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So some of you have probably heard I’m receiving the American Library Association Elizabeth Futas Catalyst for Change award, something that simultaneously  embarrasses and pleases me. The Awards Ceremony will be Sunday, June 29, 3:30- 4:00 p.m. – LVCC - N249. I would love to see you there, dear reader, but people have so many places to be at a conference. (Of course, showing up early for the awards means you get a good seat for Lois Lowry!) Your good thoughts are what are most important to me,  after Sandy being there — the most important thing. I am deeply  humbled to get this award and hope to keep honoring it for the rest of my career.

Here’s the rest of my schedule. I’m not on any committees or units until after Annual other than Council and Planning and Budget Assembly.  I’m looking forward to tripping the light fantastic with Sandy at ALA, serving on Council, and catching up with friends. On other fronts: work is good, school is good, life is good. I started my fourth semester at Simmons in late May. Like the third semester, it feels comfortable: a lot of work, but good work, without any confusion or stress.

Events that are a given are marked with an asterisk.

Ask the Experts: Discover key strategies for successful academic library fundraising
Saturday, 06/28/2014 – 08:30am – 10:00am
Caesars Palace – Pompeian I

Executive Board Meeting (GLBTRT) – stop in to observe
Saturday, 06/28/2014 – 08:30am – 11:30am
Las Vegas Convention Center – N229

ACRL President’s Program: Financial Literacy at Your Library
Saturday, 06/28/2014 – 10:30am – 12:00pm
Las Vegas Convention Center – N255/257
Presidents program

Assessment Discussion Group
Saturday, 06/28/2014 – 01:00pm – 02:30pm
Las Vegas Convention Center – N110
Discussion/Interest group
Join us for a lively discussion about assessment and its role in academic library success!

* ALA Council/Executive Board/Membership Information Session
Saturday, 06/28/2014 – 03:00pm – 04:30pm
Las Vegas Hotel – Paradise North

* LIAL11 Meetup
Saturday, 06/28/2014 – 05:00pm – 06:30pm
Firefly, 9560 W Sahara Ave, Las Vegas

* Simmons Reception
Saturday, 06/28/2014 – 07:00pm – 08:30pm
LVH – Las Vegas Hotel & Casino, Suite 2983 3000 Paradise Rd.

* Super-secret Dinner Group
Saturday, 06/28/2014 – 07:30pm – 10:00pm

* ALA Council I
Sunday, 06/29/2014 – 08:30am – 11:00am
Las Vegas Hotel – Paradise North

* Award Rehearsal
Sunday, 06/29/2014 – 11:45am – 12:30pm
LVCC – N249

* ALA Planning & Budget Assembly (PBA)
Sunday, 06/29/2014 – 01:00pm – 02:30pm
Las Vegas Hotel – Pavilion 04

* ALA Award Photo Session
Sunday, 06/29/2014 – 02:15pm – 03:30pm
LVCC- N263c

* ALA Award Ceremony
Sunday, 06/29/2014 – 03:30pm – 04:00pm
LVCC – N249

* ALA President’s Program featuring Lois Lowry
Sunday, 06/29/2014 – 04:00pm – 05:30pm
Las Vegas Convention Center – N249

* Awards Reception
Sunday, 06/29/2014 – 05:30pm – 07:00pm
Las Vegas Convention Center Room – N263C

* Social (GLBTRT)
Sunday, 06/29/2014 – 06:00pm – 08:00pm
The Center, 401 S. Maryland Pkwy, Las Vegas, NV 89101

http://www.thecenterlv.org/

ALA Council Forum I
Sunday, 06/29/2014 – 08:30pm – 10:00pm
Las Vegas Hotel – Ballroom F

* ALA Council II
Monday, 06/30/2014 – 08:30am – 11:30am
Las Vegas Hotel – Paradise North

Stonewall Book Awards Brunch (GLBTRT)
Monday, 06/30/2014 – 10:30am – 02:00pm
Paris – Champagne 1

Speaking About ‘The Speaker’
Monday, 06/30/2014 – 01:00pm – 02:30pm
Las Vegas Convention Center – N253
Program

* Beverage with A.
Monday, 06/30/2014 – 05:30pm – 06:30pm

ALA Council Forum II
Monday, 06/30/2014 – 08:30pm – 10:00pm
Las Vegas Hotel – Ballroom F
Other
This meeting allows councilors an opportunity to discuss issues that they will face during this conference.

* ALA Council III
Tuesday, 07/01/2014 – 07:45am – 09:15am
Las Vegas Hotel – Paradise North
Other
This is a meeting of the governing and policy making body of the association.

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I missed ALA Annual 2012, so it was with particular joy I reentered familiar terrain. I juggled the conference activities with a grant we were finishing, which was only possible because I spent four days navigating four square city blocks (my hotel, the Convention Center, meeting rooms in the Sheraton, and nearby restaurants), with only a couple of excursions beyond. I don’t remember Seattle being so deliciously  compact, but it was a boon to this bifurcated traveler. So thereby follows my report… a wee dry.

Friday
8:00am – 9:00am LIAL11 Reunion Breakfast: met with dear colleagues. Collegial idea-share is a great way to kickstart a conference! Note: it is really bad form for a restaurant to have two restaurants with the same name. One of our party spent a while in the “other” restaurant due to this reason.
9:00am – 12:00pm PAN Print Archives Meeting. PAN is the CRL Print Archives Network, and that translates to librarians interested in shared storage for print collections — a very responsible, loving, strategic approach to the future of print books. Librarians packed a very large room; several years ago it was a handful of people around a table. This was mostly an update on local initiatives, but it was validating to see how many deans, executives, and other library leaders were in the room. I wasn’t able to attend any official “top tech” sessions at Midwinter, but I consider this meeting a de facto program in that genre, because shared print is one of THE key tech trends in higher ed.
1:30pm – 3:30pm Committee on the Future of University Libraries Meeting (ACRL ULS). I was curious about the work of this committee. This was a pleasant exchange.
(A little grant-writing…)
6:00 pm LITA Happy Hour. Caught up with colleagues I hadn’t seen in a year, followed by…
Ad hoc dinner with two old friends (a great closing bracket for the day).

Saturday

Saturday was a day of scooting from meeting to meeting, concluding with a solo dinner of Washington oysters and a dessert reception among (mostly-) beloved colleagues. You know how some of you love baseball games — I mean, really, really love baseball games? This was that kind of day for me.

8:00am – 10:30am Council Orientation Session (ALA)
10:30am – 12:00pm Nominating Committee for the 2014 ALA Elections [Closed--I would share details but I'd have to kill you later. Nutshell: this committee recommends nominees for ALA president and Council.]
1:00pm – 2:30pm ALA and E-books: Prospects and Directions for 2013 – Panel talk: publisher, ebook broker, librarian. I need a Jamie LaRue action figure. He was fabulous. One thing I love about Jamie is that regardless of the talking points of the two industry wonks, he stuck to what he had to say about the role of libraries in coming up with our own solutions.
3:00pm – 4:30pm ALA Council / Executive Board / Membership Information Session – Brava, ladies of the dais, well-run.
5:30pm – 7:30pm Working Group on Digital Content and Libraries I (I am a recent appointee to Subgroup 5, so as a  first cousin once removed, I attended to catch up).
8 pm I dined on pitch-perfect oysters at Shuckers, a restaurant in the Fairmont much more elegant than it sounds.
9:00pm – 10:00pm ALA Council Reception — I remember reading a complaint on some social network that ALA only served coffee at these receptions. Folks, the bar is downstairs and nobody cares if you bring a drink. Very nice mingling.

Sunday

It was Sweater Vest Sunday, an initiative to wear sweater vests to show our support for intellectual freedom, and I was feeling sad because my vest wasn’t plaid or cable, which is what I think of when someone says “sweater vest.” But apparently my plush animal print vest fit the bill, as it garnered praise at Council, which ran exceedingly smoothly, though there were two resolutions which would have fared better had they been shared over the Tubes several weeks before Council–I know, a new-fangled idea; call me Judy Jetson. The real trick of this day was spending an hour with one group of friends I only see at ALA and then getting to another, somewhat inconvenient location to see another group of friends I only see at ALA.

