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Between an ebook and a hard place

Saturday, February 18, 2012

Last week the ever-interesting Barbara Fister observed over on Inside Higher Ed,

People are beginning to notice that big publishers are not really all that interested in authors or readers; they are interested in consolidating control of distribution channels so that the only participants in culture are creators who work for little or nothing and consumers who can only play if they can pay.

Barbara elegantly collapses into one sentence the last several years of the ebook wars and, even more importantly, identifies all stakeholders in the reading ecology: not just publishers and libraries, but authors and readers.

The Growing Crisis

Over the last year or so, there has been spluttering (sometimes from me) at individual publishers such as HarperCollins (they of “26 checkout” fame), distributor-packagers such as Overdrive, and of course, the idiot library administrators who sign contracts they obviously haven’t read, or they would never have entered into those agreements, right? (That spluttering definitely didn’t come from me, being one of those administrators.)

But Barbara is pointing out that while the problem has many moving parts, the entire reading ecology is at risk; we are, in her terms, in an “apocalypse.” It is really nothing less than an outright assault on fair use; the publishing-industrial complex won’t be happy until readers are paying, not just by the title, but by the page-turn.

Barbara and I have an interesting convergence: we are both librarians-authors-readers (except she can write entire books, while my attention span ends at the essay). By author, I mean (full disclosure: HUSTLE AHEAD!) non-industry writing, such as the forthcoming The Cassoulet Saved Our Marriage (Roost Books, Fall, 2012; edited by Lisa Catherine Harper and Caroline Grant), in which you will find my revised and republished essay, “Still Life on the Half-Shell” (first published in Gastronomica) about oysters, the locavore movement, and how I came to terms with life in Tallahassee. My essay includes exquisitely clear instructions on eating oysters Southern-style (complete with a photograph), making Cassoulet an obvious “must buy” for all library collections.

But my point isn’t about whether I am expecting to make a living from essays such as “Half-Shell.” My day job is my income; I can’t even remember if I am getting a small one-time payment, though I had such good editorial input from Lisa and Caroline that the revision process was its own mini-post-grad workshop, and I have a food essay floating out there that is significantly better for the lessons learned for “Half-Shell.”

My point is that it’s important, both ethically and strategically, for advocates of the right to read to understand that creators should have the option and the right to make a living from their creations, and that our advocacy, right now, at this moment in history, is crucial to ensure that right.

It’s also the reader’s right to support creators, which they can do either directly (buy my book!) or indirectly (fund libraries, and they will buy my book). Some of us in society will “buy” books, by way of funding libraries, that we never read ourselves or that we choose to purchase on our own, but we understand that the town pump benefits everyone — a take on the world that is less popular in certain circles, but only underscores our value to society.

Tied to the Tracks

Tied to the Tracks

What happened?

In the past, the writer-publisher-library-reader model had a modicum of equanimity. It is now obvious that the nature of the technology — the printed book — largely regulated that equanimity.  All of us in the reading ecology — librarians, authors, repackagers, readers — are tied to the tracks by the Brobdingnagian power wielded by the highly consolidated publisher-industrial complex that is then magnified a thousand-fold by the conveniently elastic, virtual nature of digital publishing.

As Steve Lawson observes, publishers can get away with limiting access, so they limit it. As Kate Sheehan points out in a comment on her own post, publishers can cut us out of the conversation, so they cut us out. Though it has been proven time and again that library reading boosts individual book sales, that’s not good enough for for the publisher-industrial complex.  They smell an opportunity, and their greed is overwhelming any vestige of decency or sense of social fairness.

Deep down, the publishing-industrial complex will not be satisfied until they can do away with those pesky librarians, they who broker reading as a public good, champion the right to read, and advocate for equitable access. Penguin invoked the term “friction,” in reference to the ease of checking out books; but I see the real “friction” as the Bonus Army of librarians, authors, and readers who are speaking truth to power. How convenient it would be if we were starved out of the reading ecology.

We’re also back to my ancient observation about Google: “don’t be evil” does not translate into “do be good.”

What is to be done?

I’m not a fan of…

  • Dwelling at length on the supposed sins of any one publisher or redistributor; this isn’t just HarperCollins, Penguin, the other publishers who won’t even deal with Overdrive, or Overdrive. It’s bigger than that. (Note: I lay aside the Elsevier boycott, which works for other reasons, in a different situation and a different reading ecology.)
  • Singling out individual libraries over their Overdrive contracts.
  • Assuming Dilbertesquian cluelessness on the part of librarians struggling to provide ebooks to readers.
  • Arguing that Information Wants To Be Free and therefore creators should work for free and make a living some other way. That’s not only naive, it leaves just one profiteer in the equation: publishers. (Again, this relates to the for-profit book industry. Scholarly publishing also relies on slave labor to line publishers’ purses — which is the point of the Elsevier boycott — but it’s a different ecology. There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch, but sometimes it’s hard to point to the money on the table.)
  • Assuming “they” will solve the problem. Much as I appreciate ALA going to meet with big publishers, one of those publishers, Penguin, subsequently thumbed its beak at the reading ecology, withdrawing from Overdrive with a timing that can only be labeled impertinent.
  • Indulging in magical thinking; the clock isn’t rolling backwards, and ebooks are here to stay.

