Happy (End of) National Library Week

Perhaps a little late to the party, but here are some pop-culture references to librarians courtesy of Entertainment Weekly.

Or on a more scholarly note, you might enjoy reading this article - or this one - though neither appears to be freely available online. Guess you'll have to get them through your library.

Movers, Shakers, Shovers, Bakers . . .

The Library Society of the World (which exists in multiple Web 2.0 locations here and there - and everywhere!) has a tongue-in-cheek approach to librariana and has decided to create an alternative to Library Journal's Movers and Shakers -and you can be one, too. The beauty of the Shovers and Makers award is that you nominate yourself. This is totally consistent with the non-organization's values which include "humor and a sense of playfulness and creativity about our work and upcoming challenges" as well as "crazy's okay."

It's fun to browse through the profiles of Shovers and Makers - and see how many ways librarians enact their playfulness and creativity.

Sad News

I read the latest issue of American Libraries Direct with great sadness:

• Hundreds or thousands of school media specialists will be laid off in California.
• A community college librarian lost his or her job and is asking for advice.
• Philadelphia will be closing 11 branch libraries.
• The Pennsylvania State Library is facing a budget cut of 50%.

If these kinds of cuts continue, who will provide access to information to a citizenry that needs to be more informed than ever before? Who will provide instruction to students needing assistance in navigating the sea of information available to them? Who will continue to champion access and literacy?

Call me a worry wart if you must, but this news makes my stomach hurt.

Literacy Plus

The New York Times's correspondent covering the publishing world, Motoko Rich, has been gradually presenting a series on "the future of reading." In her latest installment, she considers the role of information literacy as a cause related to the plain old literacy that librarians have long espoused. It focuses on a New York school librarian and makes a good case for the need to have professionals in schools.

It's a little shallow for the Times, though - all of the articles in this series seem to be skimming the surface. I miss the days when David D. Kirkpatrick was their insider for the book world. His coverage of the "serials crisis" - the factors that have jacked up the prices of scientific journals and eaten library budgets whole - remains a well-sourced, thoughtful overview of the issue even thought it was published back in 2000.

Is it Getting Hot in Here?

It is, if you're a digital archivist. Or, in the words of one of them profiled in The New York Times, an archivist.

“I don’t think there’s any day where I would say I’m the digital guy,” [Joe Nadel] said. But he concedes that he’s not really an analog, ink-on-paper guy, either, and that is increasingly the case in his field. These days, he noted, “if you want to work in a library, you have to deal in electronic resources.”

He also describes his accidental career path:

Befitting a nascent discipline like digital asset management, Mr. Nadal, 32, said he went into it almost by accident. Unsure of his career ambitions, he began work on various book-scanning and preservation projects as a student at Indiana University, then took them over when the head of preservation left. After that, he said, it “took a year or two for me to realize my career in preservation had started a year or two past.”

He reckons that many of his peers have had similar experiences. “Among librarians, I think that happenstance may be a typical career path,” he said.

But the best part is Nadel's rousing defense of working for the public good.

As much as it might help his bank balance, Mr. Nadal cannot envision leaving U.C.L.A. for a corporate job. He finds the challenge of taming a vast collection of information for a major academic institution too appealing.

“We belong to the people of California and hold our collections in trust for them and for future generations of students, scholars and members of the public,” he said. “Public-sector institutions just strike me as far, far cooler. They have better collections, obviously, and they are innovative, connected and challenging in ways that seem more substantial to me.”

What a Bargain

There's a post on the Freakonomics blog (via New York Times, which I found as a link via Tim Spalding's Facbook Page - and if that doesn't challenge the Information Literacy Standards insistence that research starts with identifying an information need, I don't know what does ... but I digress, as I almost always do when finding information) about the soaring use of libraries in tough economic times. Read the comments. It will do your heart good to hear how much people value their libraries and the whole idea of public libraries as a communal resource. There are notes on the proposed closure of Philadelphia library branches (a huge controversy in the city) and some about closures of entire library systems in Oregon due to lack of funding and a reluctance to increase taxes that lasted nearly two years (!!!!), but there are also proud descriptions of libraries that provide their communities enormous value.

There is also a comment that amused and dismayed me. (It's comment #52 on page 3.) At a newly-opened library in Connecticut there are all kinds of innovations, including this one:

The Dewey Decimal system is gone. Books are arranged by subject.

That qualifies as the most inadvertantly damning critique of library organizations I've ever encountered.

"among our society's most empowering people"

US News once again points to librarianship as one of the best careers.

Librarianship is an underrated career. Most librarians love helping patrons solve their problems and, in the process, learning new things. Librarians may also go on shopping sprees, deciding which books and online resources to buy. They may even get to put on performances, like children's puppet shows, and run other programs, like book discussion groups for elders. On top of it all, librarians' work environment is usually pleasant and the work hours reasonable, although you may have to work nights and/or weekends

The job market for special librarians (see below) is good but is sluggish for public and school librarians. Nevertheless, persistent sleuthing—that key attribute of librarians—should enable good candidates to prevail.