8:30am – 11:00am ALA Council I Governance/Membership Meeting
Lunch at the Atheneum, then worked on the grant
6:00pm – 7:00pm Dinner with friends
7:00 pm – 8:00 pm GLBTRT Social

Monday

So to wrap up the next two days, it was business of the association, grant-writing, an amazing Ovaltine latte with one friend, and then a strikingly delicious grilled cheese sandwich with another friend. Tuesday afternoon was yet more grant-writing, a lot of it in the original Starbucks. Did I mention that I realized while people in Washington State wear those knit caps? I should have bought one my first day, because it was damp and chilly the whole time — but sunny inside, where it mattered.

10:00am – 12:15pm ALA Council II
Exhibits, grant-writing, and an Ovaltine latte with dear friend MJ
6:00 pm Awesome grilled cheese sandwich with another dear friend VN
8:30pm – 10:00pm Council Forum II (ALA)

Tuesday
9:30am – 12:30pm ALA Council III

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It’s almost time for the March of the Librarians! Friday at ALA starts with an ol’ pal picking me up at SNA and then heading out for a road trip to see libraries (or at least, given area traffic, “library”). I’m thinking West Hollywood, even though it’s an hour from the airport. Recommendations welcome.

As always, my schedule has some dueling appointments, overlap, gaps, and things I should probably be doing but don’t remember. I conclude my term as interim GLBTRT secretary after this conference and then swing into ALA Councilor responsibilities as of Midwinter 2013, so I’ve blocked out some time at this conference for getting reacquainted, as I can’t make the Saturday orientation for new and returning councilors.

I very much appreciate all the suggestions for my work on Council. The big issues do seem to be ebooks, ebooks, and ebooks.

Friday June 22

11-5 Road trip!

4:00pm – 5:15pm Opening General Session, Rebecca MacKinnon

Possible dinner

Saturday June 23

8-10 a.m. GLBTRT Steering Committee I, Hyatt Regency Orange County – HYATT – Garden 1

10:30 – noon GLBTRT All Committees’ Meeting Anaheim Marriott – MAR-Grand Salon G-H

1 pm – 3 pm: Exhibits

3:30pm – 5:00pm ALA Council / Executive Board / Membership Information Session Anaheim Marriott Platinum 1-6

6 – 8 pm LIAL11 Reunion dinner

Sunday, June 24, 2012

8-10 am Publisher’s focus group; “A Very Nice Breakfast” at the Anaheim Hilton. CH organizing.

9:00am – 12:00pm ALA Council I Anaheim Marriott Platinum 1-6

10:30am to 12:00pm OCLC: Our Digital Future Hilton Anaheim, Huntington Room (n.b. I owe you all a post about DPLA West)

1:30pm – 3:30pm LITA Top Tech Trends, Anaheim Convention Center, Ballroom A

4:00 pm – 5:30 pm The Fourth Paradigm: Data-Intensive Research, Digital Scholarship and Implications for Libraries (LITA President’s Program)

6:00 – 8:00pm GLBTRT Social Tortilla Jo’s, 1510 – Disneyland Drive, Bldg A

Monday June 25

9:30 Breakfast with SK

10:30 – 2:00pm Stonewall Book Awards Brunch Anaheim Marriott – MAR – Grand Salon A-D

Yet more exhibits

5:30 – 7 Battledecks!

Tuesday June 26

9 – 11:00am GLBTRT Steering Committee II Anaheim Convention Center – ACC – 212A

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I’m humbled to be reelected to ALA Council for what will be my fourth term, and congrats to Barb Stripling (ALA President), Trevor Dawes (ACRL President), Cindi Trainor (LITA President), and everyone else elected yesterday. As a sign of the times, I first learned this yesterday from a dear colleague’s post to my Facebook wall. So this is an unusually short post from me, because I’d like to shut up and listen: how can I be part of the change you want to see in ALA?

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Sutro Tower and Moon

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

But it was also what I did at ALA…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There’s an expression, generally condescending: “She knows her place.” It’s too bad it’s never intended as a compliment. I do indeed know my <

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.

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Beautiful books, New Orleans city archives

Last week I briefly stuck my finger into a discussion about the future of libraries initially launched by Jason Perlow of ZDNet. Then I got busy with work and personal writing deadlines and pulled my finger back out.

However, half of what I would have said was summed rather tidily in an anonymous comment on Jason’s follow-up mea-culpa, libraries-are-wonderful post (featuring a 50-minute [!] video about the Darien Library). Snark Snark wrote:

Why are all the Eggheads missing the point here? The discussion shouldn’t be about trying to justify intellectually the role of Librarians and Libraries as an overall concept. We get it–they both rule (and are wild continued successes in many places). Instead we should remember that title. Physical books will go away eventually because they won’t be economically viable to print in smaller numbers. Economically disadvantaged communities, without the “cushion” of advanced libraries with Internet Kiosks, public meeting spaces and other rich-folk goodies will be faced with less books, and eventually a realization that they’re maintaining an increasingly empty building. It may take a long time, but it will happen. And those “poor” libraries will close, while the “rich” ones thrive and diversify.

Yes, and physical books will go away because fair use is an inconvenient obstacle to maximizing publishing revenue (which makes publishers wealthier, but will not improve the lot of writers). The electronic format of ebooks represents the ultimate bonanza for publishers: the ability to insert a tollbooth in front of every reading transaction. Technology is now catching up to this dream, and this is the decade of the second big shift (the first happened with journals and was really over by the fin de siecle).

Jason, in his original post, before he was fed the Library Kool-Aid, came very close to echoing Scilken’s Law (authored by Marvin Scilken, a library leader who among other gifts to the profession almost single-handedly pushed forward an investigation of publisher price-fixing): “If the service in question was the only service offered, could the library get local tax dollars to do it?”  The answer for everything except book-lending is “not likely.”

The public library is built around the book-lending model, and only luxury-home communities such as Darien will want to justify public libraries on the scale we knew them in the 20th century, as a kind of trompe l’oeil to underscore their cultural creds. The other communities? They will fund police, fire, and the town square. Those humongous edifices filled largely with paper-based anachronisms may not be torn down anytime soon (though I’m sure ebook providers lick their chops over the idea of monopolistic control of consumption), but the service providers–we library workers–will be reduced to skeleton crews.

This is not to say that the other things public libraries do are unimportant. We who believe in libraries believe wholeheartedly in these services, and we’re on the right side of that argument. But, as Marvi

By my count, since I first attended ALA at Midwinter 1992 (San Antonio), I have attended roughly 35 ALA conferences, if you include Midwinter “meetings”–so many that I have founded the (actually nonexistent) Old Members Round Table, which sports a hashtag on Twitter of #OMRT and has its own Facebook fan page.

There are many tips for surviving and enjoying ALA, and I’ve shared some before, but for the sake of anyone new to ALA who stumbles across this blog, I’ll do it again. Feel free to add your own tips!

Packing list. I use one because it means I arrive at the conference with everything I need. This is broader than ALA, but if you don’t do a lot of business travel, take it from me that a packing list will make your life easier.

Wear comfortable shoes. You will be walking… a lot. ALA is very spread out. Not only that, because ALA goes to hot places in the summer and cold places in the winter, your feet are either very hot or very cold. So be nice to your feet because when your dogs hurt, it’s hard to enjoy anything else. You will look like a librarian. Suck it up: you ARE a librarian. If you can, rotate your shoes so you are wearing different shoes every other day. And never bring new shoes to ALA!

Dress in layers. Once upon a time everyone wore suits to ALA. These days, I see more business casual, and for DC I’m bringing a mix of loose dresses (which I find comfortable in hot muggy weather). Whatever: be comfortable, but dress in layers so you can be prepared for meeting rooms that are fiery hot or freezing cold (generally the opposite of the outdoor environment). I have a shawl I drag to meetings when I don’t have a sweater for the outfit I’m wearing.

Bring more business cards than you think you need. You will always run out.  I also know I’m ready to go home when I start handing out other people’s cards. When you get back, go through your cards and write people.

Always visit the exhibits. ALA conferences survive because vendors continue to send entire cotillions of staff and equipment to the exhibit hall. At the very least, go in and greet the vendors your library uses (yes, even the vendors you don’t like). But if you have more time, wander the halls.  I always schedule at least four hours for the exhibit hall because I learn so much, and because I like to say hi to the people who have been serving us all year  (waving hi to ITG, Ebsco, Proquest, Wilson, SerSol, RefWorks, Wiley, Sage, Sirsi…and my ol’ pals at Equinox!).