I do think we need to…

  • Recognize this crisis as a reading-ecology problem and a fight for the right to read, not just a public-library problem. It doesn’t matter that this has primarily been about Overdrive, whose customer base is overwhelmingly public libraries (though Overdrive has higher-ed customers, including Yale, Pitt, and my tiny library).  We’re all part of the reading ecology.
  • Inform and engage our stakeholders, such as the Free Library of Philadelphia is doing., and as Peter Brantley did through Publishers Weekly, though I was a little uncomfortable with his portrayal of public libraries. They aren’t all urban catchbasins, and strategically, we need the large middle-class voting base to understand their stake in this crisis.
  • Study the structure of our reading ecology and have economists and other strategists propose workable solutions. I know there has been talk about “buying” Overdrive, but even if it were for sale, would acquiring the repackager/redistributor solve anything? We need some serious theory at work for us. This is made even more challenging because library “science” is an iffy discipline at best.

I wish I had more ideas, but I solicit yours.

 

 

Filed in Cooking, creative nonfiction, Librarianship, Reading, Writing | | Comments (24)

Neologists Unite

Thursday, February 16, 2012

Back in 2004 I coined a term, “biblioblogosphere,” that managed to catch on. I wasn’t trying to coin a term. (What an interesting phrase, involving smelting and mints and all that.) I was just writing, and that’s the word that came out–not a hyphenated expression, not a malapropism, just a word, intended to be humorous–long, pompous, a little retro, with a good “scan,” as the poets say.

I think one reason “biblioblogosphere” caught on is that it was immediately challenged. I am not a linguist (though I do like the occasional tongue taco–and what a glorious city that I live in, that tongue tacos can be had at a whim). But I suspect once upon a time (now I am going to be very ahistorical, so no need to correct me) a caveperson sitting around a fire said, “Heyyyy… let’s call this: FIRE,” and several other cavepeople nibbling on bones left over from their Humongasaurus roast said “Yo, whatev” and began using the term, while three other cavepeople immediately said “That’s a terrible term!” and offered their own suggestions, like furor and fur and floober, which they then used at every opportunity (although only two of which eventually caught on, though for other use), and then the “Yo, whatev” crowd had cavepeople who became indignantly protective of their choice and said, “No, really, it’s a good term,” and that cast more light on a term that otherwise could have floated away as yet more flotsam and jetsam on the stream of self-published writing.

N.b. I have observed that on occasion, some genders are more reluctant than other genders to let other genders create new terms. But I will not dwell on that.

(Incidentally, that 2004 post referenced “weblog,” a term since shortened to “blog,” perhaps because “weblog” was hard to pronounce? When did it die, or do I care?)

I didn’t get serious or weepy about being challenged (at times, in lengthy and indignant tomes), or even about the long-term viability of “my” word… though it made me laugh at the nature of people. I didn’t have a lot invested in seeing my neologism push its delicate tendril through the soil and establish mighty trunk and roots. (Aside from this strange offshoot, which I just discovered.)

At the time, I had spent several years as senior editor on a weekly newsletter, and I was steeped in words in a way that (oddly enough) is not true in higher ed, unless you think the following are real words: promulgate, synergy, utilize… which I do not.  I had a quotidian attention to words that fertilized my brain at both conscious and unconscious levels.

That attention emerged again last week, at least briefly, when after an hour of mission-statement exercises with our cross-campus Vision Task Force (more fun than it sounds, especially since we served lunch) I stepped back and announced, to a collective gasp, that our verbs were flabby. I then rushed in to assure everyone that we had done very very good work and so forth.

There was some energetic thinking done that day, and we are on the road to a real mission statement, but — and I mean this very seriously — my leadership includes the awareness that I am “good with words,” and that something good can almost always be forged into something much better. Part of writing (and this comes from the MFA workshop experience, as well) is to understand that I am obligated to be merciless with my writing. When I am absolutely sure an essay is ready to be submitted for publication, I then send it to several more people for comments, and give it two more serious revisions–and if I have the slightest sense that it isn’t my best work, back into the hopper I push it.

At any rate (this blog post is beginning to remind me of W.G. Sebald’s The Rings of Saturn–the ultimate “So, anyhoo” read — perhaps the consequence of rushing through my “Monday” post early Thursday morning), I was very, very pleased to see that two doctoral candidates were awarded funding (from the Big O no less!) for research titled “The Biblioblogosphere: A Comparison of Communication and Preservation Perceptions and Practices between Blogging LIS Scholar-Practitioners and LIS Scholar-Researchers.” (Plus one of them is at McGill, which makes this international research.)

So “biblioblogosphere” will someday be discoverable as part of a monograph title.  I feel very motherly and proud.

