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Two Years at Cupcake U: Reflections

Sunday, October 30, 2011
Pollyanna

Pollyanna

Two years ago today (Sunday, October 30) I started my journey as a library director at Cupcake U (as I sometimes call My Place Of Work).  These first two years have been exhilarating, challenging, growth-inducing, hair-graying, mind-bending, mirth-generating, and never boring. (I’m always surprised when librarians say budgets are boring. There’s nothing boring about money! Yum, yum, money!)

I have the following 15 reflections. Many are not new revelations for me–not in this job, not even in this career. But they are the reflections that resonate with me when I think about where I’ve been since October 30, 2009.

  1. It’s worth repeating: it’s my job to stay positive, and to build that point of view in others in and out of the library. Plus staying positive feels good. That doesn’t mean I can’t see or respond to problems; it just means that I intentionally hold at bay what Karen Armstrong calls our “reptilian brain.” My proudest moment was when someone referred to me as “Pollyanna-ish.” Radical optimism? Bring it on!
  2. Practicing radical hospitality in a library is spiritually profound. It makes me a better person to constantly ask, how can we serve our users better? How can I go the extra mile for them? How can I surprise them with better service than they expected? How can I grow our extravagant welcome? (That can mean everything from improving the foyer signage to adding a fantastic new service to communicating better to dealing with difficult people and enforcing reasonable guidelines.)
  3. I am getting a fresh lesson in the signs of a welcoming organization: people sleep in our chairs, eat at our tables, hang out just to hang out, ask to hold events in our rooms and spaces, joke with us and at us, run into my office to ask if I have any pain reliever (or a pen or a piece of paper or whatever), respond in droves to our surveys, sign up for our Vision Task Force, and above all, use our services. Print circulation — which I had written off as dead, and frankly wasn’t focused on — has tripled from a year ago, with no one single driver responsible. Everything else–walk-in traffic, e-resource usage, event attendance–is growing.
  4. With all that, I still have to remind myself that I’m working in a library that has had almost no updates in over 50 years, has a computer lab with 9-year-old PCs, is hot in the summer and cold in the winter, etc. I continually force myself to step back and see the library with the eyes of prospective students or faculty (as well as the eyes of a librarian who has toured countless libraries, often with camera in hand).
  5. Building and maintaining relationships is my core library service. I think of it as a bus. I am always asking, who’s on board? Who needs to get on board? Who’s moving toward the door?
  6. The buck really does stop here. A stopped sink or a student worker who doesn’t show up is my problem. It may not be something I solve directly, but I own it.
  7. Success is never owned; it’s shared among many. It takes a village.
  8. Higher education is fascinating. I mean that sincerely. It’s also extremely predictable, and again, I mean that sincerely. You can bet that any time you see a situation or observe conflict between agencies, or note a pattern of behavior in a particular species (Homo Facultus, for example), it’s not even close to sui generis.
  9. It is easier to problem-solve around enduring traits than to try to change people. If faculty don’t read email, then make friends with their admin assistants, who do.
  10. It is harder but more rewarding to supervise four people (plus sundry interns and whatnot) than 300 people. I have done both (and everything in between). Supervising 300 people really means supervising upper-management. Supervising a small group means I am upper management.
  11. I swear on the Gutenberg Bible, if I ever again work in a library large enough to have an admin assistant, I’m going to treat that person like gold.
  12. Then again, the right undergrad, trained properly, can do mighty fine copy-cataloging. And yes I do check their work.
  13. There’s a world of difference between “no” and “not now.”
  14. The question is always what do OUR users need and want. That’s important to keep in mind when assessing the latest trends–not just for adopting new services, but for deciding when to retire, sustain, grow, downsize or even resurrect a service.
  15. It feels even better to thank someone, and to praise them, than it does to receive thanks and praise.

This is also the 90-day anniversary of arriving at the Harvard Leadership Institute for Academic Librarians; I’ll have a post about that in a week or two.

 

 

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Reflections in a Golden LIAL

Monday, September 19, 2011

Early in August I attended the Leadership Institute for Academic Librarians at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. I returned just in time to get out my Orientation surfboard, on which we ride the waves of a new school year, heroically finishing summer projects (hi, WorldCat Local! Hello, Overdrive! Howdy, new website!), welcoming new students with classes and events (including a successful Gaming Night that hilariously featured Colossal Playing Cards), welcoming a brand-new librarian (an entire new position!), and so forth.

LIAL 2011 (Leadership Institute for Academic Librarians)

LIAL 2011 (Leadership Institute for Academic Librarians)

Even during those long, exhausting, wonderful days, I felt confounded by my lack of time to blog about LIAL–I so yearned to capture the event before it faded.

Fortunately, John Dupuis of York University wrote a post that has firmly pinned LIAL 2011 in place and time, capturing it both logistically and as an actual experience we lived through, from the late nights frantically choking down the next day’s homework assignments to the Beer Affinity Groups where we quaffed a brew or two. It was a powerful analog experience–with chalkboards, no less–where in John’s words, we were “too damn busy and too damn engrossed” to be distracted by technology.

We were advised to “unplug,” but I had to temper that advice by the realities of running a tiny university library, so I did check work email first thing in the morning, at lunch, and again in the evening, and take action as needed. But overall, I spent that week in a mindset I remember from my MFA classes–where I was fully and corporeally present, luxuriating in that 21st-century indulgence, the completely face-to-face learning experience.

(Oh, irony: I write that as the politically-attuned administrator who in post-LIAL mindfulness took a deep breath and volunteered to run a campus-wide, semester-long online learning pilot of Collaborate [nee Elluminate].)

Most of the instruction was through the Harvard case study model. I would choke down case studies the night before (sometimes finishing them first thing in the morning, after waking face-down in my readings, my tongue glued to the paper), and then arrive at my most excellent front-row-center seat wearing an invisible dunce cap. The instructors were brilliant, and moved at a snappy pace; my brain, not so much. There were a couple of moments when I realized my conclusions and judgment were actually spot-on. Just a couple, but that helped.

I arranged two “directors’ dinners,” and it was good to break bread with people in similar institutions. I used the walk to and from LIAL, the breaks, the lunches, and other opportunities to graze experience from my peers. I ran on a path beside the Charles River several mornings, when the sun was striking broad golden bands on its surface; I lunched with a charming poet-librarian; I scooted into bookstores; I let the stroll to campus become familiar to my feet. I stayed up too late, got up too early, stretched too far in all directions, and was tremendously sad when it was all over, and yet happier than ever to return to my home, my job, and my life.

So six weeks in, what is LIAL’s legacy for me? I have an internal trip report (for my boss and her eyes only), but here are a few share-worthy bits.