Get creative with transportation. ALA has shuttle buses, and sometimes I use them. But usually I find other forms of transportation between conference sites are faster (especially after Big Events, where people will be lined up for hours). Quite often I  hoof it, sometimes with a colleague with whom I can catch up. Other times I share a cab (get bold: ask that librarian, “Want to share?”). In DC, get a Metro pass and when appropriate, use the Metro to get from A to B very quickly.

Attend a program hosted by an entity outside your usual “space.” If you are an academic librarian, see a PLA program, and so on. You’d be surprised what you can learn, who you meet, and what it feels like to be outside your arena.

Have backup plans for your schedule. Sometimes a great-looking program is a bomb. Other times, you look out at the pouring rain and realize you don’t have an easy way to get to your next event on time. Have an idea for what you’ll do with that time–an alternate program, some time in the exhibits, or even a tourism moment.

Socialize with people outside your area code. You can see local folks back at the ranch. Use ALA to extend your networking circle to people you don’t get to meet so often, people you’ve wanted to con

Away, away, to ALA… I have attended all but three of the combined Midwinter and Annual conferences since January 1992, and I know one thing for sure: there is no “final schedule” for me–it evolves throughout the conference! I’m really looking forward to reconnecting with friends, colleagues, and vendors, and bouncing along with the whole ALA kabobble.

I should probably squeeze in a little more ACRL activity–suggestions for this division (and anything else) welcome.

Friday 6/25

• 8:30 am – 12:00 noon, Marriott at Metro Center, Grand Ballroom – OCLC Americas Regional Council Meeting
• 1:30 – 3:30 pm, Marriott at Metro Center, Grand Ballroom – OCLC Symposium: The Next Generation of Publishing
• 4:00 pm – 5:15 pm LITA 101: Open House Hilton, Joy
• 5:30 pm – 8:00 pm LITA Happy Hour Renaissance Downtown, Lobby Bar
  999 9th Street Northwest

Saturday 6/26

• 8:00 AM – 12:00 PM LITA: Cloud computing for library services WCC-143A
• 10:30 am – 12:00 noon, Renaissance Washington, Auditorium – OCLC Record Use Policy Update
• Noon lunch with K.
• 1:30 – 3:30 pm, Web-scale or Bust: Harnessing Cooperative Innovation for Management Services Four Points by Sheraton, Franklin Rooms A-C
• 1:30 – 3:30 p.m. Pecha Kucha Presentations of Marketing Ideas that Worked in Academic Libraries
• 3:30 – 5:00 pm, Washington Convention Center, Room 210 – Share Special Collections on the Web with Easy-to-use CONTENTdm
• 7ish? Dinner with SGBC Interest Group

Sunday 6/27

• Morning: church with JR
• 12:00 – 1:30 p.m. EBSCO E-Resource Management Luncheon, Washington Marriott at Metro Center, Junior Ballrooms 1 & 2775 12th Street NW
• 1:30-3:30 LearnRT Training Showcase (Nicole from MPOW is participating!)
• 4:00 pm – 5:30 pm LITA President’s Program: Four or More: The New Demographic
  Washington Convention Center, Ballroom B. Topic: “those who own four or more internet-connected devices.” Speaker: Mary Madden, Senior Research Specialist, Pew Internet & American Life Project
• 5:00 – 8 pm 40th Anniversary GLBRT Social Hotel Monaco

Monday 6/28

• 10:30 – 1pm Stonewall Book Awards Brunch Washington Convention Center -
  Room 207A
• 1:30 IRSG Ultimate Debate: Open Source Software, Free Beer or Free Puppy?
  WCC-146B (I’m a panelist)
• 4:00 – 5:30 pm, Grand Hyatt Washington, Independence Rooms G-I -
  WorldCat Local ‘quick start’ Information Session
• 5:30 p.m. Battledecks Washington Convention Center room 103A
• 8:30 p.m. – 10:00 p.m. ALA Council Forum (just to see what’s happening… assuming I’m still awake)

Tuesday

Return home to Most Favored City!

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Rainbow by Flickr user Proggie

My Place Of Work is one of the most diverse universities in the United States. That’s a fact we’re very proud of, and it’s an environment I enjoy. Diversity was a matter-of-fact reality in the middle-class San Francisco neighborhood I grew up in, and throughout my life, when I’ve been in environments flavored with only one or two dominant ethnic groups, I have missed God’s rainbow.

So when friends recommended the rather spendy but well-regarded ACRL-Harvard institute for new academic directors, I was intrigued to see that ACRL offered a “diversity” scholarship, until I read the fine print:

ACRL is pleased to announce the availability of a scholarship to support participation at the 2010 ACRL/Harvard Leadership Institute. The scholarship covers the cost of tuition ($2,600) and a $1,500 travel stipend. In support of ACRL’s commitment to librarians serving diverse communities, the scholarship is for individuals currently working in Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Tribal Colleges or Universities, or those employed at Hispanic Serving Institutions.

In other words, ACRL’s “diversity” is limited to institutions serving dominant majorities of ethnic groups.

I have no quarrel with these universities being eligible for this scholarship. I went to a women’s college (well, two, to be precise–Mills and then Barnard) because I was seeking my own “dominant majority” experience, and I appreciate how important that can be, and I salute ACRL for their attention to these institutions.

But ACRL should think beyond such a narrow definition of diversity and include institutions that are doing the very hard work of serving highly diverse student bodies.

We have challenges at MPOW: many of our students are first-generation college students; many arrive woefully unprepared for their first year of college; many struggle financially. We also have strengths, perhaps the most notable being the ineffable benefits–professionally, but also spiritually–of living, studying, and working inside this numinous rainbow.

For that matter, why not add income level to the mix? Those of us in higher ed know the powerful ties between family income level and risk factors for student success. Isn’t economic status its own diversity challenge–the issue that Martin Luther King graduated to in his last years on this planet?

Not only that, but some schools have more money than others, and tuition-dependent schools serving first-generation students are the least likely to have $4100 sitting around. I feel very well supported by MPOW–this is the best library job I’ve ever had–but the need is great in so many directions here, and I’ve already been cannibalizing important line items to do things like update our ancient public computers, last “refreshed” in 2002 and 2004.  I’ve already robbed Peter to pay Paul, and I can’t turn around and hit up Mary for some dinero.

ACRL means well, but if it were truly committed to “librarians serving diverse communities,” it would broaden its definition of “diversity.” Meanwhile, I’ll keep scraping together my leadership education from my peers at equally diverse universities, while I continue enjoying life within the rainbow’s beautiful spectrum.

Ok, that was me trying to being funny about what is really one of the few cities to rival my glorious hometown. I always enjoy Boston, and the 40-ish weather, while worrisome from a climate-change perspective, certainly makes it easy to get around.

But I spent most of today doing vendor stuff (wrapping up the night in a fun Southie pub with hearty food and yummy draft beer–Dale’s Pale Ale on tap!) and I feel I should do a little round-up before it all evaporates, considering that I have repeatedly referred to my present abode as the Parker Roll Hotel.

First, when I interviewed at Peanut U, a faculty member asked me about electronic theses and dissertations. I gave a rather vague answer, but the reality is quite concrete (in many senses of the word): our facility is literally groaning from the weight of uncataloged materials, theses eminent among them. We have been advised not to add more weight to our top floor, and I don’t have the shinola to pay for all that original cataloging, which we would need to outsource. So it intrigued me to hear that our ebrary collection could be configured to upload our own PDFs, effectively creating a mini-ETD-repository. I am asking myself and others why we wouldn’t do that, at least as a pilot project.

Creating topic collections of web resources seems to be a hot thing these days. Oh wait–I managed a project that did that, extremely well in fact, before it was kiboshed by the Powers That Were. Never mind; vendors to the rescue (ebrary, Springshare, Credo, and so on).

Wiley-Blackwell deserved a tour, as we ponder e-backfiles for MPOW. (We can convert to e-backfiles, or let the building slide down the hill and obstruct traffic. You decide! Besides, the thick layers of dust on our print journals give us the guidance we need.) Plus I spoke with an unbelievably perky trainer/advocate/educator about demos. My dear friend Millie, who knows everything about collections and then some, advised me in my first week to ask vendors to do demos to engage faculty in our e-resources.

