01.25.09
Posted in Uncategorized at 1:15 am by Greg Landgraf
The full breadth of ALA’s membership was on display at the well-attended and generally upbeat Membership Town Hall Meeting sponsored by ALA’s Executive Board and Membership Meeting Committee. Dozens of members offered their voices on the topic “What Do Library Staff Want President Obama to Know?” Members asked ALA President Jim Rettig to remind the president of the needs of libraries of all types, from public, academic, and school libraries to those serving more specialized populations like military, tribal, or federal libraries.
Bernie Margolis, state librarian of New York, expressed his hope that the technology-friendly president would support the reading of books as well. “We’ve seen him with his Barackberry, we’ve seen him in front of computers. Can we create an opportunity for him to help us and us to help him build on the knowledge economy that is such an important part of moving this country forward?”
Sam Hastings declared “I think we should remind the Pres that the Institute of Museum and Library Services is up for reauthorization, the home of the Library Services and Technology Act, and that the research endeavors out of that institution are what lead us into future and better solutions.”
Arizona State Librarian Gladys Ann Wells suggested simply a thank-you, “Because [President Obama has] done more for public records in two days than many administrations did in 12 months.”
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01.24.09
Posted in Uncategorized at 11:57 pm by Greg Landgraf
The first of my big technical challenges of Midwinter, filming the ALA Presidential Candidates Forum and editing and posting the video, is nearly complete, except for several hours of computing time to make the necessary file conversions and transfers, which will mostly happen overnight while I’m asleep.
I’m calling this one mostly successful. Leonard Kniffel and I had three video cameras in all: the main AL camera trained on the candidates Kenton Oliver and Roberta Stevens as they spoke, my personal camcorder that swung around to film the questions from the audience, and a Flip camera intended to film moderator Loriene Roy. I say “intended” because that one did not work well at all; the Flip cameras are useful for many things (most AL Focus videos are filmed on them) but they do not handle distance well.
The most significant glitch—call it a first-timer’s mistake—came at the start of the Forum. I didn’t capture the candidate’s full opening statements on the main camera. Since I’m unable to present them equitably, I decided to omit both. Members can read statements from both candidates in the March issue of American Libraries.
A more amusing mistake on my part came when audience members were at three different microphones with questions and I guessed wrong which would be called. As I awkwardly jerked the camera around trying to find the right microphone, Elizabeth Ridler began her question by introducing herself and declaring herself a tech dinosaur.
You and me both, apparently.
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Posted in Uncategorized at 7:20 pm by Leonard Kniffel
- Washington Update: from left, Ken Gordon, Stephanie Vance, Ken Wiggin, Emily Sheketoff
The ALA Washington Office Update this morning offered Midwinter Meeting goers an opportunity to connect in person with Washington Office staffers. Lynne Bradley, director of the Office of Government Relations noted that on the Hill, traditional library issues are still on the agenda, but with a new twist. Appropriations will be extremely competitive in the current economic climate, and it’s important for librarians, with more voices than ever, to make the case for libraries as the best bang for the buck. Copyright, access to government information, and broadband and telecommunications remain high on the lobbying agenda. ALA Associate Executive Director for the Washington Office Emily Sheketoff said there is great expectation that legislators will work collaboratively and get America back to work.
Former Colorado State Senator Ken Gordon, one of three panelists for the session, told stories gleaned from his 16 years in the Colorado Assembly to illustrate his belief in what it takes to preserve American democracy: education. The people are sovereign in America, and if we don’t supervise our public officials, they will fail, he said. The American people have failed to do that over last 50 years, he noted, and any assumption that “dysfunctional Washington is done” simply because Barack Obama is president “is far from the truth.” Despite the optimism he shares because Obama got elected, he still urged the audience to remember that “he is an employee, as are the legislators.”
Gordon expressed dismay at the number of people who do not even know the names of their representatives in state government. “If you have an employee and you don’t even know their name, they are not going to pay attention to you,” he asserted, and “what fills that gap is special interests.” Since the Reagan administration there has been less money spent on public education, he said. “We’ve stopped teaching Americans how to govern themselves” and young people have accepted the idea that the purpose of America is to get rich. “Obama will not be able to do what you want him to do as long as levers of power are money levers and not people levers,” Gordon concluded, and “people must participate.”
Ken Wiggin, chair of the ALA Legislation Committee, cited the speech given by Obama at the ALA Annual Conference in Chicago, in which he exhibited an exceptional understanding of the role of libraries in American democracy. “But he can’t do it by himself,” said Wiggin, pointing out that economic stimulus or “recovery” money is going to go to state and local government, where “libraries have to be on their radar.”