One thing I will work harder at: slowing down to get the full story; analyzing situations with all four frames; and whenever possible, “get off the dance floor and go to the balcony” to assess situations from a higher viewpoint (q.v. Heifitz, Leadership Without Easy Answers). A “situation” could be as small as ensuring we take pictures at an event, or as large a major relationship I need to nurture.

I am now more intentionally managing my political “map” (also called “constituent map”) of relationships at MPOW, and carefully monitoring the political landscape,  using it as a touchstone for decision-making.  I am working to develop intentional relationships with all stakeholders—not just the ones I feel a natural affinity for, or easily get along with.

Like John, I feel more empowered to operate in the political and symbolic framework. I have sometimes felt conflicted about activities that take me away from the daily heap. I know these are the right thing to do, but it’s good to be validated–just like it’s good to be validated about devoting that extra 5% of attention to the “political” details, or talking up the positive spin on things whenever possible.  Validated At Harvard, No Less.

LIAL dovetailed with some key campus milestones I have been monitoring since my arrival. Next stop: to project a vision and build buy-in. Again, it’s one thing to know intuitively that’s the direction you need to go in. But it’s another thing to have that direction validated. I had the same validation last week from our new VP for Advancement. All roads lead to London.

I feel very much the symbolic value of having been sent to LIAL in the first place. My boss was very enthusiastic about me attending this institute. But even more than the functional value of a crash-course in HigherEdism, I feel the value of her affirmation, and I feel she believes in me and sees my commitment to my job.

It didn’t hurt that today, at a reception for math students, a long-time professor talked about the changes we had wrought at our library in the last two years. I had to go back to my office and focus on Important Memos, because I had something in my eye.

So forward, and onward. I cup this part of my life in my hands, watching its wings flutter, feeling its heart thrum.  I am doubly blessed, not only by my good fortune, but my awareness of the same.  Joan Didion wrote, “Life changes fast. Life changes in the instant. You sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends.” Far too often we cannot prevent the end of life as we know it, but we can elect to be present in the fullness of our best days. LIAL, of all things — 100 or so academic librarians, squeezed into a classroom, pushing their way through a one-week class — is forever part of these times.

Embarrassingly, I still miss my small group (the group I met with every day at 8 a.m. to review case studies, including our own). The first Monday after LIAL, I felt bereft. How could I possibly navigate the universe without them? But their absence reminds me how much I enjoy librarians, how we all face the same challenges, and how good most people can be to one another–at Harvard, and everywhere else.

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Why You Didn’t Get An Interview

Sunday, August 7, 2011
Crying in your beer

Crying in your beer

This is a bummer of a job market for librarians, and if you’re fresh out of library school you are probably crying in your beer, wondering why you didn’t get a degree in something practical and career-oriented, like medieval cookery.  But a few months back a newish librarian asked me in frustration why she was having a hard time getting interviews — let alone job offers — and we chatted back and forth on Facebook. Let me attempt to sum up what I shared.

The job market sucks. Did I mention the job market sucks? This will sound crass, but TJMS creates a buyers’ market for employers, including organizations that normally wouldn’t have access to seasoned candidates.

Employers seek a known quantity. This may sound hard–“give me a chance, I can do the job!” — but bringing in an employee (by far the most expensive resource in most organizations) must be done as carefully as possible, and this is even more true in a small organization. Someone with proven experience in the core responsibilities of the position, as well as general career experience, is going to have an edge over the give-me-a-chance crowd. The bottom line is the need of the institution. Plus, see above, TJMS.

Your c.v. and cover letter need work. In a bad economy, employers are deluged with c.v.s,  which in some organizations may be first filtered through a human-resources department who is helping the job-search team by excluding applicants who appear to not meet basic requirements. That’s two hurdles to get over. So your c.v. and cover letter need to directly answer the question: why are you highly qualified for this job?

This question is important not only for what you say, but how you say it. I recently found a c.v. on my hard drive I hadn’t looked at twice during a job search, and was startled to connect it to someone I know who is both highly skilled and highly underemployed.

Take your c.v. and cover letter to a mentor or friend and make sure they really sing to the position you are applying for–and that they are typo-free. Speaking of typos and formatting issues, here are some I’ve seen recently:

  • A cover letter with a gross grammatical error in the first paragraph.
  • A cover letter where the author had left in the Word track-changes edits (if you’re going to send a Word doc–and PDF is a better bet–save changes, email it to yourself or better yet, a friend, and make sure it reads ok)
  • A cover letter in an itsy-bitsy, fancy-ish font.

Probably the most frequent issue I see in cover letters is a failure to address the responsibilities of the position. Most jobs include things you know how to do, things you really like to do or think you would if you knew how, and things you aren’t all that interested in. But while there are institutions where people are allowed to cherry-pick their work, gravitating to only those tasks they like or can do well, most of us have to actually fulfill all of our responsibilities, and your cover letter should reflect that.

You are not the main event. If you’re miffed because you sent in a c.v. and no one responded, consider that job searches are something done on top of everything else an organization is trying to accomplish. You sent in a c.v., one of perhaps hundreds the organization received. Based on what they had in hand, they didn’t think it was a match.

See it from their point of view: they need to fill a position while they continue with their other responsibilities. You still think you should have seen some follow-through? Ask a peer or mentor to be honest with you about your submission.

May I offer one key tip? Most job submissions involve electronic documents. Give those documents meaningful filenames that demonstrate you understand you’re submitting documents to a busy organization that will be fielding a lot of candidates–and therefore, a lot of files. Not resume.doc or references.doc, but doe.jane.resume.doc or doe.jane.coverletter.doc. If you force your very, very busy organization to rename your files, you’re off to a bad start right there. (It’s ok to add other information to that filename — we know you’re applying for other positions, and that you update your resume based on the position and other factors.)

Plus, see above, TJMS.

You aren’t projecting enough interest in the job you’re applying for. This is a particularly hard observation in this economy, and I don’t fault you for seeking work–any work–and giving that job your very best.  I worry about the legions of quasi-employed librarians without health care or other key benefits. One health crisis could bankrupt you.

Note that even in TJMS, or perhaps especially, employers are using their radar to sniff out candidates who are genuinely enthusiastic about the position — people who will stick around post-TJMS. This is our chance to recruit candidates who we know will be a great fit but in a stronger economy wouldn’t look twice at us.

Fit counts for a lot. My own job offers me tremendous opportunity and latitude, and it is a great fit for me. Someone recently asked me if I was applying for Job X, and I was genuinely startled. Yes, X has more resources (money and people). A lot. More. Resources.