I stopped by the APA booth to ask who to speak with to suggest that the APA publication manual be issued as an eBook. I had wondered about this, particularly after the cluster-fornication that was called the 6th edition, but it became evident why APA hadn’t done this yet. First I was told that they would pass along my suggestion. No, I said, tell me who to speak with. Much conversation ensued. I was finally handed a Post-It with the name of Julia Frank-McNeil written in pencil. I am sincerely hoping Julia is part of the solution, because if she isn’t–to quote my funny mother, who always likes this line–she is therefore part of the precipitate.  Paging Julia Frank-McNeil!

Then I stopped by Learning Express. Me: I’m you’re customer. Them: no you aren’t. Me: yes I AM. Them: sonofagun, so you are! We license some very nice video tutorials through them.

I visited Web of Knowledge right before the closing bell rang, and we’ll catch up Monday. Sunday is a committee-ish, LITA-ish, vendor-ish day. I may start Sunday with an Alexander Press breakfast.We’ll see.

The convention prize for Best Use of Airspace goes to my buddies at Equinox Software, who have a fake evergreen soaring toward the sky. People commented that they could find Equinox from anywhere on the floor.  Open source continues to flourish, and why not? Choice and power and engagement are powerful things.

I also attended the GLBTRT Bylaws meeting. This is one of those committees where two dedicated people are doing the heavy lifting, and though some of us will catch up next month with a little effort, I thank them.

Note: be sure to read this post if you AREN’T going to ALA Annual — because there’s some free (as in zero-cost) participation opportunities here.  For this conference’s LITA Top Technology Trends, I am part of an online team honchoed by Cindi Trainor that will facilitate a concurrent online discussion. I will post to here, Twitter, and Facebook when I know the URL.

This time we are being given a series of “discussion starter topics,” some of which read like subliminal sales fodder, but no mind, it’s interesting to be told what my trends are. My comments below.

LITA Top Tech Trends Discussion Starter Topics
ALA Annual Chicago, July 2009

~IT, the Economy, and the Environment
In five years, shrinking institutional budgets, shifting user needs, and heightened environmental awareness will create a library profession largely based in online and virtual worlds. A new Internet and rapid change in communication and collaborative technologies will bring about a new commodity information profession in which half of all librarians will be unaffiliated freelance professionals who contract their services remotely to multiple institutions. The conference model for professional development will be gone, and ALA and other professional organizations will serve the role of coordinating online tools and training for information service specializations.

Not that fast and not that extreme. These are all real trends but they will happen more slowly. As for “virtual worlds,” I think we’ve seen Second Life come and go. Fun experiment, now move along folks.

~Open Everything (software, data, systems, etc) and Network Effect
In five years, further consolidation and upheaval will turn the library software market on its head. The drive towards open source systems, open linked data, open APIs, and network-level data and services will have gained full steam as libraries come to own, develop, share, and manage all of their own systems and data. A few major players will provide the network and service backbone, but the majority of the vendor market will shift to providing contract consulting and development services along with offerings of plug-ins and modules that they have built to augment to the unified data / systems superstructure owned and cooperatively managed by library governance bodies and co-ops. [With their new-found unity, libraries will band together to force Elsevier to open it's article content and drop prices.]

Holy grammar, Batman! Never mind these exotic predictions. In five years librarians still won’t be familiar with Mr. Apostrophe and his twin cousins, the Parentheses. Call the copy editor, STAT!

There is indeed a trend toward openness and self-managed data and systems, and it is a trend that will grow and needs to grow, for the simple reason that it is necessary and healthy for us to build the tools we use to manage our content. How that fits into the cloud-computing model that is headed our way like a Cat 5 hurricane is unclear to me. I think it’s a good thing for vendors to get out of the proprietary-licensing business and into service and development — good for us, good for them.

~Mobile Computing, Virtual Computing, and the Cloud
In five years, handheld and mobile devices will outstrip desktop and laptop computers as the dominant computing platform, backed by an ever-present data and computing cloud run by private industry. Libraries will leave the storage and hardware business behind, abandon their one-stop-shop web sites and systems, and start profiling users based on their transaction and usage history, interests, social networks, and community/campus activities. Libraries will focus on two main areas: 1) Building tools and services that push content into the user’s personal and social computing environment, and 2) providing in their physical space for large displays and interactive peripherals that users can plug their own devices in to.

“In to”?

Anyhoo, I agree the desktop is fading and mobile/ubiquitious devices are on the rise, but what interests me here is that it seems to overlook what most public libraries do these days, which is transact huge quantities of physical materials. I think this the kind of trend it’s easy for academics to overlook, since behavior on campuses is so different. I spend a lot of time thinking about (worrying about, really) the fate of public libraries when physical media is preempted by whatever device(s) are imminent. The movement toward digital, on-demand reading/experiential materials has many ramifications, few of which any of us have explored.

(It’s so interesting to me, as a writer, how librarians forget how people actually use libraries — to like, you know, find things to read.)

~Current and Future Trends for the Library Catalog
In five years, the local catalog will join the card catalog as a thing of the past. The next-next generation catalog is no catalog at all. All content and data will reside at the network level as one pool that intermingles with the other major pools in the information string of “great lakes”–Google, Hathi Trust, Open Content Alliance, and a handful of Journal aggregators. The niche role of libraries will be aggregating and digesting information from diverse systems and custom-packaging it for their local audiences and local services.

Ah yes, the Haughty Trust (bad me, did I say that?). If we really do move to the all-important cloud (again, five years? I think not), we won’t be worrying about the Big O, or Hathi Trust, or anything else, because we’ll be out of business. The “niche role” won’t be enough to sustain a profession.

About to board, or I’d do my own trends. Thoughts? Additions? More typos to correct?

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Another year, another ALA! The following is my tentative schedule. This one has a lot of booth time, but I’m only on one committee (how did that happen? Shhhh don’t tell!) and so it may not seem as crazy as Anaheim.

As I get ready, I’m enjoying ALA Connect, the new ALA social space. The site feels slow (ALA’s servers always feel slow) but I see the potential already — I used it to get a good view of what several divisions were doing at ALA.

Thursday, July 9

Arrive mid-afternoon, have dinner with friends C & L and see Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me.

Friday, July 10

Check out the booth, practice for Sunday’s demo (la la la la laaaaaaaaaah!) and then open.

4:00 pm - 5:30 pm LITA 101: Open House, PALM Water Tower Place

5:30 pm - 8:00 pm LITA Happy Hour

PUBLIB Happy Hour TBD (If it takes place)

Saturday, July 11

8 a.m. Summon preview breakfast

9:30 a.m.(ish) – 12:15 pm. KCLS/Galecia Group Open Source Unconference, Harold Washington Library Center, 400 South State Street, Room #3N-6. I’ll plan to be there at least 10-12.

3:30 - 5:30 LITA National Forum Planning Committee 2009, PALM Clark 07

6:00 - 7:30 GLBTRT Social at the Sidetrack, 3349 N. Halsted St.

7:30 - Dinner with friends

Sunday, July 12

8 - 9:30 Palmer House thingy

Noonish: booth demo (probably Open Source Jeopardy, Reloaded)

1:30 - 3:00 p.m. LITA Top Technology Trends, INTER Grand BR.

3:30 pm - 5:30 pm:

LITA Next Generation Catalog Interest Group, PALM Chicago Room — or –

LLAMA SASS, Improving User Services Through Open Source Solutions: Potentials and Pitfalls — or –

You Got Me, Do You Like Me? Evaluating Next Generation Catalogs

5:30 - 7:30 Equinox soiree

Monday, July 13

8:00 am - 10:00 am LITA Public Libraries Technology Interest Group PALM Spire Room — or –

ALCTS CMDS Resuscitating the Catalog: Next-Generation Strategies for Keeping the Catalog Relevant

10:30 - 1:00 p.m.  GLBT-RT: Stonewall Book Awards Brunch (still don’t have a ticket)

3:30 pm - 5:30 pm PALM Salon V LITA Open Source Systems Interest Group

1:30-5:30

ALCTS CCS RUSA RSS: Catalog Use and Usability Studies: What Do They Show and How Should This Evidence Affect Our Decision-Making?