Advocacy guru Stephanie Vance told a stunned audience that there are 147,000 organizations lobbying in Washington and that every American’s share of the national debt is $30,000. But the new people in Washington “are enthusiastic about some of the things we are enthusiastic about,” and that’s how to be at the table, “you achieve it through citizen advocacy.”
Up to 500,000 email messages go to Congress every year, Vance observed, and “the communications that matter most are the communications from you, the people in their district. Now is the time to start applying that power. Persistently but politely get on their radar screen.”
Gordon said, not jokingly, “I Urge you to be much more disagreeable in the way you speak to legislators.” He also offered a piece of practical advice for how to get citizens to advocate: “Give them a phone number, an e-mail address, this is more effective.” His point: Make it easy for people to speak out. Vance noted that ALA has all sort of advocacy tools that can be used in exactly that way. Gordon suggested that librarians ask young people to vote on things you are going to do in the library.
Early attendance reports for the ALA Midwinter Meeting, issued yesterday, show registration levels down at this meeting by about 10% from last year in Philadelphia, although they may be adjusted upward before the close of the conference. Total advance registration was 7,191 added to 182 on site. Exhibitor registration was 1,703, just 87 people less than 2008, for a grand total of 9,076 in Denver as compared to 10,740 in Philly and 10,355 in Seattle in 2007.
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Posted in Uncategorized at 6:15 pm by Greg Landgraf
I’ve been to two author functions thus far, Women of Mystery yesterday and the Sunrise Speaker series featuring cartoonist Leigh Rubin today. The surprising, if apropos, common theme between them is the randomness of inspiration.
Mary Jane Clark addressed that theme directly yesterday as she described how she sees stories on the Today Show that could be turned into a story. “As long as there’s news I think I’ll always be able to come up with stories,” she quipped, and she went on to explain that since her characters are television reporters who get involved with mystery and suspense in the stories they cover, there’s no limit to what milieu those characters can find themselves in.
Nancy Atherton, meanwhile, discussed the value her varied reading had in giving her ideas, and Francine Mathews told how characters develop a life of their own that the author can’t control.
Rubin, creator of the comic strip Rubes, declared that “I just think inspiration is all around us,” as he showed some of his favorite panels and described how he got the ideas for them. He also noted that “Sometimes people write me complaint letters, but they’re never what I expect.”
On his humor style, Rubin said, “I don’t like to give the reader the whole joke.” Instead, he wants the reader to have to contribute knowledge and experience from their own background.
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Posted in Uncategorized at 12:13 am by Leonard Kniffel
Add-on product demand has increased because ILS vendors have not kept up with what libraries want, asserted Rob McGee of RMG Consultants, at the 19th annual “View from the Top” seminar this afternoon, kicking off ALA’s January 23-28 Midwinter Meeting here in Denver. This situation is “similar to the early days when libraries came up with their own solutions,” said McGee, emceeing a panel of presidents and CEOs from top library vendors. Libraries “want functionality and solutions at a lower price than we see from some of the proprietary vendors,” McGee said, and “libraries are reacting in a number of ways to the shortcomings of the vendors.” Open source is replacing ILS instead of taking vendor’s next proprietary offering, he added, challenging the 11 panelists to address the program theme, “Starting Over: Reinventing the Integrated Library System and the Library Automation Industry.”
To further the challenge, McGee employed a subpanel of librarians to talk about their recent experiences. Helene Blowers, Columbus Metropolitan Library, talked about her homegrown 20-year-old ILS. Wes Trager, Queens Library in New York, talked making business enterprises a part of the library’s operation. John Blyberg, of the Darien Library in Connecticut, explained how he led development of a “social OPAC,” first in Ann Arbor, Michigan, the now in Connecticut, and Marshall Breeding of Vanderbilt University talked about the community-based OLE project funded by the Mellon Foundation.
Blowers said Columbus was one of the few libraries in the country with a “homegrown” ILS, which was staff-developed over 20 years. They have new customer-service components, and the system has never in 20 years gone down. The staff is happy with the system, she said, because,“we control over own destiny, develop around our processes.” The drawback is that “you don’t always look to improve. We are maximizing our investment and in this economy that’s not a bad thing.”
What Blowers said reminded me of what I was doing 20 years ago, namely leaving my public library job to move to Chicago and work for ALA. When I left the Detroit Public Library, we had no computers at work (except for a few in cataloging), but I knew even then that computers were going to change everything, so I bought one for myself and learned the basics from a programmer friend, who also happened to be a reader and library lover. I can’t imagine how challenging it must have been 20 years ago for librarians in Columbus to invent their own integrated library system.