But the fit is here, at Cupcake U., where I have a university president with a strong vision, a boss who lets me run the library, a marvelous and growing team, a university community that warmly responds to our outreach, and my faith, backed by what I see every day, that we will continue to make great strides and do wonderful things.

The ironic part about all of this advice is that the hiring process is a  crapshoot. Most of it is a mirage: great candidates hidden by bad c.v.s, bad candidates hidden by great c.v.s, an interview process that can barely weed out the most obviously unqualified candidates and handicaps candidates who don’t do well in that setting, and references that too often are only a useful metric when people refuse to supply them.

In many ways the military has it right: give people aptitude tests, make expectations clear, then assign people according to workforce requirements, without any of the hiring voodoo, and kick them out if they can’t perform. The military may be remorseless in its quality controls, but it also knows how to fly and fight and win.

But until we get the killer Hiring App, and especially during TJMS, do the following:  make that c.v. and cover letter  shine, submit to every job that seems like a good fit, go ahead and cry in your beer — you’ll feel better — then get some post-submission analysis from mentors and peers. Once you’ve done all that, ease up on yourself — and potential employers. TJMS.

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ALA Annual 2011: The Trip Report

Sunday, July 10, 2011

From: Karen G. Schneider, Cupcake U. [note name change; not that I don’t like peanuts, but cupcakes are more strategically aligned with MPOW’s current direction]

Subject: ALA Annual 2011 (aka #ALA11): The Highlights

To: The World

Date: July 10, 2011

Flickr sets: Assorted Photos from #ALA11; Tour of St. Charles Parish Library

Professional Enrichment

ACRL President’s Program: From Idea to Innovation to Implementation: How Teams Make it Happen

James Young, a workplace systems consultant and the author of “Culturetopia,” gave a sparkling talk about what motivates people and what builds teams. He pointed out that Southwest is 85% unionized and yet their union contract has “warmth and friendliness” written into the company vision statement, enabling the company to hold employees to that standard. In turn, the company mission includes a commitment to the employees for a stable work environment and opportunities for growth.

Other key concepts Young delivered were the need to appreciate differences (especially work style, detail attention, and source of energy), soaring with your strengths, and watching the “emotional message”—55% of which comes from gestures.

Books to purchase: Jane Elsea, The Four Minute Sell; Donald O. Clifton, Soar with your Strengths; Jason Young, Culturetopia

Battledecks

Battledecks is a competition geared toward librarians who present and train as part of their responsibilities. Contestants present extemporaneously to a deck of PowerPoint slides (often with unrelated and nonsensical images) which they have not previously seen, on an assigned topic such as “library of the future.”  Judges (influenced by an active and noisy audience) rate the presenters on their presentation skills.

The results are hilarious, showcase the best presenters in the profession (as well as the worst), and are also a subtle lesson in how to handle the occasional public failure that happens for all instructors.

Two minutes before the competition began, Daniel Ransom of MPOW was volunteered by his colleagues to be an audience “volunteer,” and despite the last-minute notice and the fact that his boss was sitting in the audience, he performed admirably.

Technology/Administration/Buildings

I attended “Designing a Specialty Commons,” sponsored by LLAMA. Seven panelists shared their building and renovation stories. There was nothing hugely new, but it was worth noting that all panelists talked about beginning the process by identifying specific, local requirements for a library, key stakeholders, and the major question they were trying to address – such as supporting curiosity, better understanding of emerging technologies, collaborative computing, statistical work. One (inevitable) caution: adding technology increases the need for back-end support.

Joe Agati of Agati Furniture spoke about the need to consider “technology, comfort, and cooties” (the latter being the personal zones for library users), and noted that most furniture has a tendency to dramatically outlive technology–a theme emphasized by Linda Demmers in a site visit to Cupcake U last January. As noted in the day-long ALCTS building seminar at ALA Midwinter 2011, panelists described using color and interesting furniture to make their spaces appealing.

TouchIT Interactive Whiteboard

TouchIT Interactive Whiteboard

Most panelists described deploying massive quantities of both “analog” and interactive whiteboards. Afterwards, in the Q&A, I asked the panel if any of them had begun deploying second-generation interactive whiteboards, such as the boards from Polyvision or TouchIT—dual-purpose surfaces (can use regular whiteboard pens), lighter, more modular tech (some of these boards are only powered by USB), and much less expensive. None of the presenters had, but they noted that technology was changing rapidly and that in some cases they were waiting to purchase technology until renovation or new building was completed.

Reader Services

In anticipation of building our popular-reading collection this summer, I attended two book-related events: Southern Writers and the Stonewall Book Awards. Both were wonderful events that replenished my literary soul. I am a big fan of Tayari Jones, who writes about the Southern-urban experience. A common theme was that writing is a slow, iterative process. “When you commit to your work, your work commits to you.”

At the Stonewall Book Awards, Sarah Schulman and Dorothy Allison were amazing keynoters who lit the podium on fire. My tweet quoting Allison on archivists – “If you think librarians are funky and strange, you should talk to the archivists” – became a top tweet and was posted on the American Libraries magazine website.  Allison called libraries “the temple in which everything is available, in which our lives are honored.” Schulman called Susan Sontag a “Stepin Fetchit” for staying in the “content closet,” and indicted U.S. publishers for not treating lesbian authors as people, noting that in the UK, lesbian authors are more likely to get mainstream publishers and reviewers. Like I said, a heck of an event. I came home with signed copies of (free!) books.

A major downer for me was discovering that the LITA Imagineering Interest Group had sponsored Orson Scott Card to present at ALA. Card’s statements about homosexuality are out of sync with the positions on diversity shared by most libraries.  As I posted earlier, in 2008, there is a major distinction between buying books that readers want to read and uplifting an author whose personal views are damaging to vulnerable young people.  This was one of several incidents where LITA severely disappointed me at ALA11.

Other Events

I attended LITA’s Top Technology Trends session and the LITA “Awards Ceremony” (quotation marks intentional). Full disclosure: I am a former Trendster. I observe a growing tendency for TTT Trendsters to present trends and technologies they would like to see happening (Drupal, developers in every library, etc.) versus actual trends.

That said, Clifford Lynch was as always quite sage, talking both about the social-reading trends in the research community, computational photography, and the stratospheric rise in mobile tech. He also noted the huge rise in hardware-specific software and noted this was a return to a previous era that could “leave content more vulnerable to the ebb and flow of hardware.” For recommended reading (an audience question), Lynch pointed us to Kurzweil’s newsletter.

The LITA awards were pretty much just brief photo-ops tacked on after the Trends—award recipients were marched in front of cameras, and the smattering of people in this cold, dark room then applauded… a far cry from awards ceremonies of the past.