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My killer-app moment was with Summon, a new unified-search service from Serial Solutions that does what we really want a product like this to do: natively indexes data from its sources (databases, ebooks, OPACs, etc.) so that retrieval is fast and consistent. Summon makes your typical metasearch tool look like a rusty wagon with square wheels. (As for the alternative of A-to-Z lists for databases… they remind me of the grocery store toothpaste aisle, which has far, far too many options.)

Summon from Serial Solutions

LITA Top Tech Trends, smoothly orchestrated by its committee (with special shout-outs to Jason Griffey and Cindi Trainor). The tech even went up immediately! Michael Porter reports that in the video I looked like I was trying to lick the last drops of coffee out of my mug… watch it and decide

Great socials by Equinox and OCLC. Not as many folks as we thought (attendance was down at Midwinter), but both were good events. I left the OCLC Blog Salon to head to another event which the cabby could not find, so after 20 minutes I had him take me back to the Hyatt to return to the Blog Salon — what I later realized was me reverting to my Last Known Good Configuration.

Wonderful PUBLIB social at Baur’s — the best social in years, expertly coordinated by PUBLIB’er Mindy Kittay.

The Tattered Cover Bookstore. O.k., I have to admit, when I went there I almost had to poke the staff to get attention and their expressions were… bored; and the bookstore didn’t seem to have a whole lot of books. But I’ve spent years wanting to go there, and I done it.

Hyatt Regency Denver. I stayed in this hotel 15 months ago, for the first Defrag conference. I so adore it. Video art in the elevators, rooms that are designed around business travelers with movable desks and comfortable chairs, a great 27th-story lounge, a people-watching first-floor lounge… this is one of my top ten favorite hotels.

A meal and a social at the Curtis, a very amusing boutique hotel.

The LITA Forum 2009 meeting, expertly managed by my friend Zoe, even though I had to leave for a minute to rescue my Blackberry from the women’s room. I had to retrieve my BB three times at Midwinter.

Following ALA Council proceedings via Twitter. Yup, there are folks twittering key Council votes. Council may not be interested in transparency, but transparency is interested in Council.

Janet Swan Hill’s outstanding job on the Task Force on Electronic Meeting Participation. We got so much work done in advance we were able to cancel the second meeting — more time for exhibits, networking, etc. Isn’t that the point?

Snow – especially since it was other people’s snow. Didn’t have to drive in it, didn’t have to shovel it.

Lunches and dinners with my friends, and you know who you are. Christine, sorry I left early and had to cancel, but let’s pinpoint Chicago!

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I bet this won’t be the last version of this, but it still gives my Denver-bound colleagues some idea of my 411 in Denver.

Thursday, Jan 22

Thursday afternoon, arrive in Denver

Thursday night dinner, MJ

Friday, Jan 23

Friday morning booth setup

Friday 11 a.m. - 1 p.m. confab w/colleague

Friday 1:30 p.m. - 4:3o p.m. OCLC Symposium, Sheraton Denver Downtown, Grand Ballroom 1

Friday 5:30 p.m. - 7:30 p.m. Exhibits Grand Opening, Booth 522

Saturday, Jan 24

Saturday 8 a.m. - 9 a.m. Power Breakfast

Saturday 9 a.m. -10 a.m. LB from B&T

Saturday 11 a.m. - 11:30 JH from AJ

Saturday 12 p.m. - 2 p.m. ALA Task Force on Electronic Meeting Participation (TFOEMP), CCC, Room 106

Saturday 2 p.m. - 3 p.m. Vendor meeting

Saturday 4 - 5:30 LITA Forum 2009 Planning Meeting, Denver Marriott City Center, Colorado Ballroom, C

Saturday 5:30 p.m. - 7:30 p.m. Equinox-Evergreen “Birds of Feather Nosh Together” (Shoot me a note if you’d like an invitation)

Saturday League Dinner, 8:00 p.m. - 10:00 p.m. location TBD

Sunday, Jan 25

Sunday 8:00 a.m. - 10 a.m. Panelist, LITA Top Technology Trends, Crown Office

Sunday 10:30 a.m. - 11 a.m. I will be presenting “Open Source Jeopardy,” Exhibit Hall, Booth 522

Sunday 3:30 Vendor meeting

Sunday 4 - 5:30 TFOEMP, CCC, Room 210

Sunday 5:30 - 8:00 OCLC Blog Salon Hyatt Regency Denver (at CCC) Centennial I, F/G… departing at 6:30 to attend:

Sunday 6 :00 - 8:00 GLBTRT Social, St Francis Center, UOC Auraria Campus, 1030 St. Francis Way

Sunday 8:00 - 10:00 LWSW Task Force Dinner, location TBD

Monday, Jan 25

Monday 10:00 a.m. - 11:00 a.m.  “Open Source Jeopardy,” Exhibit Hall, Booth 522

Monday 10:30 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. Biblios Demo, CCC

Monday 1:30 p.m. - 3:30 p.m. LITA Open Source Systems Interest Group, Grand Hyatt Denver, Mt. Harvard

Pilgrimage to Tattered Cover, LoDo location? 1628 16th Street at Wynkoop

Tuesday, Jan 26

Tuesday noonish start return to TLH

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ALA is offering us a chance to submit questions to its presidential candidates by YouTube.

We have TWO great candidates — I think highly of Roberta Stevens and Kent Oliver — and I am sure they will do justice to the post, regardless of who’s elected.  So I am struggling to come up with a question, though I really feel I should.  I think I’d like to ask about legislative advocacy for open access and open source, though another part of me wants to ask OMG MONEY HOW LIBRARIES GET PLEEEEZE?

Mr. Bill Gets Ready for his Close-Up

Over on Pattern Recognition, Jason Griffey gave ALA’s Youtube project a pretty heavy drubbing. I’m usually in sync with Jason on most issues, but I felt he spent too long explaining how ALA isn’t “getting it” and not enough time talking about what’s right about this project.

Have we ever had an opportunity to interview presidential candidates this way? Can we pause long enough to simply celebrate that it’s even happening? Can we participate?

Full disclosure: the “ALA” Jason is referring to is Jim Rettig’s presidential task force, which I happen to serve on. He may not realize it, but some of these hopeless squares who don’t get it are people he likes. I was even given a chance to organize this project, but declined due to workload.  (I’ve been backstage working on the monthly online Salons, which have been sadly-underattended events with great speakers and issues — and yes they’ve been advertised — plus I’m also on LITA Forum 2009 and the ALA Task Force on Electronic Meeting Participation.)

I’m not majorly bugged that the Youtube opportunity is only open to ALA members or that the contributions can’t be anonymous.   I don’t recall any of my peers complaining when CNN limited its Youtube debate submissions to (non-anonymous) U.S. voters (an unwritten rule, but one observed nonetheless).

I can see the possible value of opening the debate to ALA non-members, but the decision just wasn’t that tragic. These non-members with burning library issues could always make their videos and promote them anyway, which would be an interesting counter-debate.  (They don’t even have to wait for a debate to do this.)

Besides, what would an “anonymous” YouTube film look like? Hand puppets? Mr. Bill? (”Budgets slashed, oooooooooh noooooo!”) Anyone who really had a burning question they couldn’t ask themselves could always find a friend willing to do it. I’ve fronted questions for people in all kinds of situations.

Do I have a peeve? Yes.  The instructions are on a web page that leads to a link on another web page that links to an (anonymous!) PDF that appears to be preliminary instructions… rather puzzling that the first web page promises “more” instructions, and that the second web page links to old material. But compared to the brouhaha on the first day of hotel registration for Annual, not so bad.

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I was told this was the “hard” direction — coming back to the U.S. from Australia. It hasn’t been too rough — though I wake up feeling as if I’ve been nailed to the bed — which makes me wonder if I ever really switched over. We jostled our way across so many time zones I think my body plumb gave up trying to adjust.

(Do astronauts get jet lag?)

No srsly, not to be missed!

The big thing I want to share is that this Friday, November 21,  there will be yet another one-hour online ALA Connections Salon. This one is hot as a pistol: it’s “Political Connections,” featuring the charming and well-spoken Emily Sheketoff, associate executive director of ALA’s Washington Office, and Vic Klatt, ALA’s political consultant and former staff director of the House Education and Labor Committee.

It’s online, 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. EST Friday, Nov. 21, 2008. Come one, come all!

