by now (a full 24 hours after the story broke) but I waited until I was home and — donning my writer’s hat — could compose my thoughts about the discovery that Mr Daisey and the Apple Factory is composed of lies, damn lies, and even more lies.

This isn’t about what is or isn’t journalism; it’s about the larger genre of nonfiction, so called because IT’S. NOT. FICTION. Daisey not only undermined what has been an important assessment of a major tech company’s practices, he sullied the creative nonfictioneers everywhere who work hard to stay within the bounds of truth.

Creative nonfiction is hard to pull off. Assuming you aren’t Mr. Daisey or James Frey, you’re challenged (I almost wrote “stuck”) with creating a smooth, compelling narrative from the messy details of real life.

I have workshopped with fiction writers who became impatient with CNF’s demands and suggested, repeatedly, that the work either be recast as fiction or that fictitious details be added to “improve” it. But a great piece of nonfiction cannot simply be labeled fiction and done with; quite often what is powerful about the piece is that it really happened. And making stuff up is lying pure and simple.

What grieves me most about this incident is that Daisey didn’t need to do it. He had many options for putting the truth on stage. He could have stayed within the boundaries of his own investigation, leaving out the wholesale lies and downsizing the exaggerations to their truthful contours. He could have reached out to an investigative reporter or researcher for assistance. But he chose the lazy path.

At noon today I’m going to listen to This American Life’s retraction (titled, very humbly and directly, Retraction). I could listen to it right now on one of my many devices. But I feel somehow that radio honors the occasion.

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The impact of Random House price increases

Monday, March 5, 2012
Musee Mechanique

Musee Mechanique

As many of you know, last week Random House raised its Overdrive ebook pricing a lot. Not 20-percent-a-lot. More like 300-percent-a-lot. Enough so that a cart of 9 ebooks I had in Overdrive, only some of which were Random House, suddenly bloated to nearly $500 before I deleted the RH titles… dropping the total to $78.

Here’s how this price increase impacts the reading ecology:

If librarians fill demand for RH titles, we have to buy fewer books from other publishers… not to mention fewer RH copies. If you’re responding to user demand for the most popular titles, that means more small publishers go on the chopping block. (Adios, Cassoulet!)

If you reduce the number of RH copies you purchase, your users now have much longer hold waits for these books. Like everything else in life these days, something that is a public good is rationed through an increasingly narrow funnel.

If librarians do as I did and stop buying RH ebook titles (because I’m not running a public library, and our popular-reading is important but not our top-tier priority), readers who want these books only have the paper option. You may say that’s perfectly fine, but stay with me while I detour to discuss in brief one of the less-insightful commentaries that emerged.

Over on TechCrunch, a writer opines that this price increase is a necessary evil. Devin writes, “These companies are faced, after all, with the prospect of selling one book and having it lent to a hundred people at once (though that is not the case here)” — my emphasis.

Right, it’s not the case here. The way Overdrive works, books are “checked out” just like paper books. These books can’t be renewed, and they can’t be loaned to others. One person, one book. We’re all aware it’s a horseless carriage of a workaround based on a known model, but all the players do get how it works.

Furthermore — and this is where the comment about paper comes in — for all the enormous, sparkling crocodile tears trickling down the face of Random House, as Bobbi Newman pointed out on Twitter, they had a boffo good year last year in re profits, and a lot of that was due to ebooks.

Why shouldn’t they have had a good year? They now have a supply channel that (to turn the publishing industry’s own NewSpeak back on itself) is almost frictionless. They don’t have to print, predict, ship, store inventory, ship it back when it’s not sold, or pulp it. I’m no tax lawyer, but I also suspect that publishers get a major revenue boost by no longer having taxable inventory sitting in physical warehouses.

And of course, publishers aren’t turning any of this revenue over to the people who make the books worth reading — the authors.

If you read the ensuing comments on the TechCrunch post, you’ll see that the author subscribes to the publishing-world-is-going-away model (or at least backpedals to that idea, in the face of indignant responses). In this model, if I’m reading him correctly, the publisher’s behavior is rational (if not appropriate) because they’re raking in money before Everything Changes and the current publishing model disappears — which I suppose we could label as thoughtful behavior for publishing execs whose children expect to go to college.