I realize that LITA has severe fiscal problems (in the red for two years now), but had they reached out to the membership, we could have found creative ways (including passing the hat) to make the event festive, as it had been in the past. As someone who had participated on an awards committee, I felt that this event shortchanged the award-winners, the award sponsors, and the committee members. I wrote both the award sponsor and committee chair to note my disappointment.

Navigator and Camino

I attended both user groups, and was excited to see the Navigator software roadmap and to see more libraries planning to join Camino, particularly after WMS integration is enabled.

I’m pondering a run for ALA Council, which would mean that by Midwinter 2013 I would have time commitments for several mornings at ALA. But that is definitely “crossing that bridge when I get to it.”

Professional Participation

I reported out from a GLBTRT (Gay Lesbian Bisexual and Transgender Round Table) bylaws implementation task force I chaired from May 23 through June 26.  The proposed roadmap for fairly significant changes approved by ballot in the Spring 2011 ALA elections was adopted unanimously (thanks to Lise Dyckman and Peter Hepburn, who did most of the mapping).  I also volunteered to chair a procedural review committee to create job descriptions for the officers under the new structure.

Site Visit

On Tuesday, September 28, my longtime friend Vicki Nesting, assistant director at the East Regional Library, St. Charles Parish Public Library, toured me through two brand-new libraries—both East Regional and the Paradis branch.

Glass Study Room, St. Charles Parish Library

Glass Study Room, St. Charles Parish Library

As with most new library facilities, the new buildings were designed to support for personal technology (electricity and wifi), group study, instruction, pleasure reading, and other engagement. The furniture and color scheme was inviting—a mix of warm yellow and leafy green. (Disclaimer: I like any color, as long as it’s green.) Shelving was designed for browsing, and served a second use as display space. Study rooms advertised their presence through glass walls (a ubiquitous trend).

In the Paradis branch – an adorable wee library in a mixed-income community—the staff had just finished making popcorn for their movie showing that afternoon in a mixed-used program room.  This community has never had its own library, and response has been terrific.

Low shelving used to display student art

Low shelving used to display student art

The larger library had been open over a year, but still looked opening-day beautiful. Part of that was very clear message discipline (no grotty handlettered signage — what I call “library graffiti”) and part of that was a building design that didn’t force impromptu signage, but a very important ingredient was the conscious decision to build in lots of storage space, so that the cruft of library work was hidden (and well-organized).

We concluded with my last meal in Louisiana for this trip, a toothsome luncheon at Z’s Spot, a local “dive” with delicious crab cakes and hush puppies, where I had the chance to chat with other library staff.

Festivities

I only attended two “happy hours” at ALA11, since I wanted to pace myself, have some quiet time, and be rested each long day. The LITA Happy Hour, on Friday, was near the convention center but a bit grotty. GLBTRT’s Social, on Sunday, was in an upscale bar that while fun was packed so heavily I felt a little claustrophobic.

As always, the ad hoc events were the most fun. My favorite social hour was with an impromptu group who gathered Saturday evening at the Swizzle Stick to discuss management and leadership over refreshments (I shall ever refer to this as the Chicktail Hour). I also had breakfast at the Ruby Slipper three times (shrimp and grits done to perfection) and had a decent turtle soup at Muriel’s with a fun group of librarians I hadn’t spent time with before. I believe half the conference was at the Carousel late Sunday night.

Exhibits

The Morial Convention Center is a bit of a slog. I greeted most of our key vendors but spent the most time looking at furniture and interactive whiteboards.

Venue, Travel, Lodgings

NOLA is boiling hot in the summer, but this is offset by interesting sights, great food, and a reasonably compact conference footprint (considering ALA Annual is about 20,000 librarians, each of whom appears to be holding a meeting). Attendance was over 20,000—higher than anticipated, given the economy and the location (attendance tends to be better in areas with better population density).

The convention center is both awkward to navigate (very long and narrow) and had a pervasive problem with wifi access that made it hard to engage socially with key events. Our wifi access was hosted by Credo but I really can’t fault them. I think the bandwidth was simply not up to 20,000 librarians bearing multiple wifi-intensive devices.

Travel is expensive these days; that’s all there is to it. That said, my original advice to split a cab versus take a shuttle (faster and cheaper!) led to a ride from MSY to NOLA with Stephen Klein of the County of Los Angeles Public Library, who shared the West Hollywood library’s building story (we also agreed that Linda Demmers is an awesome library space planning consultant). Stephen also mentioned that this branch was adopting the “concierge” approach — something I’d like to hear more about.

My hotel, Chateau Le Moyne, was terrific: a good value at $85/night, quiet, clean, reasonably convenient (about a mile from the convention center)—no drama whatsoever.

FYI: In 2015, ALA Annual will be in San Francisco (for the first time since 2000).

I will (probably) see you in Dallas for ALA Midwinter, unless I decide to send myself to another conference (midwinter is on my dime, and I’m on the fence about Dallas).

Note: iPads were endemic. It was almost as if they had been issued at the airport on arrival to MSY.

 

 

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My ALA 2011 Annual Schedule

Friday, June 24, 2011

This year I’m doing a core dump from the scheduler — I just don’t have time for anything else. See you there!

Happy Hour (LITA)
Friday, 06/24/2011 – 5:30pm – 8:00pm
Offsite Location – Howlin’ Wolf Den Tbl 1
(High Priority)
Social event
Here’s your chance to catch-up with your LITA friends, and maybe make some new ones. …

(Plus a Sirsi event and a dinner hosted by a friend. I suspect I will actually collapse in bed and get rested for…)
Steering Committee I (GLBT RT)
Saturday, 06/25/2011 – 8:00am – 10:00am
Convention Center – Rm 239
(High Priority)
Committee meeting
Meeting of GLBT RT Steering Committee

Presenting the transition plan for the GLBTRT bylaws changes.

OCLC Increase Your Digital Collection Visibility with WorldCat: A Roundtable for OAI-PMH Repository, Digital Collection and WorldCat Administrators
Saturday, 06/25/2011 – 10:30am – 12:00pm
Hilton Riverside – Rosedown
(Low Priority)
Join us to hear more about increasing the visibility of your library’s digital content through WorldCat using the WorldCat Digital Collection Gateway. Learn about the benefits of search engine optimization within WorldCat and your own digital repository.

OCLC Join the Revolution: Library Management at Web Scale
Saturday, 06/25/2011 – 10:30am – 12:00pm
Convention Center – Rm 269
(High Priority)
Find out how moving traditional ILS functions to the Web has positively impacted library services, improved the bottom line, and increased global library visibility and collaboration.