From the blurb:

“Online Programming for All Libraries (OPAL) Coordinator Tom Peters will begin the hour with an interview with Sheketoff and Klatt. Both professionals will talk about President-Elect Obama’s Administration, the new Congress and what these changes in Washington portend for libraries during a period—a year, a term and beyond—marked by extraordinary challenges.

“Following the interview, participants will be free to ask questions and engage with Sheketoff, Klatt and with one another to discuss the promise and perils of a moment when, as President-Elect Obama said in his victory speech, “there’s so much more to do.”

If you’re a first-time user of OPAL, here’s a webpage containing basic information and tips.

But for now, I’m up very early tomorrow for a meeting in Warner Robins (4 hours north), so I’m taking it very easy and old-ladyish tonight, doing a little work blogging and uploading hundreds of photos to both my personal and work accounts while soup simmers on the stove.

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I will never get this written if not now, so here ’tis.

A lot went right at ALA. I saw many friends, sat on many committees where Things Were Accomplished (including a meeting for LITA Forum 2009 that my awesome friend Zoe wrapped up in an hour!), did some fun booth demos (including one where someone who shall not be named paraded back and forth in the aisle in front of me in a bright blue boa, causing me to snicker uncontrollably at strange moments). worked an exhibit booth for the what, four hours I was not in meetings or in programs, and had many hugs/cab rides/refreshing beverages/meals, including with Steve, Millie, another Steve, the Nameless Gang who know who they are, Amazing Kate Sheehan, the well-spoken and thoughtful Tim “I really don’t CARE what librarians think of me” Spalding, one of my favorite former NYLA peeps, and other folk.

Two of my programs went quite well; the Ultimate Debate was well-attended (even though the Hyatt was not in Anaheim but Santa Cruz, based on the walk) and we were in top form (that’s one of the few audios of myself I can listen to), and my talk on Monday to the LITA Next-Gen Catalog IG about open source went fine, plus I got to sit next to Amy Kautzman who is just a hoot.

On the minus side, first, what were we doing in Anaheim, again? It was all ersatz California, mediocre food, and a “family hotel” experience, immortalized on Twitter, that began with an encounter with Cruella Daville at the front desk and remained at best overpriced mediocrity.

The library press noted that conference attendance, at 22,000, was better than New Orleans in 2006. Um, yeah, attendance was better than when (during the height of hurricane season) some of us gamely trooped to a city that had recently been devastated by a natural disaster, but not as good as the 28,000 who went to D.C. in 2007, which is a city oriented around business travel and perfect for conferences.

A telling moment was a cabby who asked, “How come you people didn’t bring family members?” Because it’s a business meeting, that’s why.

But then there was Top Tech Trends, deservedly panned in the press and the Biblioblogosphere as a minor techno-disaster.

This is the point where (with a little shame) I will emphasize something people do not understand. The Trendsters who sit on the panel do not make decisions. They just show up. We Trendsters, in a way, like your hapless library users, or even the majority of library workers, who don’t select the technology, but have to live with it.

My take on technology is that with sufficient shortchanging of planning and implementation, any technology, no matter how simple, can be made to spectacularly fail. It is o.k. to experiment with technology and to get some things wrong. But really, it is a far, far better thing to give technology the effort it’s due, because far too many people will blame the technology and not the implementation.

If you want to try a blended presentation, bringing in people online, here are my suggestions:

* Start with basic deliverables and minimum configurations. For example, a reasonable goal is that the technology can only happen if you can maintain reasonable lighting levels. If you think it was odd not being able to see the panelists (we were likened to the Witness Protection Program), think what it was like to be up there and to stare out into a well of darkness.

* Test everything well in advance and think about the environment you’ll be in. Someone commented that you don’t know the environment in a conference room until you get there. But you can always control for a few things, and heavens, we’ve all been to conferences before.

The Midwinter TTT featured a chat panel with fonts that couldn’t be resized — something that would have quickly shown up in testing. The Annual TTT, which wasn’t much worse that Midwinter but was simply on a grander scale, featured enormous screens floating with disembodied, blurry heads at strange angles. I really don’t know if Sarah realizes that we spent an hour and a half looking up her nostrils, or that Karen Coombs had a distracting bright light behind her suggesting the Rapture was imminent (”I can SEE open source in the distance! Come to me baby!”)

Any complex technology plan pulled together at the last minute is a big ol’ recipe for FAIL, which is too bad. TT suffered from the failure of many small details (the bright light behind one speaker, the muzzy audio, the lighting) and yet added together… Crash. Burn.

* Focus on one or two technologies and do them well. Bringing in not one but two people online, flipping screens between Skype chat and Twitter, etc. — there was a muchness to it like a stew overloaded by too many ingredients, particularly without testing.

* Don’t let non-technical issues kill technical implementations. One reason TTT wasn’t as fun as the Debate was that there were 11 of us at TTT — far too many. We can’t do the fun stuff, arguing and back-and-forthing, if we have just enough time to give a spiel. For example, Cliff said some of our trends weren’t “new” trends and I really wanted to dispute that — on both counts — because a trend can be a long time emerging, and besides, some of them were quite new. But honestly, we had no time. That was simple math: 90 minutes divided by 11 people. Manage the wetware.

Some of the complaints are more LibraryLand. I have been to tech conferences where IRC backchannels are really common. I sometimes think we’re like those tribes that haven’t been exposed to technology. “Oooooh, there’s a chat channel and people talking at the same time!” Um, yeah. We also use tools made from metal; get over it. But if that’s just too hard for library types, take the chat off the screens and keep it on the laptops for the people who have seen mirrors and so forth and won’t faint when confronted with More Than One Thing To Do.

Maybe ALL the Trendsters need to be fired and the committee needs to be canned and we need to start over. Just a thought. I actually offered that up to Andrew. I am loathe to quit myself on my own because I feel we just started to get good female representation on Trends, after my being up there on my own for years. But I’d agree to retire if it meant we could redo the Trends — not just the heads on the stage, but the works behind the process.

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So Sandy’s car is kaput (of course, since she’s temporarily between jobs — isn’t that how it works?) and I am going to bequeath her my trusty Honda Civic and get a new-to-me set of wheels. Probably not brand-new. I’m thinking a gently-used Prius or Mini-Cooper — exactly what I was thinking these last few months when I told myself that it wasn’t a good time to buy a new(er) car. But now it is, because this isn’t a walking/bus town, so we can’t share a car.

The last time I bought a car was 1998. It was my Civic, then almost five years old, and I vaguely remember using newspaper classifieds. It’s 2008 (in case you hadn’t noticed), and I have no idea how to buy a car. I suspect it has something to do with The Internets, which through a series of tubes process new and used cars which then extrude into sundry communities across the U.S.

At least that’s my first guess. If you have suggestions, I’m all ears. I’ve heard it might be the season for rental agencies to sell their cars. I’d like to cut to the chase and ask Avis to sell me the green Prius I keep renting here in Tallahassee, because I love that car.

I admit to being a teensy bit excited about the idea of a new (to me) car. My Civic is a superb little vehicle that has treated me well all these years. I love driving it, it’s been easy to maintain, and it has Been Places. (New Jersey, New York, California, and now Florida — plus it traveled Route 66 in 2001, when we moved to NorCal.)

But even though it’s not the financially easiest time for us to get new(er) wheels, I do keep thinking about the features in the cars I drive when I rent. Even the incredibly stripped-down budget car I rented in Boston two weeks ago (hello, manual windows and locks!) had two accessory outlets and cupholders. Yes, shallow, but my cup-holders have never worked (they were an early model…), and on a five-hour drive I like a place to park my diet root beer. I am even a little tiddly over the idea of a car in which I could unlock the driver’s side without opening my door and pressing a button. Little things, things that I have chosen to live without, but now that Moderne Automotiveness beckons to me… well, I am tempted.

Naturally, this thread segues into the work of the ALA Task Force on Electronic Meeting Participation.

We on the Task Force completed a survey last month, and though I haven’t gone over the data yet, a quick peekaroo indicates that a lot of us love ALA dearly, but we do think we’re ready for an upgrade. We don’t want to leave ALA; I’ve said earlier, if we tried to form a library organization, it would end up looking a lot like ALA. But we do want to see our dear old association get a makeover.

We want to be able to fully participate in the work of the association without expanding our carbon footprint to the size of Bigfoot’s.

We want our work to be seamless.