Not only that, but as I write this post, I realize I am creating a set of nesting Russian dolls, because surely this post will become part of their research! Mirrors within mirrors! (This assumes they think I’m a Blogging LIS Scholar-Practitioner. I don’t know what their standard is, but surely crafting neologisms is worth at least one point.)

 

 

Filed in Blogging, Writing, Writing for the Web | | Comments (2)

ipad junky

Friday, February 10, 2012

This week was a bit wild and wooly, so my “Monday” post is happening on Thursday at the Oakland airport. But as squeezed as I am for time, I am enough of an iPad junky that when I realized I had left my iPad at home–for a one-day trip to a SCELC board meeting in Riverside–I said to myself, no problem; I’ll swing by my house on the way to SFO.

Then I doublechecked my reservation and realized I was flying out of Oakland…

And I drove back to SF, grabbed my iPad (and with a little wiggle room sealed the deal on my SuperShuttle res from ONT to the hotel and printed a boarding pass… if only to dignify the trip, as if I couldn’t have done that at work), drove back to Oakland, and am now writing this post on said iPad. (Using a Verbatim folding keyboard which has a white case almost identical to a purse I owned in the first grade.)

The guy next to me watched me pull out my iPad, keyboard, and iPhone and said, “That’s a lot of electronics.” “Mmmm-hmmm!” I responded.

But while it is a “lot of electronics,” all of it fits easily in my purse, which also has print copies of The Atlantic and Harper’s for those agonizing minutes during takeoff and landing when I must reenter the analog lifestyle. And beyond its portability, the iPad is its own well-designed perfect universe, as immaculately tempting as a Martha Stewart kitchen.

I’m mindful of the recent press about Apple’s labor practices. The best coverage–which I haven’t seen referenced in the shocked-and-indignant Big Media articles that followed–was the audio essay on This American Life, “Mr. Daisy and the Apple Factory.” I listened to it twice, mesmerized and disturbed. I cannot reconcile these perfect, addictive devices with the inhumane practices that produce them. I cannot reconcile my own complacency with the urgency of that story. I don’t know exactly how to proceed. I do know that I can’t turn away.

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Celebrating Sanctuary

Sunday, January 29, 2012

So let me begin with a quote from a Project Information Literacy interview with Jeffrey Schnapp about the ongoing debate regarding the future of academic libraries:

As far back as the libraries of Pergamon and Alexandria, libraries have combined functions of storage, sifting and activation. They have been places of burial, preservation and worship of a certain past, where retrieval, resuscitation and animation of dormant/stored knowledge was integrated into the shaping of the present and future. It is the access, animation and activation pieces that are now moving front stage and center, while the storage and burial functions move offsite even as they remain just as essential as ever.

Back in November I held the first of three sessions of a Library Vision Task Force. This group (and do we have fun), composed of representatives from nearly every department on campus, is charged to develop a mission statement and then a vision statement for our library. This vision statement will play a crucial role in driving development efforts for a library that has largely not been “re-thunk” since construction completed in 1958.*

Some of the re-thunking can’t wait for The Vision Thing, most specifically our 10-year-old, heavily-used computer classroom that is receiving development attention as we speak. But the “bigger things” can and must wait for broader direction; as much as I and Team Library might have all the bright ideas in the world, and as eager as we are to move “forward,” it is crucial that the library reflect the will, direction, and zeitgeist of the entire campus.

(N.b. I adopt an air of Yoda-like mystery when I am asked if we should renovate or rebuild; honestly, until the facility assessment is funded, how the heck would I know? The building appears to have lovely bones, but I don’t have X-Ray vision or a degree in seismic engineering, architecture, or accessibility design.)

Floating Conference Room (Brisbane, AU)

Floating Conference Room (Brisbane, AU)

The pre-work for our meeting were observation exercises — their call whether they did them in our library or in a new or newly-renovated library (of any flavor). I left the observation activities wide open. All they had to do was observe.

Most of that first meeting centered on sharing those observations, some of which surfaced during a slideshow I presented , which was not so much a talking-head presentation as a call-and-response — my favorite and most unexpected moment was the sheer horror the Visioneers expressed at that suspended conference room in Brisbane, Australia; a thing of beauty, yes, but emotionally uncomfortable to people living in an earthquake zone–something that mirrored my initial reaction when I saw that room, though I thought I was being a sissy.

One key finding from the observations was that people often use the library out of context of library-owned materials. They bring their own books, or they tote laptops, or they simply sit and “be.” Some study in groups, some read, some meditate, some stroll. In fact, though I have incontrovertible proof this activity still takes place (and in our library is anomalously on the rise), the only recorded observations of users retrieving books from library shelves came from public libraries.

So I posed the questions: We observe all these people coming into the library with their own materials. Why don’t they just use the student center, the computer labs, or their homes? Do we still need academic libraries, and if so, why?