That effort to land a job will be well worth it if you're well suited to the profession: love the idea of helping people dig up information, are committed to being objective—helping people gain multiple perspectives on issues—and will remain inspired by the awareness that librarians are among our society's most empowering people.

In the interest of objectivity, this week a post about the difficult job market in academic libraries at ACRLog has generated lots of comments from the trenches. The effort to land a job is not to be taken lightly.

Obsolete? Not Yet.

An Australian columnist wonders whether book rental schemes like Book Swim will make libraries as obsolete as video rental stores - and concludes that they won't. Not only do the rental schemes cost money (and libraries, unlike video rental stores, offer their collections for free) but they don't have a wide enough variety of offerings, focusing instead on current bestsellers. But she also points out something less tangible but very important about libraries.

Libraries still serve as one of the rare public meeting spaces not devoted to commerce. They help kids with research and adults with job hunts and starting businesses and their own formal and informal educations. Libraries buy books based on both popularity and serving their public. They tend to fight the good fight to make sure controversial material is available. You know, good quality-of-life, bastion of democracy stuff.

She also recommends some simple ways that libraries could be even better.

I think with the right savvy, libraries are up to the task of competing with even an improved book rental service. Already, through inter-library loans you can get almost anything, and with my countywide system's online reservation system, it's almost as easy as Netflix to request something. A little slow to get it, but that should be fixable. Make renewing easier, with a warning system when something's coming due, and you're most of the way there for me.

And she closes with a final benefit: when you've grown weary of reading that same picture book fifty-five times to your child, you can claim that it's due at the library.

Don't Mess With Us

Mother Jones has a profile of "America's Most Dangerous Librarians" - the principled librarians in Connecticut who challenged the constitutionality of a National Security Letter authorized by the PATRIOT Act and served on a library consortium.

It's good reading, even if the title is a play on popular stereotypes. Dangerous? Librarians? How could that be?

But here's a case where members of our profession stood up to authority for principled reasons, and that made them powerful. And a threat to a law that was enacted in haste to strengthen the FBI's surveillance powers even as it weakened the Constitution.

As Michael Moore once said, "don't mess with librarians."

Just in Time for Banned Books Week . . .

London news sources are reporting that the home of a Dutch publisher who will be releasing a novel about Aisha, Mohammed's wife, was the target of a firebombing. Police arrested three men in the attack.

The novel, Jewel of Medina, by American author Sherry Jones was nearing publication in the US with Random House when the reaction of an early reader led the publisher to cancel its publication. Some criticized Random House for the decision.

Banned Books Week "emphasizes the freedom to choose or the freedom to express one's opinion even if that opinion might be considered unorthodox or unpopular and the importance of ensuring the availability of those unorthodox or unpopular viewpoints to all who wish to read them." David Ulin, Books Editor for the L.A. Times, has an interesting essay on this "thorny issue."

What happens when our ideals require us to defend a piece of writing that is reprehensible, that stands against everything we stand for?

It's easy to condemn those who would remove "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" from a library, but what about "The Turner Diaries" or "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion"? Or for that matter, "Tintin in the Congo," which Little, Brown dropped from its "Tintin" reissue series last fall after controversy arose about the book's racist overtones?

These are not just academic questions; they are the heart of the matter, regardless of where you stand on the ideological divide. How do we defend one book without defending all? Such a notion can't help but make us uneasy, but then, that's one of the most essential things books can do. . . . Yet we forget the world is complicated, that it is full of opposing viewpoints and beliefs that, in many cases, we can't accommodate, at our own peril. What to do, then? Sweep them under the rug? Or face them and consider what we're up against?

This is the conversation we ought to be having during Banned Books Week, a conversation that encompasses not just a love of reading and a disdain for those who would restrict it but also the implications of the free flow of ideas. Even the most horrific things have something to teach us, something about human darkness, our capacity to go wrong. . . . if books don't make us uncomfortable, they're not doing their job.

To call that a mixed blessing is an understatement in a world where a work like "Mein Kampf" can continue to exert its awful pull. And yet to suggest otherwise is to declare that writing is unessential, which is even worse.

both a borrower and a lender be

This map surprised me. It uses data and alters maps to reflect the numbers by changing the size of countries; here, it shows how many books were borrowed from public libraries per capita around the world in 1999. US circulation rates are on the rise, but still - what a surprise that Russians borrow more than Americans. Well, maybe not ... though I wonder what state their libraries are in these days.

The saddest thing is this last bit of commentary: " Where many people cannot afford books, it appears they often cannot borrow them either."

privacy and security

Here's another stumper for the files. A librarian, surrounded by large police officers searching for a missing girl, asked for a warrant when they tried to seize a computer. And she stuck to her guns.

A missing girl is serious, and it's not hard to see that time is of the essence. But like most states, Vermont has a law protecting library records. I am not sure if they have a law enabling phone warrants in an emergency, but many states do - basically, you get a judge to sign off fast and do the paperwork later.

To my mind, not getting a warrant is risky if you're expecting to prosecute someone successfully. If the evidence were thrown out, so would any evidence arising from the search as "fruit of the poisonous tree." You have to balance speed with the very real need to not just respect the Constitution, but to build a case that can lead to conviction.