Blyberg, who is on the technology beat for American Libraries at this conference, told the panel about the SOPAC, or social online public access catalogs, he had worked on. “Instead of trying to design a catalog from the ground up, we designed a web strategy,” Blyberg said, where users can create an account, comment when they wish, and essentially “build an online identity.” He noted that the “personal identity of our users online was valuable to them.” For a content management system, Blyberg chose Drupal because “it seemed up and coming with a lot of community development. Its data architecture was conducive to development, so we merged our online catalog with Drupal…merging the catalog experience with the website experience.” Library users can tag, rate, etc., making the ILS specific to the community. Blyberg’s local emphasis resonated with the panel and the audience (can you say “local history”?). He speculated that some might call it “reckless” for a library staff of 30 FTEs to proceed “to create a repository of social data,” but he concluded, “What comes first the data or the incentive?” The SOPAC went live in September, he said, and is “an overwhelming hit with users.”
The panelists seemed a little behind the curve compared to Blyberg’s project, and while several praised it, they seemed a little intimidated by it as well. Why? Probably because it’s hard to see where there’s much money to be made in this kind of social networking. Isn’t this really the same issue facing newspapers and other publishers? The phrase “business model” comes to mind.
Marshall Breeding talked about the OLE (Open Library Environment) Project funded by Mellon Foundation. What would a library automation system for today look like if it were being invented from scratch? he asked. The Mellon Foundation is interested in seeing what they can do for libraries to help them create their own infrastructure, from libraries that deal with physical materials only to ones dealing with live content as well, a community-owned process for this kind of system.
Rising to McGee’s bait, Carl Grant of Ex Libris, a seasoned vendor who has played an important role with various companies over many years, asserted that he saw “a great deal of innovation” displayed by the librarians on the subpanel, but “on the flip side,” he said that in general “we are setting our sites too low” and the profession lacks leadership and strategy. “What’s the theme for this show?” he asked. “We’re in an economic crisis and we’ll have to revamp from top to bottom.” Librarians have not learned how to “monetize their skill sets.”
Asked by me what the strategy should be, Grant cited “the three A’s: authority, appropriateness, and authentication.” This is the “value added” proposition that libraries should represent across the Web. At the rate things are going, he added, “I can see that library service could be delivered from offshore to your desktop.” Josh Ferraro of LibLime chimed in: “People in libraries need to be more up on technology.” More library jobs ought to be going to IT professionals, he said. Ann Melaerts of Infor Library solutions added that the library must “be a platform for community.”
VTLS’s Vinod Chachra, who has been on all 19 “View from the Top” panels, shared his list of the top five ways libraries can reinvent the ILS. 1) Make it format independent, 2) Make it more mobile, 3) Linked records, not flat records, 4) on-demand open deliver, 5) Deep linking into unknown systems. Gary Rautenstrauch of SirsiDynix added that one solution for all cases doesn’t work; they have to be flexible enough for uniqueness.
Marshall Breeding reasserted that, essentially, vendors are not keeping up. Grant was quick with a rebuttal: “We end up writing what you told us to write!” He noted that libraries are finally going directly to users to develop an ILS, a luxury vendors have never had, he said.
Grant talked about the need for librarians to be at the table when it comes to NISO standards, or at least “hire database schema designers to be on standards committees.” John Blyberg observed that “while we’re waiting for the perfect standard, we’re not delivering what the end user wants.”
Josh Ferraro echoed the sentiment: “Hire competent technology staff!” The discussion never veered into the large issue of library education, which really needs to move from library and information science (LIS) to library and information science and technology (LIST) if it is to remain vital.
As the three-hour program rolled on, I grew itchier to ask a question about what I think was the real elephant in the room, namely the economic debacle this nation is enduring. So I finally did. “What specific actions are you taking to address the financial crisis?” I asked. The responses were illuminating, because I kept thinking of how they could translate to our library settings and to ALA.
Bill Schickling of Polaris made an interesting point. This is the time, he said, to do a review with each customer, to see how they are spending their money and how they could do it better. Robin Murray of OCLC said that his organization was “looking at costs” and at how services could be “bundled” for greater economies.
Vinod Chachra said revenue from exports was keeping VTLS healthy, so much so that “we’re hiring—14 people in the last 12 weeks.” Carl Grant said cost controls were being implemented at Ex Libris but no layoffs were being planned; in fact staff is being added. Grant emphasized what ALA has been emphasizing, that a slow economy means more patrons for libraries. “This is the time to get a new front door,” he said, meaning that marketing plans are vital. He also urged librarians to “reevaluate what you can afford to keep doing. Don’t try to maintain the past.”