And from among the chorus of rational behaviors arose the word sanctuary. Not sanctuary as in a place that was always and for every use absolutely quiet (although the need for quiet space, group and solitary, came up repeatedly). But the idea of a place steeped in the symbolic behaviors associated with libraries, from quiet contemplation to cultural enrichment, resonated through our entire meeting. A place where people felt safe to engage in reading, research, and memory work. A place that was dedicated to the life of the mind.

After the meeting, one of the LVTF members even walked back to my office (where I had rolled the whiteboard so it wouldn’t be erased by accident), took a whiteboard pen, underlined the word “sanctuary,” and trotted away.

Perhaps it is no accident that Milton Pflueger designed the campus so that the chapel and the library face one another like balancing weights on a scale: the life of the mind and the life of the spirit. So many people comment on the library’s “right” location, without being able to articulate exactly what they mean (visibility and symmetry are two frequent terms).

Like the Visioneer’s reaction to the floating conference room, I believe what visitors are sensing when they talk about “symmetry” is not so much a rational response (the physical symmetry) than the harmony of spirit and intellect, a perfect reflection of our university’s values. (The chapel is at the top of a steep flight of stairs, so the mind “rises” to the spirit.)

It is interesting, then, that the accumulation of print materials in our library — so rapid in the latter part of the last century that new shelving added to the main level was not even bolted or braced (a problem we are addressing this spring and beyond if need be through what we call the Big Shift, which will also restore the spacious study areas of the original library design) — is actually interfering with “sanctuary.”

We do not have enough of the right zones (quiet, cultural, group) to simultaneously support all the activities we can and should be doing.  Noisier events have to take place in the first half of the semester (because we have no dedicated event space) and students who are trying to concentrate complain about the group studiers who leak out of the study rooms we carved from former AV rooms because there isn’t enough room for them.

Meanwhile, 6% of our print materials drive 100% of our circulation, and though we have had a major surge in circulation in the last two years (so far this year alone we have checked out more books than we did for any of the academic years from 2000-2009), we will never again see the numbers we saw before the e-resources arrived. We also have 26,000 uncataloged books (shelf zombies, I call them) — well, they were cataloged, but not in this era.  I would estimate 80% of our space is devoted to roughly 5% of our usage.

I am definitely print-plus, not post-print (just as I was in the late 1990s, when I began saying that the print-based book would be an anachronism in my lifetime), but any librarian paying attention has to conclude that the future of academic library design has to be predicated on what a library does, not what a library contains.

That doesn’t mean “no more books.” It’s back to Ranganathan 101: Books are for use. (I sure hope Schnapp and Palfrey used Ranganathan in their library design course. If they didn’t, I scold them.)  “Use” can even be decorative — the books in our south event space are more trompe l’oeil than anything else — or artifact-focused; is there a librarian who doesn’t appreciate a rare-book room? But with so much memory work charged into the digital landscape, the print book has to take its place alongside all other uses — and above all, not preempt them.

Because in fact we who are true librarians have always been about what a library does. It has never really been about the book as artifact, but about the ancestral homeland the book represents, the accumulated wisdom and history that like Ipukarea adds up to far more than its literal self. The book is host and wine for the intellectual transubstantiation that for thousands of years has drawn  humans into libraries to read, to dream, to study, to be taught, to imagine, to be alone, to be with others, to grieve, and to celebrate. We who love libraries can only protect and future-proof our homeland by holding fast to these ancestral truths.

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* There were several re-thunkings: space carved out for a men’s room, after the school went co-ed; reorientation of the circulation desk, I believe so it would be adjacent to electrical power; a journals room turned into a classroom; and then the “rezoning” activities on my watch that have replaced periodical indices and thousands of reference books with student seating, event space, and gallery space. But overall, the library even has the same furniture it had in 1958, barring a few office chairs here and there.

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Coming home

Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Sutro Tower and Moon

Sutro Tower and Moon

That’s what I’m doing right now, ensconced in my  window seat in coach on my flight home, playing Aretha Franklin’s “Young, Gifted, and Black” tuned up loud enough to drown out the food-smackers behind me while I tidy up trip reports and budget forecasts and put the buff on a small preservation planning grant.

But it was also what I did at ALA…

… When I picked up my badge and began my peregrinations through meetings and exhibits

… When I met up with old and new colleagues over dinner, coffee, lunch, walks down the street, hugs in the hallways

… When I walked into the Council chambers at ALA Midwinter to hustle up a few signatures for my petition to run as an at-large Council candidate.

I felt it was time to get back into ALA governance. I had been puzzling over whether this was, in fact, the right thing for me to do (in addition to LITA Nominations and GLBTRT External Relations and the occasional panel, such as the “ROI in Academic Libraries” Springer hosted last Friday) until I walked into the Council Chambers.

When I push open our door tonight, I know what to expect: Sandy, our cat Emma, my favorite spot on the green couch, a pile of unopened mail, the Sutro Tower twinkling on the hill. I am not being arch when I say I had a similar (if not quite as numinous) experience in the Council chambers today, when I tweeted that I had a petition and within minutes it was overflowing from signatures from Councilors both fresh and well-aged.