I think librarians need to do more than talk about privacy and slippery slopes to explain why a librarian would refuse to help police in a case like this. It's not self-evident to everyone that privacy is important at all when a child's safety is at risk - and we run the risk of sounding like rule-bound twits.

It's something to think about. How would you handle a situation like this? And how would you explain your decision in a way that even skeptics could understand?

The Future of Libraries ...

... is sounding interesting. This is quite a fascinating time to be in the profession.

I really like the idea of the library as kitchen rather than grocery store. In the early 20th century, John Cotton Dana envisioned the library as an industrial place. People were supposed to get in and out, fast, with maximum efficiency. A counter-idea to the workshop/factory library was the welcoming living room, where female librarians nourished proper habits. Early works on library design show some fascinating underlying assumptions.

I like the idea of it being a welcoming kitchen where you can do some cooking, have a chat around the kitchen table, and where everyone's comfortable. But most of all, where you get to cook your own, not be served a meal that someone else decided was nourishing nor to be efficiently served by a machine.

Amazon Mechanical Turk

File this under crowdsourcing (or the "wisdom of crowds"), virtual reference, or "digital sweatshop"...

A fascinating article explicates a new Amazon.com "crowdsourcing" tool called Amazon Mechanical Turk. The company ChaCha, which provides a type of virtual reference service, employs Turk workers. The author of the article tried out ChaCha, and observed that, crowds are "no more intelligent than their smartest members."

Anyway, read the article. I am not sure how to explain the concept pithily...

Collecting of self-published books

Here's an interesting snippet from the April issue of College & Research Libraries News:

Print-on-demand publishing continues to rise in popularity. Lulu.com has published more than 320,000 titles, created by people in more than 80 countries, with more than 5,000 new titles added each week. Amazon.com offers a similar service via its CreateSpace, which also produces film and audio on DVDs and CDs. Blurb.com makes available 11,000 self-published titles. The interfaces on these Web sites now make it easier than ever to publish and make changes to books without cost to the author. Candice Choi, Associated Press Writer, “Got a manuscript? Publishing now a snap,” The Boston Globe, January 1, 2008.

So, the question is, how do libraries collect these self-published books? A lot of librarians depend on published reviews or approval plans for collection development, neither which really cover this market. I suppose one way would be to look at these sites' best seller lists (1, 2) as a starting point.

Librarians have an obligation to consider these sources if they hope to develop diverse collections.

"Library budgets, open access, and the future of scholarly communication"

For those interested in the future of academic librarianship, you may find this an intriguing article. David Lewis argues that the increasing costs of scholarly journals are not sustainable and that the changing landscape of scholarly communication mean that libraries cannot continue offering the same old services.

He offers three ways libraries can ensure a place in this changing landscape and five-point budget strategy for the future. Read the article and let me know what you think, especially of his budget strategy.

Depressing Article of the Week

Read this article at Inside Higher Ed. While this may seem like a digression from the central theme of the blog, the implications for libraries and librarians are enormous.

This article paints a bleak picture for the future of the humanities. The increasing privatization of education, the adoption of corporate values by administrators, the high cost of education, and students choosing schools and majors in hopes of being offered a high-paying job are all contributing to its demise.

I wonder why we are giving up on education for education's sake: to free ourselves from ignorance and to free ourselves for exploring the world and serving others. I, like everyone else, like to get paid for my work at the end of the day, but how can we convince students and parents there is more to life than this? How can we share our passion for discovery, knowledge, and community?

I may delete or edit this post in the future, but these issues have been weighing heavily on my mind for some time now.

Kindle making waves

Amazon's e-book reader, the Kindle, has been making waves at BookExpo America.

librarian with a thousand faces (or half a dozen, anyway)

Old maid? Policeman? Inept or heroic? In this study, media representations are sorted into categories and analyzed. The sad reality, according to the authors, is that most people don't know what librarians do and that means they don't take full advantage of our talents.

finding a balance

T. Scott has a very good post on work/life balance. One of the things that can be challenging in an academic library (and no doubt in other types of libraries, too) is that you can never sit back and say "There, I'm done." You can finish a project, sometimes - though most of mine seem to be ongoing commitments that need constant care and feeding. But there's always more to do, and in this wired world there is no real demarcation between "work" and "the rest of my life." He says -

I don't have a "life outside of work." I have a life. It's comprised of many things -- many responsibilities, many joys, a handful of deep sorrows, a continual sense of wonderment as the days unfold. I never stop being the library director, but I never stop being the musician, friend, grandfather, lover, writer, or endlessly curious little boy, either.

When a "job" is what you go to for eight hours a day, five days a week, within rigid time & place boundaries, I suppose it makes psychological sense to think of "work" and "life" as two separate things. But in the networked world in which we now live, for many people that time & space separation simply doesn't exist. It certainly doesn't for me. When I go to Peebles, whether I'm playing guitar or talking about health information, I'll just be living my life as best I can.

That sounds very healthy to me.