I won’t spend more time guessing what this writer believes, but what I believe in is nothing less than Ranganathan’s First Law: Books are for use. They don’t exist if people can’t read them–can’t read them because they can’t access them; can’t read them because they, or agencies acting on their behalf, such as libraries, can’t afford them. Books exist for us, for the life of the mind, to build the public intellectual commons.

Librarians aren’t stupid. We know that a lot will change in publishing and libraries, even in the next few years. Some of it will be traumatic and difficult, but some of it will be amazing and wonderful. And at core, the enduring values will abide. We as librarians believe in books, believe they belong in people’s hands, believe in the right to read, believe in authors, believe in readers, believe that reading changes lives, believe, believe, believe in what we do. And we also believe there will always be not just a need, but an innate urge for intelligently-composed, well-edited, carefully-curated intellectual content — some of which, for a very long time to come, if not forever, will be realized in booklike objects, shared within a reading ecology.

Where we go forward at this moment is important. I appreciate ALA talking to publishers. I understand the place we’re in. But so far, what’s been happening hasn’t had any effect; as I pointed out last week, it’s almost as if the publishers are thumbing our noses at us. If anything, despite our best efforts and strategies, we’re beginning to look  a little bit Neville Chamberlainish.

Exactly what’s next is unclear to me, but about a year ago a friend approached me with an idea: what about legislation? At the time, I wondered why or how that would work. Right now, I’m wondering why it wouldn’t.

I’ll close by repeating a comment I posted to my own blog last week, because it involves a working strategy:

Note that publishers have had their eyes on libraries for a long time. A pioneering librarian, Marvin Scilken, led the charge to expose imbalance in bookstore/library pricing decades ago, which resulted in an agreement on library pricing that no doubt has stuck in publishers’ craws ever since. (See his Wikipedia bio, cf. the section “1966 Senate Hearing on the Price Fixing of Library Books.”) Depending on who is in office, there would have to be some similar sympathy these days. Studying those hearings and their arguments might be useful. (Just like studying librarians of yore is valuable. Definitely at least one entire week in my Fantasy Library Class.)

How Marvin proceeded, and succeeded, might be a very useful research question to pursue in the ALA library and ALA archives — and could be a great class project for that class I don’t have time to teach. But one thing’s for sure: the good work Marvin did in 1966 is now being upended. Then again, maybe, in its own way, it can be repeated.

 

 

 

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Burnt Offering

Sunday, March 4, 2012

These days Sandy and I are working on estate planning, which with each new email or delivery from our diligent lawyer plunges us into gloom. How nice to know we have things wrapped up in every imaginable angle! If I die! If she dies! If we both die simultaneously! If we are dining with my sister and all three of us die at once! Not to mention all kinds of situations involving incapacity.

Estate planning makes us even more irritated because we’re not legally married. Sometimes people think we are, because we married in 2004, but those marriages were invalidated and will (almost undoubtedly) never become valid again. The additional expense is costly and irritating, and wouldn’t go away even if marriage were legal in California, because estate law is, in many respects, tax law, and that means the Feds.

Meanwhile, in a happy confluence, for actual real-world research purposes, I am looking into the laws surrounding the disposition bodies after death, including scattering of ashes, particularly in the aftermath of Allan Vieira, the Bernie Madoff of ash-scattering scams. What did I dig up from the LA Times? (Get it… DIG UP?)

“The outrage led Assemblywoman Lynne Leach (R-Walnut Creek) to introduce legislation last year that would stiffen regulations on people who scatter human ashes.”

Ok, yes, that was beneath my usual standards, but it’s Sunday morning and I haven’t punched my weekly blog post card, and I appreciate anything that relieves the gloom of estate planning. I admit I snickered like a 9-year-old who just saw her teacher’s bra strap.

Expect more tomorrow on the Random House ebook price hikes–a post written but embargoed for Monday’s delectation.

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