President’s Program: From Idea to Innovation to Implementation: How Teams Make it Happen (ACRL)
Saturday, 06/25/2011 – 10:30am – 12:00pm
Convention Center – Rm 356-357
(High Priority)
Presentation/Session, Presidents program
We all value great ideas. … Jason Young, President of LeadSmart and author of the book Culturetopia, will share his perspectives on the importance of identifying and developing the essential factors that impact performance for any team or organization: leadership principles, management practices, alignment and employee behavior.

Council Resolutions Committee (ALA)
Saturday, 06/25/2011 – 1:30pm – 2:30pm
Convention Center – La Nouvelle Orleans BR A/B
(Low Priority)
Committee meeting
This is the committee’s business meeting

Celebrating Southern Writers
Saturday, 06/25/2011 – 1:30pm – 3:30pm
Convention Center – Rm 335-336
(High Priority)
Author event, Presentation/Session, Tracked Programs
This panel will celebrate authors from the region, including Tayari Jones, John Hart, Jennifer Niven, and Pat MacEnulty The program will be moderated by Barbara Hoffert, editor, Prepub Alert, Library Journal. An author signing will follow. Some books will be given away and others will be sold at a generous discount.

OCLC Perceptions of Libraries, 2010
Saturday, 06/25/2011 – 3:00pm – 4:00pm
Doubletree Hotel – Madewood
(High Priority)
In Perceptions of Libraries 2010: Context and Community, OCLC explores how changing contexts impact how people perceive and relate to libraries and information sources. Technologies and economics are vastly changed from 2005, when OCLC released the first Perceptions report. Join Cathy De Rosa for discussion of trends, perceptions and attitudes of the information consumer from this 2010 study.

Blog and Wiki Interest Group (LITA BIGWIG)
Saturday, 06/25/2011 – 4:00pm – 5:30pm
Intercontinental – Poydras
(High Priority)
Discussion/Interest group

Designing a Specialty Commons
Saturday, 06/25/2011 – 4:00pm – 5:30pm
Convention Center – Rm 243
(High Priority)
Presentation/Session, Tracked Programs
This panel will feature a discussion on space, furniture, equipment considerations in various specialty commons in three academic libraries in Michigan, North Carolina, and California. …

Standards Interest Group
Saturday, 06/25/2011 – 4:00pm – 5:30pm
Convention Center – Rm 287
(High Priority)
Discussion/Interest group
Todd Carpenter, Managing Director of NISO, will give an update on NISO activities. Jason Price, PhD, Collections and Acquisitions Services Manager at Claremont Colleges Library and Eresource Package Analyst/Consultant for the SCELC Consortium, will present on KBART.  Be sure to read Jason’s article in Serials Librarian, vol. 60 issue 1-4 (2011) entitled “Making E-serials holdings data transferable: Applying the KBART recommended practice”. …

Bibliotheca Reception
Saturday, 06/25/2011 – 5:30pm – 7:30pm
Republic New Orleans, 828 South Peters
(High Priority)

HCOD Summit
Sunday, 06/26/2011 – 8:00am – 9:00am
Ruby Slipper
(High Priority)

Camino Meeting
Sunday, 06/26/2011 – 9:00am – 10:00am
Hilton New Orleans, OCLC Blue Suite
(High Priority)

Navigator User Group
Sunday, 06/26/2011 – 10:30am – 12:00pm
Hilton New Orleans, OCLC Blue Suite
(High Priority)

Council I (ALA)
Sunday, 06/26/2011 – 10:45am – 12:15pm
Convention Center – La Nouvelle Orleans BR C
(High Priority)
Governance/Membership meeting
Meeting of the ALA governing and policy making body.

Tayari Jones on the LIVE! @ your library Reading Stage
Sunday, 06/26/2011 – 11:30am – 12:00pm
Exhibit Hall – @ your library stage
(High Priority)
Author event
Tayari Jones has written for McSweeney’s, The New York Times, and The Believer. Her first novel, Leaving Atlanta, received best of the year nods from The Washington Post, The Atlanta Journal Constitution, and Creative Loafing. …

Top Technology Trends
Sunday, 06/26/2011 – 1:30pm – 3:30pm
Convention Center – Auditorium A
(High Priority)
Presentation/Session
This program features our ongoing roundtable discussion about trends and advances in library  technology by a panel of LITA technology experts. The panelists will describe changes and advances in  technology that they see having an impact on the library world, and suggest what libraries might do to  take advantage of these trends.

LITA Awards and Scholarships Presentation
Sunday, 06/26/2011 – 3:00pm – 4:00pm
Convention Center – Auditorium A Tbl 1
(High Priority)
Award presentation
Presentation of LITA Awards and Scholarships.

Building the Future:  Addressing Library Broadband Connectivity Issues in the 21st Century
Sunday, 06/26/2011 – 4:00pm – 5:30pm
Convention Center – Auditorium A
(High Priority)
Presentation/Session, Presidents program
The nation‚Äôs first National Broadband Plan was released in 2010.  Hear the inimitable Bob Bocher speak.

Social (GLBT RT)
Sunday, 06/26/2011 – 5:30pm – 8:00pm
Offsite Location – Hotel LeMarais, 717 Conti Street
(High Priority)
Social event
Social for members of the GLBT RT

Breakfast with Steve
Monday, 06/27/2011 – 9:00am – 10:00am
(High Priority)

Stonewall Book Awards Brunch (GLBT RT)
Monday, 06/27/2011 – 10:30am – 2:00pm
Loews – Louisiana I
(High Priority)
Author event, Ticketed event
Brunch in celebration of the 40th anniversary Stonewall Book Award Winners and Honor books, with keynote presentations from previous Stonewall Book Award Winners Dorothy Allison and Sarah Schulman.   Presentation of the 2011 Stonewall Awards and Honors to Brian Katcher (Almost Perfect), Barb Johnson (More of This World or Maybe Another), Tom Mendicino (Probation), James Klise (Love Drugged), Wendy Moffat (A Great Unrecorded History), Justin Spring (Secret Historian), and more.
$55.00

Next Generation Catalog Interest Group
Monday, 06/27/2011 – 1:30pm – 3:30pm
Convention Center – Rm 269
(High Priority)
Discussion/Interest group

The Ultimate Debate: “Library Web Scale Discovery Services: Paradigm Shift or More of the Same?”
Monday, 06/27/2011 – 1:30pm – 3:30pm
Convention Center – Rm 278-282
(High Priority)
Presentation/Session, Tracked Programs
Users have asked repeatedly for a more Google-like interface. etc.etc. Sponsored by LITA Internet Resources and Services Interest Group.

