01.28.09
Posted in Uncategorized at 11:48 am by Leonard Kniffel
The third and final Midwinter session of ALA Council commenced bright and early Wednesday morning and the agenda moved rapidly into resolutions presented by Ken Wiggin, chair of the Committee on Legislation. The Council passed a glowing resolution praising President Barack Obama for “recognizing the importance of openness, transparency, and accountability in government by signing an executive order on presidential records and presidential memoranda on the Freedom of Information Act and Transparency and Open Government on his first day in office.” The ALA governing body then passed a resolution urging the United States Congress to reauthorize the Library Services and Technology Act “in a timely manner.”
During the International Relations Committee report delivered by chair Beverly Lynch, Councilor Al Kagan urged that we cannot achieve peace and stop the destruction of libraries and cultural institutions in Gaza without changing the policies of the U.S. government. A resolution on the connection between the recent Gaza conflict and libraries was introduced and the perpetual debate ensued: Is it the Association’s role to insinuate itself into international affairs? Councilor Elaine Harger argued that peace is a library issue, just as civil rights was in the 1960s, and Executive Board member Larry Romans cited ALA policy related to the Association’s social responsibilities.
With limited opposition, the resolution then passed, calling for “the protection of libraries and archives in Gaza and Israel” and urging the U.S. government “to support the United States Committee of the Blue Shield in upholding the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict.” It also “calls on the U.S. government to continue working for a permanent peace in the region.”
Ken Wiggin also announced that the Consumer Product Safety Commission has put a hold on applying the Consumer Products Safety Improvement Act of 2008 to libraries. The legislation was passed to protect children from lead in toys, but it also included children’s books among items that need to be screened for lead. While lead poisoning is a serious issue, the is no evidence that the ink in books poses any real danger. Librarians have been lobbying for exemption to the act—which attendees have been talking about throughout the Midwinter Meeting—because it would force libraries to either test every book in their collections or prohibit children from handling them.
Elected to the board: Patricia Hogan, Stephen Matthews, Courtney Young
Among other actions, the Council elected three of its members to serve three-year terms on the ALA Executive Board, beginning at the end of Annual Conference this summer: Patricia M. Hogan, Stephen L. Matthews, and Courtney L. Young.
Updated Midwinter attendance figures released January 26 show a grand total of 10,220 attendees, compared to 13,601 in Philadelphia in 2008. The figure is very close to attendance projections but in categories that will not meet revenue projections. People opted for lower-price-tag events and categories, such as exhibits-only, Deidre Ross, head of Conference Services told me. Denver is also a location that does not lend itself to drive-in attendance from nearby cities, the way Philadelphia does.
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Posted in Uncategorized at 1:20 am by Leonard Kniffel
Strolling through the Midwinter exhibit hall just before it closed on Monday afternoon, I felt that traffic was light and wondered what some of the vendors would have to say about it, plus I wanted to pick their brains about what they were doing to prepare for revenue drops precipitated by the economic meltdown.
I was pleasantly surprised to be told by several people that show traffic had actually been quite good and their company’s financial health was not nearly as compromised as I’d thought it might be. Vinod Chachra of VTLS told me international business was up and keeping the company well in the black. In fact, he said, VTLS is hiring, not laying off, largely due to international business. “We’ve had a record year,” he said, and “we’re investing it in R&D and customer support.”
Stacilee Oakes Whiting of SirsiDynix echoed Chachra, saying the company over the past 18 months has had 15 product releases and was also hiring. I asked what they had killed during that period, and she said WebCat, in order to concentrate on Enterprise and Library Lan.
Whiting was one of several people who told me during the conference that vendors want to help libraries demonstrate the value of the products and services patrons receive for free by issueing a receipt with every transaction that shows what “you saved” by using the library instead of going shopping. The receipts would be similar to what some grocery stores do with their “preferred customer” cards—except that in grocery stores, the final tab is never zero. I remember many years ago someone wrote to me and asked what American Libraries could do to start a movement in this direction. It is an interesting concept, and maybe ALA’s new Office for Library Advocacy can help us figure out how to take it national.
I talked with Andrea Sevetson and Marina Azariah at LexisNexis, who gave me a demonstration of the company’s expanded Interactive Statistical Database. They also said the company was doing well and subscriptions showed no sign of declining. A member of ALA’s Government Documents Round Table, Sevetson’s major complaint about the conference was not low traffic in the exhibit hall; rather, it was the Association’s website. Echoing round table members at the Planning and Budget Assembly, she said it was frustrating for volunteers to have to train so intensively on the Collage content managment system and then have it fail on a regular basis.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, ALA staff received an e-mail message from Al Companio, building maintenance supervisor, saying that on January 27 at approximately 3:30, ALA experienced sewage water damage caused by the 30 East Huron condo with which the Association shares the building.
“The damage to the elevator car and shaft is extensive due to sewage that entered the shaft at the eighth floor,” said Companio. He explained that the maintenance staff and a contractor plumber hired by the condo association had attempted to clear a blockage in a six-inch sewer pipe and “was overwhelmed by the volume of sewage that rushed down the pipe when they cleared the blockage and entered into our shaft.” Ewww.
ALA employees left the building due to the odor, Companio said, and condo maintenance people were mopping up the sewage that entered into the 40 East Huron lobby. While damage is being assessed and clean-up continues, staff will probably be staying home this week because “the stench may still be quite strong and could affect our employees ability to work in such an environment.”
Welcome home!
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