We want ALA to stop distinguishing between “virtual” members and other members (and to stop punishing librarians who choose to participate electronically), because in this day and age, we’re ALL virtual members.

We want ALA to support our virtual efforts and to stop pretending that a meeting is more “open” if it’s face-to-face, even if it costs thousands of personal dollars to travel to.

We want ALA to be accessible to all.

We want to be part of ALA, unencumbered.

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I seem to bring something to hem to every ALA conference. This time, ALA Annual 2008, it’s a lovely lightweight pair of khaki slacks (Ann Taylor Loft Petites). I am presenting 7 times at this conference — four demos in the Equinox booth (that’s Booth 1888!) — and then at three ALA programs. Open source! Evergreen! Equinox! Hoo-ah!

You will get to know these slacks well, because I brought one carry-on suitcase with one pair of slacks, two skirts, and several blouses. If I repeat an outfit on Tuesday be so kind as to overlook that, would you please?

And remember: if you spill anything on me at ALA, you need to take me shopping immediately. AND hem my new pants.

The other thing that happens at ALA is I overbook myself. I will propose times with one friend, and then another will approach me with an event, and then as wires cross and messages fly, I find myself with complicated double-bookings. A part of me really believes I can make it all happen, and time doesn’t work that way.

Then there is the really, really bad thing I do: I fail to write down what I’m doing, and then I forget the details. I merrily agreed to dine with a colleague (at least one colleague) on Monday night. I remember making the arrangements. I remember thinking, I am so happy I can catch up with so-and-so. I remember planning to add it to the calendar. I remember one friend saying “you need to update your calendar — REMEMBER?” And I curled my lip and laughed. Because who would forget their dinner date?

Me, that’s who. Are you my Monday dinner date? (Update: I checked my email, and dear friend J had wisely prodded me last week. “We’re still on, right?” So I take it I’m transparent to my friends.)

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I hope to see you at ALA, either at Booth 1888 or Somewhere.

I zoomed back from ATL with a new $10 toy in my car — an auto accessory-outlet 3-way splitter I bought at Fry’s. (Fry’s! Oh joy! Fry’s!) So now when I go to and from MPOW — and scoot around Georgia, saying hi to Evergreen sites — I can plug in my GPS and listen to nerdy podcasts on my iPod and (when I bring it) plug in my thermoelectric cooler, stuffed with amazing Atlanta goodies!

Not only that, but by stupidly plugging in a charger backwards I bent two pins in my iPod’s butt-hole (as Sandy so elegantly phrases it) then managed to straighten them out with a dressmaker’s pin I had in my suitcase. I suspect the pins are now weak… the iPod is only 18 months old. Equipment These Days. But it felt good to know that I knew how to straighten a pin, by gum.

Fry’s! Trader Joe’s! Civilization! Yes, there’s far more than that to my new gig — like feeling instantly useful and valued, and even very busy and already behind (presentation? Um, right! I will have one!). Which as some of you know,  is just how I like it.

One more hour of packing, then it’s an hour in front of the idiot box and a few restless hours of sleep. See you in Anaheim — and if not there, friends, our paths will cross!

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On Thursday I had an annoying but minor crick in my left shoulder (no, not radiating pain — just a definite discomfort around my neck, collarbone, and scapula). I thought it would go away on its own, based on my experience with other cricks and creaks. On Friday I woke up at 6 a.m. and shouted out in pain when I tried to roll over (it didn’t bother Sandy, as she was at a meeting several states away).

So my nice boss drove me to a nice doctor (since it helps whilst driving if you can move your head from side to side) who prescribed some nice meds for this strained/pulled muscle thingy — it happened at discus practice; o.k., o.k., you want the truth… it’s probably from falling asleep crooked — and since then I’ve been nicely non compos mentis.

(The doctor was very pleased that I presented him with a printout of the part of the back where it was hurting, and pulled out an anatomy book to show me the muscles he believes are involved.)

I had various long posts swirling in my head last week, but I experienced these past three days as if I were driving in very dense fog: my brain slowed to a crawl, and until this afternoon I couldn’t make sense of anything farther than a few yards from my nose. I’m not doing the heavy meds any more (goodbye, purple haze!), and I’m feeling MUCH better, thank you, but I’m a wee bit tired and therefore in kind of a slothful catch-up mode.

So here are a few tidbits:

Sylvia Plath’s library on LibraryThing. Now you can enter books into LibraryThing from beyond the grave! They call it MortisThing. No, not really — but the most excellent “I See Dead People[’s Books]” project has expanded to include some women writers. I share two books with Plath — Middlemarch and A Room of One’s Own.

Heightened interest in OpenID. I am so not a software developer, but I humbly observe that while Shibboleth may theoretically be the perfect single-sign-on protocol, OpenID is apparently the protocol organizations can and do implement.

Virtual Kissing Booth. Tell your kissing story at the Culture Scout blog; the best entry gets a free copy of The Dictionary of Love.

Techsoup’s MaintainIT project has just issued a new (free!) cookbook, Recipes for a Five-Star Library. Why not print and bind a couple of copies for the favorite small library in your life? Topics include wireless, print and time management, and laptop checkout programs.

Without (visible) muss or fuss, PLA is proposing a bylaws change that would establish communities of practice (similar to LITA interest groups), downsize the PLA Board, eliminate the Executive Committee, and provide methods for virtual participation. What — they aren’t waiting for an ALA Task Force to issue a report? They aren’t asking permission? Hmmm, this Internet thing is really catching on. I hear tell LITA is closely observing PLA.

PLA is also holding its first virtual conference. LibrarianInBlack has written about it; my take is different. PLA needs to flesh out the program descriptions better (names, we want names!), but on the actual format, I think they’re on track. There has to be a reason that some of the highest-tech conferences I’ve attended, such as Defrag, do not attempt to merge analog and digital, especially at this, PLA’s first foray. (I don’t mean taping or podcasting live presentations, but attempting to mingle physical and digital attendance. If someone can spell out a model for this that is financially reasonable and also delivers a good product, let’s go get rich on it.) At $200 for two days of sessions, if PLA can deliver the goods (like I said… we want names!), it’s a pretty darn good deal.

PLA + Open Source, sittin’ in a tree: Equinox, the software support company for Evergreen, will be at the PLA conference (hey, love your spiffy new website!), as will LibLime, the company that supports Koha. N.b. The last time I discussed Evergreen I got a cranky response suggesting I was on the take (read the comments). Just a hunch: that comment didn’t come from the open source community.

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“‘ “I find the comparison between civil rights based on race and supposed new rights being granted for what amounts to deviant behavior to be really kind of ridiculous. There is no comparison. A black as a person does not by being black harm anyone. Gay rights is a collective delusion that’s being attempted. And the idea of ‘gay marriage’ — it’s hard to find a ridiculous enough comparison.’” — Orson Scott Card

The latest post-conference mishagosh comes to us courtesy of the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA), which gave this year’s Margaret A. Edwards Award to Orson Scott Card for his works, Ender’s Game (1985) and Ender’s Shadow.

If you know anything about Card’s views about homosexuality — or about the Edwards award,which “recognizes an author’s work in helping adolescents become aware of themselves and addressing questions about their role and importance in relationships, society, and in the world” — that’s like the Anti-Defamation League giving Bobby Fisher a lifetime achievement award.

In all fairness to the committee, if they had asked the general question “what do we know about Orson Scott Card” (and whether you think the committee should have done that is open for discussion; I say yes, that’s due diligence), it would have taken some effort to uncover Card’s virulent homophobia, and you’d almost have to be looking for it.

A Google search for Orson Scott Card (10 results per page) lists 9 neutral or positive sites about OSC. I had to get to get to the 10^th link to read a Salon article (by Donna Minkowitz, a lesbian, no less) in which the author notes on the first page, “But I’d somehow failed to ascertain that Card was a disgustingly outspoken homophobe.”

(Note: the spell-check in WordPress doesn’t even recognize “homophobe” as a word. Then again, it also doesn’t recognize “WordPress.”)

The real damage is in that bastion of impartiality, Wikipedia. Card’s Wikipedia article barely references his opinions about homosexuality, and only in an external link; to get a fuller story, you’d have to go to the Talk page and then look for it. You certainly won’t find Card’s own words on the topic, which include:

Laws against homosexual behavior should remain on the books, not to be indiscriminately enforced against anyone who happens to be caught violating them, but to be used when necessary to send a clear message that those who flagrantly violate society’s regulation of sexual behavior cannot be permitted to remain as acceptable, equal citizens within that society.