Battledecks 2011
Monday, 06/27/2011 – 5:30pm – 7:00pm
Convention Center – Rm 344
(High Priority)
Presentation/Session, Social event
Battledecks is not for the faint of heart. It is a nerve-wracking event where those competing must create a coherent presentation from a deck of slides that they have never seen before.  This is truly the perfect way to end your conference experience as these courageous individuals compete for the glory of being crowned the next champ.

Zoe and Thomas
Monday, 06/27/2011 – 6:30pm – 8:30pm
TBD
(High Priority)

Ladies who Brunch
Tuesday, 06/28/2011 – 9:00am – 10:00am
Hotel
(High Priority)

Tour of St. Charles Parish Library
Tuesday, 06/28/2011 – 11:00am – 2:30pm
(High Priority)

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ALA: It’s Not Just an Adventure, It’s a Job

Sunday, June 19, 2011
Getting down on the exhibit floor, ALA 2007

Getting down on the exhibit floor, ALA 2007

Bobbyi “Librarian By Day” Newman has a new post about surviving ALA conferences that links back to my own ALA survival post from last year as well as a few other useful conference posts. It’s worth re-reading those those posts, but  I’m adding a few tips below.

First tip (specific to NOLA): don’t waste your time getting there. A cab is $33 for up to 2 passengers, $14 each for 3 or more. The shuttle, which will make many stops, is $20 per person. The city bus airport-express is $2. The first time I went to ALA in NOLA I took a shuttle, and it took so long I swore I’d never do that again (and I haven’t). I can see spending $2 to take a bus (though I probably won’t do that), but a shared cab appears to be your best bet–faster and cheaper than the airport shuttle.

If you’re arriving at MSY (that is, the New Orleans airport) around 5 p.m.-ish Friday 6/24, and would like to split a cab, give a holler. (I’m coming in on Southwest 905.)

Plan in advance. This sounds so obvious, 36 conferences later, and yet to newcomers it may not seem important to have a game plan of what you’re doing before you get to the actual conference. But ALA happens quickly, it’s spread across dozens of hotels, events are happening concurrently, and transportation can create interesting logistical issues — you may not actually be able to get to point B from point A in the time allotted without setting aside cab fare.

I now use the ALA planner for my preliminary planning. The ALA planner is a work-in-progress that over a decade has gone from egregiously unusable to quite useful and powerful. Now, I say I use the ALA planner, but I also use divisional websites such as LITA, ACRL, and GLBTRT and the ALA conference page itself to quickly target meetings and events. Use it to line up both your “A” plan and your backup sessions/programs/activities.

At MPOW I adopted a practice from a previous job and held a meeting where those of us attending this conference “compared and contrasted.” I picked up tips about a few sessions and also was able to clarify how we’re coordinating receipt submission (details, details!).

Another preparation from MPOW is to start following the Annual Conference hashtag (#ala11) as early as possible. And don’t be shy about using that hashtag to tweet for assistance if you get lost.

Carry a printed map. Yes, even if you have a cotillion of location-aware hardware. The printed schedule has good maps in it. Tear them out and bring them with you, along with the exhibit-floor directory. The rest you can ditch or keep in your hotel room (because you planned in advance…). I also use a small foldout map.

Get expert help. If you are super-new to ALA Annual, one piece of advice from a sage at MPOW is to attend one of the “101” sessions for newcomers, such as the orientations by the New Member Roundtable or a divisional session, such as the 101 sessions held by ACRL (Saturday morning) or LITA (Friday afternoon).

On the exhibit floor,  stop by the Membership Pavilion to see what’s new and interesting.

Rotate your shoes. No, not under your bed. Don’t wear the same shoes two days running. Your feet will thank you. (And of course, don’t wear new shoes to ALA!)

Pack a little first-aid. I thought I was prepared for ALA Annual 2010, but in that daunting heat I developed wicked foot blisters–yes, even with my homely-but-comfortable,worn- every-other-day shoes–and found myself hobbling in pain to a drugstore very early one morning. Now I have a small emergency stash of bandaids in addition to my analgesics.

Give back to your institution. This is another “obvious” piece of advice that may not always be so obvious. If you’re funded, even partially, to attend a professional conference, then for heaven’s sake, attend some sessions (or other activities, such as vendor visits) that will address the needs of your current position — areas you need to grow in, new skills you need to learn. In the end, ALA is a business trip.

Consider a visual trip report. You know my advice to write the trip report on the flight home. If it makes sense to do so, consider using your photographs to create a visual essay that accomplishes the same. It might not (ALA Council by Pictures?), but I’ve written trip reports that couldn’t have been done any other way. At the very least, a few pix are nice.

 

Filed in American Liberry Ass'n | | Comments (9)

Slowly, slowly run, o horses of the night

Sunday, May 22, 2011
Caught up in the rapture, by Flickr user Analogick

Caught up in the rapture, by Flickr user Analogick

It was the end of the semester as I knew it, and I felt fine (Sr. Helen Prejean was our commencement speaker, and she was wonderful; you can watch her here, fast-forward to minute 22). Before I get into a little catch-up with the five of you still reading this blog, please note that our university is in search for a Vice President for Advancement.

We all evolve, and part of my evolution is to appreciate how my work life is unfolding at a different pace than it has in all but a couple previous positions. By now,  a year and a half into a job, one of two things would have happened: either I would start to get itchy feet–often driven by the sense I was “done”–or our family situation would require I start preparing for another household move.

But in fact, I feel as if I just arrived at my job, and one way or the other, we’re here for good. I spent 30 years living worldwide, and I now understand the meaning of “home.”

“Lente, Lente”

At work, I have big ideas, but they necessarily take a back seat to the essential groundwork for big ideas (“Lente, lente” as our university president puts it–Latin for “Slowly, slowly”).

It’s obvious to anyone familiar with state-of-the-art higher-education libraries that our facility needs assessment, a major plan, and renovation/overhaul. But a big part of our groundwork has been to maximize our “essentialness” to our university — as I put it yesterday as we welcomed students in the summer-long advising sessions known as Hawk Days, we’re part of their student success. (The other part is to be patient through our university’s transition to new leadership.)

Whether it’s a book talk, a gaming night, a traditional “info lit” class, a Smartboard seminar for faculty,  buying multiple copies of a “hot” title, training student workers, or making the facility more comfortable and attractive, our service suite fits together as a whole, all of it equally important: providing research help, training faculty on emerging technologies for instruction, making the library a welcoming second home to students, offering formal instruction in information literacy,  and offering informal instruction through art and literary events that teach students that libraries are a life habit worth acquiring.