I sat a spell, watching the text transcripts unfold on the wall, watching Councilors debate and stand up and stretch and fill out ballots and knit and scoot onto the Web. (A colleague asked me how anyone could “stand” to be in Council for all those hours, and I replied, “These days, the Internet.” By gum, when I was in my first term we sat there in our analog misery, front and center!)

There’s been a lot of water under the bridge since my third term on Council. Financial downturn for my job (Librarians’ Internet Index). The move to Florida. The Florida Era. The move back to California. I’m still me, six years later, but I have that slightly smudged patina of accumulated experience.

We don’t get an Undo button in life, however useful that would be. We’re blessed and cursed with our history. One truth I have had to learn is that for some of us — many of us? — our sense of place looms large in that history.

For many years I preached — and lived — the mantra of “geographic flexibility.” Education, jobs, other opportunities: first I, then we, could follow the wind. I have repeatedly counseled librarians that they had to have geographic flexibility for their careers. I judged them for not seeking jobs far and wide. I looked to myself as an example–I, who had lived worldwide.

Yet it took the Florida Experience to teach me why some people — and I now realize I am in their numbers — have an allegiance to the place they call home so powerful that it is on the other issues in life that they compromise.It’s not that Florida was insanely horrible; it’s that experiences that were less than stellar (and life always has them) took place in a context of alien other-ness — and it was this alien experience that made them sad, at times overwhelmingly so.

There’s an expression, generally condescending: “She knows her place.” It’s too bad it’s never intended as a compliment. I do indeed know my place. I know where I am not “other.” I know where I belong. Not necessarily on this particular block in the Inner Sunset of San Francisco, but not much farther.

On a related note, I’ve been thinking about the events at Harvard last week, where the administration presented tough news about reorganization and downsizing. I can’t speak to what — or who — is right or wrong (if anyone or anything is right or wrong). But I can empathize with the sense that one’s place has become liquid under one’s feet, like one of those rolling earthquakes that feel as if they are never going to stop. Even if you know the Big One is going to hit, that’s an intellectual abstraction until the floor has become molten and undulating and the bookcases are swaying to and fro and it occurs to you that your world as you know it is going to end.

I had a very bad moment about six months into the Florida Experiment where I sobbed, “I want my old life back.” Yes, I did. I forgive myself for that highly emotional moment because I had hit upon a fundamental truth about being and place. There was no magic wand, of course, but I made one change, which led to another, and eventually we got very, very, very lucky.

Naturally, I do not have my old life back. That will never happen. We move forward in time, no lux capacitor to reorder that reality, and only through rigorous memory work — personal reflection, and efforts such as writing, film, music, and dance — can we run our fingers over the fluttering fabric of the past.

But I am no longer a displaced person, living in the backward glance. This may not be forever — it’s not mine to predict cataclysmic change or natural disaster — but it is at least how I plan to spend my days, God willing and the creek don’t rise. And for those who thought the same and have learned otherwise, you have my love and sympathy.

 

 

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Research: Nobody goes there any more. It’s too crowded.

Monday, January 16, 2012

Part of that heading, attributed to Yogi Berra, is how I think about the research process, as I dig into all things New Zealand.

The over-abundance isn’t so much about raw materials (books, articles, movies, websites, etc.) as the vast and discordant array of vehicles for all this stuff–a world that is also more contradictory, spotty, motile, and “analog” than many think these days.  This isn’t new to librarians; it’s our life. But it’s good to actually walk the walk once more (and outside of the area of library science).

My first intentional “reading” was a viewing last night of the movie Samoan Wedding (known in New Zealand as Sione’s Wedding), which introduced me to the rather slim oeuvre of Samoan New Zealand Bromances (Twitter friends tell me the sequel debuts this very week).

Like most bromances, Samoan Wedding was crude in all directions, but I liked it very much — for a bromance, the women were exceptionally varied, and the story kept us laughing and involved. There were some interesting sartorial moments; I am trying to identify what the men wore to the wedding (lava-lavas?).

We watched Samoan Wedding because it was available through Netflix instant viewing. I queued DVDs for a few more movies I found via these two Wikipedia pages (which in true Wikipedia fashion overlap and contradict one another, and yet are very useful). I put a few more DVDs unavailable through Netflix into my Amazon queue, with a note to self to purchase a region-free player, since the DRM for DVDs is managed through an inexplicable geopolitical system which presents all manner of obstacles to access for honest viewers (and based on the web chatter, little problem for the dishonest).

What I wanted to read first was The Penguin History of New Zealand. I requested the book as a pickup at my local SFPL branch (after paying my fines…), since I see the 2012 edition is due out in February and I am too cheap to buy a waning edition. Meanwhile, I’ll slake my Kiwi Fever by using my Kindle app on my iPad to purchase the Lonely Planet guide while I start digging up books to request via interlibrary loan (I loved the back-and-forth about Lonely Planet vs. Rough Guide — a fine customer debate).