I’ve long felt that the “View from the Top” seminars—and I’ve attended a good many—were underestimated and underattended. It’s fascinating to watch this group of top library vendors come together to reveal their strategies and directions without revealing anything about their strateties and directions. This year’s event was no exception.
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01.23.09
Posted in Uncategorized at 7:22 pm by Greg Landgraf
My last bloggable event of the day was the ERT Author Forum, subtitled “Women of Mystery” and featuring the mystery authors Erica Spindler, Francine Mathews, Mary Jane Clark, and Nancy Atherton. I had to miss the last half for a planning meeting, but I’d like to share some juicy quotes from the first half.
Spindler: On mystery vs. suspense: “Over the years what I’ve done is start combining the idea of mystery and suspense. I really can’t let go of the drama and emotion that isn’t really part of mystery.”
On her history as a painter: “With paintings, you have sort of a skeleton of an idea and you go with it. [When writing] you kind of work with what you have and try to build up the emotion. It’s kind of like when you’re painting and it needs a little red—so you add it.”
Mathews: “It helps to be a high analytic [personality type] if you’re going to write detective fiction. I’m an INTJ—they’re all such attractive qualities that I spend most of my life in my basement alone.”
“Once your characters start speaking to each other, they acquire a life of their own. It always happens 300 pages in.”
Clark: “If there were no such things as criminals I literally would not exist because I was conceived by two people who met while working at the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”
“If not for the public library, I definitely would not be writing books today… The library was it for me and my little sister.”
Atherton: On her school librarian: “When I walked into the library, Mrs. Bailey could hear the angels singing because she knew I loved books.”
“I write mysteries with no murder, no crime, and no detective, and yet I’m told they’re page turners. I think that’s due in part to the fact that I just absorbed everything as a kid.”
“I’ve managed to come this far by doing everything wrong. I couldn’t write an outline with a gun to my head.”
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Posted in Uncategorized at 7:07 pm by Greg Landgraf
At the Forum on Library Education, four supporters of the Draft Core Competences Statement, which is scheduled to be considered for Council approval at the Council II session on Tuesday, discussed the statement and took questions from the crowd of about 60 attendees.
While acknowledging that the draft statement is more general than some—including some of the assembled crowd—may desire, the panel argued that the generality is not a defect. “I’ve had comments about areas of librarianship that have not been included,” said Linda Williams, coordinator of library media services at Anne Arundel County (Md.) Public Library. “If you included every area or specialty of librarianship, you wouldn’t have the core anymore. You’d have the whole field.”
“I think the generality of the core competences is their strength,” added Janet Swan Hill, associate director for technical services at the University of Colorado at Boulder. It’s easy for people to focus on omissions when they are in areas of particular passion, but if “you can spend some time [looking], it’s there, it’s subsumed under something else.”
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Posted in Uncategorized at 11:51 am by Greg Landgraf
After an early (6am) flight, my morning has been spent getting oriented. This is my first Midwinter and things seem manageable, although they may look different once the full mass of people gets here and the events get into swing.
ALA is sharing the convention center with the International Sportsman’s Exhibition. No word yet on how much overlap in registration there is, but it looks like that show gets started later in the day and runs later into the evening than Midwinter—so it’s conceivable that some hunting librarians might attend both.
The Big Blue Bear outside the Colorado Convention Center
One of the first things I saw at the convention center is a giant blue bear sculpture outside the front windows, peering in. I originally figured it might be part of the sportsman’s expo, but it is actually part of the convention center’s branding. (You can, if you so choose, purchase smaller replicas.)
Also of note are the convention center staff, who have thus far been extremely friendly. Several are stationed at the convention center’s main entrance, and they’ve been tremendously outgoing in greeting and offering assistance to people as they come in.
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01.22.09
Posted in Uncategorized at 2:35 pm by Leonard Kniffel
American Libraries Associate Editor Greg Landgraf and I will be blogging the daylights out of the ALA Midwinter Meeting in Denver, beginning tomorrow, January 23. In addition, Senior Editor George Eberhart will be producing next week’s issue of American Libraries Direct during the conference, to bring you a roundup next Wednesday of the latest happenings in Denver and everywhere in Libraryland. Associate Editor Pam Goodes will be covering the ALA Executive Board and Council meetings. Stop and see us or leave messages for us in the ALA Offices. Although more of a business meeting than a conference, Midwinter still offers a wide array of events and discussions.