Even something as seemingly small as our signage policy looms huge, as our commitment to radical hospitality includes not scolding people before they’ve had a chance to do anything wrong (and signage has zero impact on offenders, anyway). We model ourselves after the nicer libraries we’ve visited; being small doesn’t preclude being stylish or elegant. I’ve developed good relations with our marketing department because frankly, we’re not experts in this area.

Books are for Use

I’ve been asked about our faculty-driven acquisition model. Basically, I turned most traditional print acquisition over to faculty for 2010-2011, holding back 15% of the book budget for supporting interlibrary loan and sundry purchases, and distributing the rest through allocation letters and frequent reminders by email and paper mail. (Note: most of our “collection” is electronic journals and databases; the book budget is less than 10% of the overall collection budget.)

The faculty were greatly appreciative, but participation was uneven, and managing the allocations was a pain. However, what I learned from their selection was fascinating.

Most of the selection was in DVD, for high-quality sets to use in the classroom. None of it (thankfully) was “reference” (we have excellent coverage of this type of title anyway in our online resources). Some of the choices featured books that faculty were personally interested in reading, and they requested these titles very tentatively, warming up when I assured them that yes, their research needs mattered.

In the discretionary-spending area, I held off on any predictive “the library should own this title” purchasing and watched for demand and situations. I think I scandalized a few folks when I purchased 14 copies of “Getting to Yes,” which was featured in our kickoff “Books That Helped Me” book talk series, but I’d do it again in a heartbeat; every one of those books was checked out at least once.

I also purchased “If you liked…” titles for our First Year Experience books (we’re reading Zeitoun this fall, and last year was Persepolis), and also bought multiple copies of all the titles we were evaluating. This helped us build a small popular-reading collection.

Once in a great while, I bought a book I felt we should own, such as Infinite City, Rebecca Solnit’s atlas/love poem to San Francisco. I am a librarian, after all.

For 2011-2012, I am retooling. From the top, I am setting aside more of the budget for multi-format popular-reading materials — not just books popular with students, but current academic hot stuff like DIY U and Academically Adrift.

I’ll launch the year with enticing collections, dead-tree and electronic (in some cases buying in both formats). Then every month I’ll remind faculty they can select books, and I’ll spend up to a predetermined amount. (I call this the Darwinian model.) That way the book budget will flow to the faculty members most motivated to act on it. At the end of the third quarter, as with this year, the book budget reverts entirely back to the library.

The library/ian is a living organism

We have an interesting to-do list for the summer, from implementing Overdrive and WorldCat Local to chomping through a significant part of our uncataloged books, weeding print journals, and buying slatwall towers for our popular reading, now bulging from a small display stand. Plus the work by two successive interns to catalog our K-12 collection has freed up another room perfect for large study groups or small conferences.

After the “new” room is tricked out with table, chairs, and whiteboard, I’m going throw a “room-warming” to celebrate it. Every once in a while I wonder what it’s like to be the dean of a very large research library, and it probably doesn’t involve so much joy over something that small.

Soon I will do my regular “this is what I think I’m doing at ALA” post, and if I had been blogging since 1992, you would notice that a regular dinner I attend has moved from 8p.m.-ish back almost 2 hours, and at that, I know we’ll be yawning when we’re done. Slowly, slowly we evolve physically as well — we too are “living organisms” and wisdom and experience make up for creaking parts and earlier bedtimes.

Bonus to those who read this far

We haven’t finished drafting the position description, but we are funded for a new librarian position — an entirely new position — as of July 1.  We did quite well with our last position, and now we will have a two-person team — at last, we’ll be able to launch a small but real faculty-liaison program.  One librarian will do ERM and the other will do e-theses and other repository work; both will teach, provide research help (aka “reference”), and “other duties as assigned” (if you like to weed, you’ll LOVE our library). We’re still pondering the right complement of subject expertise to benefit our institution.

Enthusiasm and optimism, emotional maturity, esprit de corps, openness to new ideas, non-aversion to small-library scutwork, willingness to give and receive feedback, a bias toward excellence, excellent communication skills, and the ability to be your own administrative assistant are essential, but so is library and other work experience.

I apologize in advance to those who send in their c.v.s and never hear back; in such a small institution, we need workers who are shelf-ready and known commodities. That probably sounds awful, but it’s to your own benefit that we only consider experienced candidates. There’s no extra padding in our tiny library. The flip side is that if you have lots of experience and the job market is making it hard to get that higher-level position, our library requires us all to be executives (as well as our own minions) — a nice career-building opportunity.

It will take several weeks to formalize the announcement (lente, lente), but it’s real and it’s a great opportunity.

Filed in California Dreamin', Librarianship | | Comments (5)

Thoroughly Modern Karen: A Response to Jeff Trzeciak

Sunday, April 10, 2011

The latest kerfuffle from LibraryLand comes courtesy Jeff Trzeciak, university “librarian” at McMaster’s, whose recent speech has garnered tart responses from other librarians and library directors (spoiler alert: count this as another notch on that post).

I have this theory that an uncomfortably high percentage of research library directors are fundamentally very anxious about their standing among their peers (university as well as library), sometimes to the point of professional myopia, and that this results in occasionally bizarre behavior — in this case,  using budget season in a year of severe cuts all around to prattle on about how the very best libraries don’t need librarians or library instruction (just like my favorite local restaurant can stop serving food or waiting on tables).

Me, I really don’t give a gnat’s behind about my standing among other directors as long as I can get ‘er done. As explained previously, I choose the small teaching-university environment because that’s how I roll.

But I do take notice when a university “librarian” seems quite proud to announce that the (self-inflicted) trend in his library is to significantly reduce the number of professional librarians (replacing some with “PhDs” and IT people) and move out of the information literacy role.

I put “librarian” in quotes quite intentionally. After listening to his speech at Penn [edit: Penn State] and the responses from people I respect, I have concluded that Jeff is posing a question, who is a librarian? My response is that I am a librarian, and he is not.

Let me explain.

A few months after I arrived at MPOW, someone on campus commented on all the “cutting-edge services” I was providing. I pressed this person for examples, just to see what was considered “cutting-edge” in our environment.

My Judy-Jetson improvements included:

* Establishing walk-up (and chat/email) reference services (which we call Research Help, since that’s what it is).*

* A regular docket of literary and arts events in the library

* “Allowing” food in the library (which was true before I arrived, but not well-known)

* Making the library cleaner and brighter, with more seating for students

* A renewed rigor/emphasis on information literacy instruction and implementing assessment thereof

* Implementing online interlibrary loan (hello, 1977!)