Using WorldCat Local, I have also been browsing contemporary and wartime narratives, both of which I find a window into understanding the world. I see that the closest print copy of New Zealand at War is in… New Zealand, which is also true of New Zealand servicewomen, World War One, and so forth.

I found an interesting title about mariners in World War II — Hell or high water : New Zealand merchant seafarers remember the war — and will buy it for my Kindle app, but it is here I must pause to ask my fellow writers to stop using the phrase “Hell or High Water” in their titles. The fact that copyright law generally does not apply to book titles does not make you any cleverer for forcing searchers to page through piles of identically-titled books (just as I was going to call this post A Fine Bromance until I Googled it–I’m several years late to that party. And yes, my Yogi Berra title isn’t all that clever, either).

At any rate, I’m at that early point in the research process, well before the refinement period, where research is inchoate because I’m not sure of the questions I’m asking. It’s an interesting journey–still quite picaresque for now.

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ALA Midwinter 2012: Try a Little Tenderness

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

My first ALA was Midwinter 1992 in San Antonio. It was the usual First ALA: immersive, bewildering, awesome, wonderful, daunting, and fun.But it was also an experience where I began learning and practicing my best conference etiquette.

I have had some bad habits in my life: being too hard on others and myself; rushing to judgment; piling on too much at once. And that, of course, is just a start. But I’ve also learned some good habits, learned from good people, and they port well to our era:

Be kind to TSA agents. Keep smiling. Say thank you and I’m sorry. Nobody grows up wanting to smell your dirty socks or rummage through your suitcase or be hollered at by snotty first-world businessmen. Make it easier on everyone.

Make airline travel easier. Not long ago I agreed to move so that a mom and kid could be seated together, and the flight attendant comped me my glass of wine because “I didn’t hassle her.” Geepers. I am not a particularly virtuous person, but who wouldn’t let a mom and kid sit together–seriously? If the plane gets stuck, if the baby cries, if the mom and kid need to sit together–this isn’t a 20-year prison sentence, it’s a few hours in your life, and a chance to do the right thing. Do it.

Tip. Tip waiters, and the cabbies, and the hotel maids. Tip the guy who drags your suitcase to lobby and carries it upstairs; tip the room service (above and beyond what’s built in). Go ahead and be a little generous. Note: I probably don’t have to tell you this, because I’ve heard librarians are generous tippers. But unless you really have a reason not to, please give service workers a little extra sugar.

Attend someone’s award ceremony. Anyone’s. I haven’t ever been at any awards ceremony that was over-attended, and even when I don’t really know the people being awarded, I end up crying as if I’m at my best friend’s wedding.

Praise a presenter. ALA is still largely a “stone soup” operation, which is remarkable when you consider that tens of thousands of librarians are stirring that soup-pot. There’s always time for constructive criticism, but if someone does well–especially a junior someone–tweet it, blog it, or just run up to that podium and do a little happy-dance.

Attend the exhibits. Give the vendors some love. Having spent a little time being a vendor, I have huge sympathy and respect for most of those in Vendorland.

Help a colleague. There will come a time sometime during your conference when you can show a little tenderness to a fellow librarian. You will know it when you see it. You will never regret doing the right thing. It could be a little help getting somewhere, or it could be a sit-down at a coffeeshop where you hear whatever is going wrong with their life/marriage/job. As a dear colleague says: “ALA: Come. Bitch. Be Renewed.” They may not be in a place where they want to hear YOU… that’s where karma comes to play. Your turn will come around.

And so commenceth my 20-year anniversary schedule…note: I am interim secretary of GLBTRT, hence the GLBTRT-y focus.

Thursday, January 19, 2012

Fly in.
Presenters’ dinner, 7 p.m.

Friday, January 20, 2012

Academic Library Summit (hosted by Springer Publishing) 10:30 AM to 2:30 PM, Joule Hotel. Note: I’m a panelist, “ROI on Campus (Proving the Library’s Worth Internally,)” 11:30 AM to 12:15 PM
LITA Happy Hour 5:00pm – 8:00pm City Tavern, 1402 Main Street (I’m thinking I’ll be there 6-7, plenty enough time to be “happy”)
Dinner with CLH and LN, 7:30 PM, TBD

Saturday, January 21, 2012

GLBTRT Steering Committee I 8 – 10am SHER – Houston Ballroom B
GLBTRT All-Committees Meeting 10:30 – noon SHER – Majestic 03
(Possible stop-in) GLBTRT Over the Rainbow Committee I 1:00 – 5:00pm SHER – Pearl 1
(Possible stop-in) GLBTRT Rainbow Project Committee I 2:00 – 5:00pm SHER – Trinity 3
LIAL 2011 Dinner 7 – 9 p.m. Location TBD

Sunday, January 22, 2012

SCELC Camino (Navigator Group) 9:30 – 10:30 OCLC Suite
WorldCat Navigator 10:30 – 11:30 OCLC Suite
(Possible stop-in) GLBTRT Rainbow Project Committee II 9:00 – 5pm SHER – Trinity 3
(Possible stop-in) GLBTRT Over the Rainbow Committee II 1:00 – 5pm SHER – Pearl 1
GLBTRT Social 6:00 – 8:00pm Dallas Public Library, 1515 Young Street
Dinner w/Friends, 7:30 p.m.