Dudes and dudettes, that’s hard-core! Even most “compassionate conservatives” don’t speak that directly, not even when they agree with Card.

But if you read this blog you know I have written that Wikipedia often seems more like a Secret Treehouse Club than everyone’s encyclopedia. Card’s Wikipedia page isn’t a biography, it’s an encomium by true believers who maintain fierce control over Card’s myth.

As for Bobby Fisher, his Wikipedia page references Fisher’s anti-Semitism. Despite all the babble on Card’s Talk page, if there’s a consistent rule about what can be said about an author, I’ll be damned if I can figure out what it is.

Besides, as someone said on one mailing list, short of saying gays should be trucked to death camps, homophobic comments by famous people don’t warrant sustained attention in the public sphere. This tsuris only occasioned a strong article in School Library Journal and mild back-pedaling from the awards committee, who said that they hadn’t researched Card prior to this award (I cringe when “information professionals” say things like that) and furthermore — ladies and gentlemen, prepare to hoist an eyebrow or two — “personal views aren’t part of the selection criteria.”

In terms of who we as a profession honor as an association — or in terms of any work effort — we need to make clear-eyed choices. We don’t get a lot of choices in our lifetime, really, not for awards, or books to read, or people to love. Card took up time and energy that could have been directed to someone else. It wasn’t intentional, but what’s done is done.

Oh well. Next year in Jerusalem.

If the award did any good, it is this: many more librarians know the truth about Orson Scott Card.

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Mild post updates:

First, if you are attending Midwinter and want to see the LITA Trendsters in action, it’s Sunday, January 13, 2008, 8-10 a.m., LOEWS Congress B. The session will be recorded, but we’re so much more fun f2f.

Second, under interoperability/open data I’d add NISO’s ballot item to establish a working group on serial knowledge bases. Kudos also to NISO for being so open about its documents and processes.

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I had to miss LITA’s Top Tech Trends panel at Annual 2007, so it has been a full year since I have really engaged those rusty parts in my brain. And what a year it has been!

Hardware is becoming smaller, larger, and wider. TVs, laptops, and iPhones are now designed around 16 x 9 — a display shift gently pushing its way through our culture. Meanwhile, the cell phone is that “ubicomp” (ubiquitous computing) device talked about twenty years ago, while HDTVs keep getting bigger and cheaper; the 32″ we bought last year looks positively petite. (Thanks to Richard Madaus, the Boss of Bosses at My PLace Of Work, for pointing out the 16×9 phenom.)

The path to interoperability

For the I-Heart-Standards crowd, we had several interesting pops that point to a possible trend. It only took two years for SUSHI to debut, which is like a nanosecond in the standards community. Also, the NCIP discussions may or may not lead to fruition, but I like how they are trying to build in flexibility.

A very smart co-worker has been observing for a while that LibraryLand needs an “ISWN” — an ISBN that colocates items at the work level. Apparently great minds think in parallel: by mid-2008 several large publishers are planning to implement ISTC — the International Standard Text Code — which is an ISBN-like number that collocates items at the expression level.

This NISO-approved standard does what xISBN attempts to do but much more cleanly: as it says on Laura Dawson’s wiki, ISTC “identifies the intellectual property that could be manifested in any number of ISBNs. For example, the book ‘Moby Dick, Or the Whale’ would be identified with an ISTC; the Bantam edition, the Barnes & Noble edition, the Signet edition, the Norton Critical edition would each be assigned a different ISBN.”

Not only that, but as Dawson explains, the ISTC goes even farther: “ISTCs are not limited to books. They can be assigned to poems, articles, essays, short stories – any written work. So an ISTC can identify the poem ‘Lady Lazarus’ by Sylvia Plath, and another ISTC can identify the collection ‘Ariel’ in which it appears. A third ISTC can identify the unedited ‘Ariel’ collection that includes poems the original publication did not.”

This has so many possibly wonderful implications my head is exploding — the smallest of which is that finally, I could add single essays and short stories to LibraryThing. In any event, it’s interesting that such a key standard has bubbled up so quietly and yet in parallel with the ideas brewing in the brains of other smart people.

Open the door, see all the data

Design concepts such as open source and service-oriented architecture continue to mature, and these ideas percolate in new and interesting ways, such as:

• Evergreen’s success in Georgia and continued growth
• Continued success for Koha
• WoGroFuBiCo’s recommendation to put authorities on the Web

In winning its first public-access mandate, SPARC made AAP throw a clot, and I admit enjoying the spectacle. Who will win in the short run may not matter as much as who wins in the long run — and the the open-access crowd (largely) seems to grasp that right now it’s about hearts and minds. I warn the open access crowd to walk lightly in this area and be respectful of disciplines where mandating open access would be counterproductive. “‘Shoot if you must this old gray head, but I get paid for my work,’ she said.”

To open source and access you can add, “open data.” Profession-wide, we’re asking the right questions — are we best served by a model where our de facto network catalog data is proprietary? — and the conversations about open data knowledge bases are also heartening. Even more interesting is that discussions that would have been pooh-poohed a decade ago now have serious traction.

Some LibraryLand types actually understand the phrase “service oriented architecture.” For those who don’t, Eric Schnell spelled it out for us in a fabulous five-part series. Go Er-ic! Go Er-ic!

One interesting phenom, first observed with Endeca’s penetration of the library market, is that librarians appear more open to non-library software. Two non-library software products, Jive and LivePerson, have passed the selection process for large virtual reference networks, and AskOntario will debut its LivePerson-based VR service on January 15. Jive is based on Jabber, an open source product, demonstrating that all roads lead to London.

Overall librarians appear somewhat savvier about software selection. Maybe it’s just who I speak with, but increasingly I engage with colleagues who are familiar with terms such as as “deliverable,” “critical path,” “stage-gate,” and “project management.” Awareness of user needs is also on the rise.

Blogging is mainstream. People understand the implications of maintaining a blog, and the field is shifting to a focus on either the well-written niche blog with something new to say and specific audiences to serve, or the group blog. On LITAblog, Eric Lease Morgan talked about the “abandoned” blogs, but I’d focus on the blogs that have become very big.

The LibraryThing for Libraries service points to a growing awareness that population density is key for social networking, that simply adding a tagging function to OPACs is not adequate, and that libraries are small and the Web is large, which is a strategically healthy point of view. This ties into experiments such as WorldCat Local, which is designed around luring library users from the wild and placing library services squarely in the user’s web workflow.

Ships That Sailed By

I noted in July that not one but two libraries in Arizona had implemented BISAC identifiers (the subjects established by the Book Industry Standards Group), one for their physical organization and the other for their OPAC’s facets. Some folks really got their shorts in a bunch over this, and the PUBLIB discussion list appears to harbor quite a few Dewey fundamentalists (leading to my other conclusion, which is that the old-style massive discussion list may be on the way out).

One boat we have pretty much missed as a profession is mobile device compatibility. By the time most of us catch up with it, it won’t be needed any more. Can’t win ‘em all.

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Mary Ghikas, ALA wonk, once again put out an amazzzzzzzzzzzzing guide to ALA Midwinter. Must reading! I found it thanks to Aaron Dobbs’ post to several ALA lists, and may I remind you he’s running for ALA Council and I’m supporting him.

On the ALA wiki page linking to Mary’s report I also saw the following good advice from the Task Force on the Environment — I’m going to follow suit.

The Task Force on the Environment of the Social Responsibilities Round Table (TFOE-SRRT) wants conference goers to bring their favorite traveling mugs and water bottles in support of efforts encouraging the American Library Association (ALA) to reduce its carbon footprint. TFOE will launch this event at the upcoming ALA 2008 Midwinter Meeting in Philadelphia from January 11-14, 2008. The title of this campaign is “Cup by Cup for a Greener ALA.”

The campaign will show that ALA members are ready to make lifestyle changes for sustainable conferences and to protect the health of the Earth.

The math is simple. A typical ALA Midwinter draws over 10,000 librarians to its 2000+ business meetings, discussion groups, programs, and events. If every librarian attending Midwinter brought their own coffee cup more than 10,000 paper or Styrofoam cups would not enter already over-flowing landfills.

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