- I’ll be working with Greg to film ALA Presidential Candidates Forum on Saturday and post the entire event on AL Focus that evening. The candidates are Roberta Stevens of the Library of Congress and Kent Oliver of the Stark County District Library in Ohio.
- Also, you’ll see new American Libraries Associate Editor Sean Fitzpatrick learning the ropes. Sean comes to ALA from Amigos Library Services in Texas; his MS in library science is from the University of North Texas in Denton.
- Of the many meetings at Midwinter, the one most directly related to American Libraries is the Advisory Committee meeting on Saturday at 1:30 (check your program for locations), where Chair Laurel Minott will preside over discussions with the group whose primary function is to serve as a conduit for member feedback regarding editorial policy. “Hectic Pace” columnist Andrew Pace, who moved the column from AL to OCLC when he took a job there last year, is now a member of the Advisory Committee.
- Some of the meetings and events where you should be able to find me madly blogging:
Friday
1:30-3: RMG Consultants’ “View from the Top” seminar
5:30-7:30: Exhibit Opening and Reception
Saturday
8-10 Washington Update
11:30-12:30: Presidential Candidates Forum
1:30-3:30: American Libraries Advisory Committee Meeting
3-4:30: Membership Town Hall Meeting: What We Want President Obama to Know
Sunday
8-9:30 AAP Trade Libraries Committee Breakfast
10-12:30: ALA Council I
1-2:30 Planning and Budget Assembly
3:30-6:30 ALA President’s Program featuring Nobel Prize winner Muhammad Yunus from Bangladesh, followed by a reception hosted by President Jim Rettig
Monday
7:45-9:00 Youth Media Awards Press Conference
10-3 Exhibits Technology Showcase and Exhibit Hall
Tuesday
9:00-1:00 ALA Council II
Wednesday
8:00-12:00 ALA Council III
- Lastly, I’ll be stopping frequently at the Press Office to talk with Macey Morales, ALA press officer who can be counted on to answer all your (and my) media relations questions. And don’t forget to pick up American Libraries for your Denver restaurant guide, as well as Cognotes for daily news from the show floor.
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Posted in Uncategorized at 10:48 am by Greg Landgraf
With the start of Midwinter imminent, I’ve got a few related announcements and hopefully amusing oddments to share:
- Watch this blog for our Midwinter coverage. American Libraries Editor in Chief Leonard Kniffel and I will both be blogging from Denver. Also, I’ll be filming the ALA Presidential Candidates Forum on Saturday and posting the entire event on AL Focus that evening.
- Also, AL is now on Twitter. Thus far, it’s primarily resyndication of Inside Scoop postings, but that’s likely to change as…
- …in Denver, American Libraries will be welcoming new Associate Editor Sean Fitzpatrick. Sean will, among other things, be posting to Inside Scoop—possibly at Midwinter, although orientation will be his first priority. Sean is also a Twitter enthusiast and will probably be taking the lead on our efforts there.
- My Midwinter schedule is pretty book-heavy. The Youth Media Awards will feature prominently in AL Focus this year; In addition to the Monday morning press conference where the awards will be announced, I’m also going to film the actual author notification calls that will be taking place at various times throughout Saturday and Sunday. I’ll also be working on a feature and associated video on the ALA book award winners (youth and adult) for the May issue of AL so interviews for that will dot my schedule. Events I’m planning to be at include are:
Friday
1:30-3: Forum on Library Education
5:30-7:30: Exhibit Reception
Saturday
8-9: Sunrise Speaker Series
11:30-12:30: Presidential Candidates Forum
1:30-3:30: American Libraries Advisory Committee Meeting
3-4:30: Membership Town Hall Meeting: What We Want President Obama to Know
Sunday
8-10: LITA Top Tech Trends
4-5:30: RUSA Book Awards Reception
5:30-8:30: OCLC Blog Salon
Monday
7:45-9:00 Youth Media Awards Press Conference
10-1:10: Exhibits Technology Showcase
- What equipment does it take to cover an event like this? Most of the editors will have their own still camera and a Flip video camera, and some will also bring laptops. Since I’ve got additional video responsibilities, I’ll be boarding the plane with: Three video cameras (Two full-size, one Flip), one still camera (not counting the one in my phone), one to two laptops (I definitely will be bringing the office laptop for editing video; my personal laptop isn’t strictly necessary, but it does have nice things like Word for writing and Scrabble for airport delays), and an external hard drive for the office laptop. Fortunately, I don’t generally have to carry it all around at the same time.
- The weather in Denver is looking okay. Weather.com says we’ll be missing the record warmth, which is leaving today, but highs generally in the 40s.
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