Monday, January 23, 2012

GLBTRT Steering Committee II 9:30 – 11:30am DCC – C144

Fly out late Monday afternoon

Last thoughts

Looking back… 1992 wasn’t just before smartphones and Google maps. It was before (for all intents and purposes) all forms of immediate communication. When you boarded your shuttle to the airport, you entered a tunnel of disconnect that generally was only broken until your return by family or national emergencies. When you wanted to meet up with someone at the conference, you arranged it in advance, and if that changed, you posted your update to a large message board and hoped for the best.

We have it good these days. I’m not nostalgic about the Olde Analog Tymes. It’s just fascinating to look back on how it was.KjoMSfPQUCA

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My 2012 Goal: To Embrace Ipukarea

Monday, January 2, 2012

Sometimes we go in search of our New Year’s goals. Sometimes they are gifted to us.

I will be one of the keynoters at the 2012 annual conference of the Library and Information Association of New Zealand Aotearoa (LIANZA). The conference is to be held in Palmerston North, New Zealand.

New Zealand

New Zealand

I am thrilled not only to be speaking at this conference and traveling to a country I’ve never seen, but also to use my best librarian skills to embrace the theme of the conference, which is: Ipukarea: Celebrate, Sustain, Transform.

(I borrowed and reworded the following language from the keynote invitation.)

Ipukarea (from the Māori language – Te Reo Māori) refers to the ancestral homeland, a significant water or land feature which relates to identity and source of livelihood. It is a place that represents New Zealand history and emotional attachment, a place to go to be rejuvenated, a place that represents the hopes and aspirations of the people and the life-giving waters from which they drink.

Within this broad theme there are the following strands:

Manawa: the heart of the community; library as place, physical and virtual

Returning home: holding to core values and principles in a time of change

Telling our stories: celebrating the great things happening in the libraries of New Zealand Aotearoa

Renewing the heart: experiences that refresh, revitalize and refocus

Transformation: embracing and shaping change, moving forward

These are all great themes for a library conference in 2012, and they also represent the strands of my best keynote presentations from the last fifteen years–as well as the renewal I am part of where I work now.

I adore how these themes are both forward-leaning and reflective, and fully positive. The tenor of these themes reminds me of the discussion about Appreciative Enquiry led by Maureen Sullivan at last summer’s LIAL. I am also reminded of the great team I work with–their ability to provide full-on librarianship  unblinkered, unbowed, relentlessly positive, full of good humor–an A-Team all around.

(Sidebar: It would really be all right if I never attended another keynote address where librarians were chided and mocked for their seemingly backward ways.)

I know almost nothing about New Zealand, which is rather convenient, as it means I have no misconceptions. (I do know three things: it is near Australia; there are over 40 varieties of kiwi fruit–not all indigenous to New Zealand; and some of the best hops come from the land of Ipukarea. I hope for on-ground research on the latter two topics.) So January will be devoted to building a bibliography of key readings on the history, geography, and current issues related to New Zealand. Suggestions greatly appreciated. I’m still mulling over the organizational tools I’ll use to manage my research.

One of my other goals for 2012 was to post more frequently. At first I thought “I’ll blog every day!” But then I had a reality check with myself… right, that’s not happening. However, I can establish a weekly deadline for posting where I am with my Ipukarea journey… and, consider that deadline established.

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Coda to Candidates: After the Interview

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Jenica has a post about applying to academic library jobs well worth reading by anyone in the job market. But in my head I’ve been writing the following post for a very long time… so out with it.

Once you have interviewed for a library position, you have established a relationship with that institution and its interview team that stays on your permanent record–yes, the one you were warned about in the first grade. Your paths may never cross again — at least that you are aware of — but you’ve now had an intimate encounter with a number of people who spent an awful lot of time asking themselves if you were the right person for that position.

Perhaps you walked out of the interview and thanked Baby Jeebus you had the common sense not to work for those nut jobs. Perhaps you downed a quart of Rocky Road in a convenience-store parking lot on the way home, just so you’d stop crying, because you knew you blew it.

(Note: herein I break the narrative to state that I have never once believed I nailed the job interview–not ever.)

Perhaps you just had a big ol’ bucket of meh when you walked out of there — nice people, but not a fit for you or for them. Or maybe you immediately had another interview for the AMAZING LIFE-CHANGING JOB, and the other position pales in comparison.

Regardless, do the following:

* Write a thank-you letter, immediately. You can do it by email or you can do it by hand, but write that note and thank the head of the interview team (at minimum) for the opportunity to interview. Yes, even if you think they are all devil-worshippers, or even if you are completely dazzled by that AMAZING LIFE-CHANGING JOB. Write it. Now.