By the standards of the Gospel According to Jeff Trzeciak, I must seem like some misguided brontosaurus snuffling in the antedeluvian biblioforest. I should be eliminating walk-up service and replacing practitioners with PhDs who will focus on hifalutin digital projects. I’m… boring. And small. Hardly the stuff of Taiga Forum.

Though–wait–wasn’t one of Taiga’s latest findings, “Within five years, universities will expect libraries to assess their impact on student learning and retention and will fund accordingly”? But I digress.

I made those changes, and prioritized them, based on two things: my twenty years of professional library experience (and more years beyond that); and my environmental scan that concluded the following:

  • Our students — many first-generation  college  — arrived with poor research skills, and often graduated that way;
  • Instructors understand the need for high-quality information literacy instruction and absorb skills themselves through our library-faculty instructional partnership;
  • We, the library, could play a pivotal role in helping our students become lifelong information consumers; and
  • We could share and reinforce the joys of reading and cultural literacy, often within the context of faculty- and student-driven creation.

I will stand by those priorities. Yes, we have many other things in work, some highly technical (have your hugged your NCIP messaging today?), some more entrepreneurial, such as our academic-tech support for faculty, and some edgy in a small, fun way, like our LED “Open” sign. I also would love to have more IT staff. Of course I would!  And I have been saying for my entire career that we are shifting to a more professional/managerial workforce.

It may well be that Jeff’s students arrive completely steeped in research skills — which I doubt — and that McMaster’s faculty also self-update in this knowledge. But on this mortal coil, I would consider it sinful and wrong to eliminate a key service I considered crucial to the mission of our university, and crucial to our fundamental obligation to our students and faculty.

* Note, we didn’t have scheduled reference hours for at least the previous decade, and it would have been hard to do it during that period. But with the addition of .5 FTE temporary halftime reference support shortly before my arrival, as well as a new librarian who is willing to work half his time “on the desk” — a daunting schedule he nevertheless believes in — we eke out a slender but highly-prized reference — er, research help — schedule. We work our fingers to the bone, but we make it happen–because we are librarians.

Now I have the added concern that Jeff’s blatherings will be read and taken seriously, not only as a blueprint for library restructuring, but also as a valid interpretation of what librarianship, at essence, really means to all of us, in and out of LibraryLand.

Like Jenica, I don’t speak for my university. But I do feel I can and should speak on behalf of librarianship. And if Jeff has done me one small favor, it is that in studying his words, I feel more than ever the rightness of my leadership and decisions.

In the end, what matters, and what we are about, are the ancient truths of librarianship: organizing, managing, making available, preserving, and celebrating the word in all of its manifestations; helping our users build skill sets the fundamentals of which (if not the ephemeral details) will last a lifetime; and celebrating and defending the right to read, however that word is interpreted. This is what we do. This is who we are. This makes us librarians.

Filed in Librarian Wisdom, Librarianship, Uncategorized, Vast stupidity | | Comments (42)

The Harper Collins Boycott, and What 26 Checkouts Look Like

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Over last weekend, while librarian outrage over HarperCollins’ decision to limit ebook loans (among other restrictions) grew, librarians Brett Bonfield and Gabriel Farrel launched a project, Boycott HarperCollins. Kate over at the Loose Cannon Librarian sums up the rationale for joining the boycott as well as I could state it, and this week I’m too pushed to do more than this brief update.

Also see this great video from the Pioneer Library System: What 26 Checkouts Look Like; and visit the comments (some quite tart, but most are cogent) on the “open letter” from Harper Collins.

I wrote Brett yesterday to suggest the boycott also reference the other two issues that are important: HarperCollins’ resistance to consortial agreements, and their desire to begin meddling in library card policy.

But really, if this boycott sticks to this one point, I’m more than satisfied. We can work this issue from various angles, but I’m committed to all action that defends readers’ rights and advocates on behalf of the written word.

Yes, we librarians waited a while to address this issue. Yes, we could be better at planning and coordinating. Yes, we sometimes wait for “them” to solve our problems.

But I’m delighted to see us acting at all. I’m proud that there are people in our profession who saw this as important enough to act boldly. I support them. I support us.

We hang together, or we hang separately.

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HarperCollins’ Memento Plan: Short-Term Greed versus Long-Term Culture

Saturday, February 26, 2011
Memento

Memento

Through the benefits of modern technology, HarperCollins can finally be as greedy as it wants to be. As Library Journal broke yesterday, “In the first significant revision to lending terms for ebook circulation, HarperCollins has announced that new titles licensed from library ebook vendors will be able to circulate only 26 times before the license expires.”

(Update: Bobbi L. Newman has an excellent roundup of the dozens of posts on this issue.)

What concerns me most about the entire ebook model  is not the idea of being forced to buy a “fresh copy” of a New York Times bestseller that’s still circulating a year after its debut, though that’s crass enough.

I’m most perturbed by the long-range implications of an economic model — already based on “license” versus “ownership” — that, if adopted by other publishers, would destroy the role literature plays as our culture’s “memory work” — the growing opus collected and managed by libraries that help shape who we are as humans. Witness the hue and cry over the possible closure of Scripps.

For popular titles bought in quantity that would be replaced or weeded in a year or two, there’s a weak logic to this model. 26 sounds like 26 two-week loans. That’s one year of lending, assuming a standard 2-week period where borrowers return books at the end of the lending period (I wonder if anyone knows this; perhaps  looked at lease titles to develop this model).  At that point, one LJ commenter reasoned, a popular title might well be either weeded or replaced for wear and tear.

But libraries are only partly about the here-and-now. We’re also about preserving the cultural record. We cannot preserve ephemerally-licensed “content” that can be wrenched from us at the discretion of giant corporations. Right now, it appears the only safe technology for the cultural record, in terms of traditionally-published books, is the dead-tree format. I am not being technologically-backward to say that; I’m being culturally forward.

Just yesterday I finished Ruth Reichl’s portrait of her mother, For You, Mom, Finally (which was first issued as Not Becoming My Mother).I checked it out with my iPad from the Overdrive ebook collection provided by San Francisco Public Library. People paid for that book. I was one of those people. I am happy to let SFPL decide how long Reichl’s book stays available in their library; that’s their memory work. I do not want publishers elbowing into our business to make that call for us. Of course, in the case of Overdrive collections, the call has already been made — and not in our favor.

As for Overdrive, they are in an odd place. They want to cater to us, the library community. To do that they have to make deals with the devil.

I’ve left a message on ALA President Roberta Stevens’ FaceBook page. Not long ago she came out swinging on privatization. Perhaps we can get some equally powerful words from her — though I suspect it will take more than words to turn this around.

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