I know I’m an old-timer because when I read this post on LISNews about LII “merging” with the IPL at Drexel, my first thought was “Drexel?” I was an IPL volunteer back in 1994 or 1995 when it was still at the University of Michigan and my oldest library friends and colleagues are from there. You can see one of my early contributions on this FARQ which still gets me some email from time to time. I think of LII as blossoming under Karen Schneider’s guidance and leadership before they started doing a bad-funding tailspin and while I’m happy that the LII will continue to exist, I’m a little concerned it may lose some of its unique identity or focus. In any case, I went to the LII homepage and the IPL homepage and saw no mention of this so I guess we’ll all have to wait and see how it all shakes out.
I read something about this during this past summer, when I was taking a Search & Retreival class through Mansfield University in PA. I can’t remember where, though. . . a link perhaps buried on IPL? I didn’t feel anything one way or the other about it, but I do recall thinking, “Drexel–how smarmy, well la-dee-da, big spenders.” But that’s just my take. As long as it’s still up and running, it’s all good, but I’m obnoxiously easy to please. This could be, of course, because I keep my expectations of stuff generally so low that when something actually works and works well, I’m pleasantly surprised. This was announced, someplace, but the date on it was ages ago, and now I can’t remember where I saw it.
There’s a note in LII’s New this week posting.
Due credit and remembrance should also go out to Carole Leita, who created LII in the first place!