* Exercise patience. Everyone who interviewed you now has to recoup that time to catch up on whatever they didn’t get done during the interview process.

* File away your interview errata where you can tap it later. Like, possibly, decades later. Because they have it on file, too.

* Follow the guidelines for inquiring about the status of the position. You do not have to sit on your hands, but if they say email but don’t phone, then DON’T PHONE.

* Understand that in today’s litigious environment, the interviewer may not want to help you understand where your interview could have been better (I do get asked this question).

* Look for signs of an open door. If the head of the interview committee invites you to apply for future positions, take that at face value. You would be surprised how often interview teams see a quality candidate who isn’t a fit for a particular job and hope they can invite them back someday.

* Sometimes interview teams behave badly. Sometimes paperwork is lost or misdirected. Sometimes major life events interrupt the process. Regardless, under no circumstances should you write the interview team to berate them for not following up. (Yes, I have witnessed this.) If before you were forgotten, now you have made yourself completely unforgettable, and not in a nice way.  If a polite inquiry or two doesn’t do the trick, thank your lucky stars you aren’t working there, and press on.

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ebooks, pbooks, mebooks, and parrots

Saturday, November 19, 2011
Yes, I Eventually Do Explain The Parrots

Yes, I Eventually Do Explain The Parrots

Here is a very interesting question others have posed: are libraries that license ebooks through Overdrive violating state patron-privacy laws because Amazon retains user data?

(For context, Sarah Houghton-Jan, who last spring proposed an eBook User’s Bill of Rights, recently taped a video recording her thoughts about the Overdrive-Amazon deal enabling Overdrive books to be checked out on Kindle devices and apps. To save time and  skip over the f-bombs, fast-forward to the 4-minute section, where Sarah talks about the complicated privacy issues.)

Full disclosure: I am a happy Overdrive customer. I do not, unlike Sarah, feel “screwed” by Overdrive. As a customer, I knew (most of) what I was getting into with Overdrive’s Kindle deal with Amazon. I knew in advance that Amazon keeps a fair amount of information about its Kindle book customers. I’m not surprised that they keep this data regardless of how the money goes in the pot – through a direct customer purchase, or an indirect library-purchase transaction.

At the start of the deal, the Overdrive-Amazon deal benefited people who already own Kindles, and presumably librarians don’t nanny the world. But that conversation changes with the first person (or library) who purchases a Kindle in order to check out “free” (to them) library books.

My “what next” thoughts: my take is that this is a prime time for libraries to work with eBook vendors, publishing and library associations, and standards groups to nail in some basic rights for readers AND authors AND publishers. It’s also a good time to review the mishmosh of issues and organizations related to accessibility and eBooks. And finally—and this is a librarian task—we should all look at state patron privacy laws and ask if they provide enough protection and the right protection.

I am setting aside other complaints. There’s a moment during the Kindle eBook check-in where Amazon nudges me to buy a book. Perhaps that should bug me. But I don’t see this as The Man. As a writer, I wouldn’t be offended if after checking out one of the books I’m published in, you then chose to buy it. And that’s because I want people to buy my books (whether through the agency of a library or strictly on their own).  I would be even happier if they actually read them.

Is this a bad thing? As a librarian, I partner with our small university bookstore, which is invited and encouraged to sell books at our readings—the same books available for checkout.  I rejoiced at recent readings when our bookstore manager sold a few copies of a professor’s book—two of them to our library, to fill requests. Isn’t this how it should work?

I see Overdrive as a company brokering a useful but transitional technology for placing current reading in the hands of mobile-technology users, leveraging known processes and practices. Overdrive is quaint—designed around the way fair-use works with print books–but it works for now. When things change, weeding will be a breeze!

However, if Overdrive’s current approach is transitional, eBooks are with us for good. (Am I allowed to again note that I was heckled in the late 1990s when I said the paper-based book would be an anachronism in my lifetime? Oh, and I do want stuff from Overdrive, but that’s another post.)

All of us in the reading ecology need to step back and do some serious rethinking. Some of us already are.  Take a look at Gluejar, where Eric Hellman and other thought leaders are proposing a digitization model for existing books that honors everyone in the process — readers, authors, publishers, and yes, libraries. (Eric’s blog, Go to Hellman, is required reading for all stakeholders in the reading ecology.) But while we’re rethinking, we also need to provide services.

We also need to leave the door open for conversations with data-lovers. The traditional librarian narrative wants me to be outraged, simply outraged that Amazon has all that user data, but in reality, I’m jealous. I’d like to have rich user data. I’d like to understand user behavior better. Frankly, I’m jealous not only as a librarian, but as a writer. Who among us of the writerly tendencies would not like to know more about our readers?  We need to at least acknowledge that this data has tremendous appeal.

I’ve held on to this post because I couldn’t figure out how to conclude it, so I’ll wrap it up with this non sequitur: hey, the wild parrots flew all the way from Telegraph Hill to visit us in the Inner Sunset! I have pics AND a video.

 

 

 

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