Tag Archives: American Library Association

Comparing the Library of Congress to Wal-Mart

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Surely the news from last week about some Congressmen unfavorably comparing the Library of Congress to the likes of Wal-Mart and UPS was one of the stupidest things I have ever read. I was genuinely shocked by the level of ignorance and, well, stupidity…shown by Rep. Vernon Ehlers (R-Mich.) and Rep. Dan Lungren (R-Calif.), when they made statements like the following:

“You might be well advised to consult with Wal-Mart or Target who track inventory every day.”

and

“If UPS can track millions of items a day and not have a 10 percent loss, why can’t you?”

I mean, are these people for real???? Here is a link to an excellent post by Matt Raymond at the Library of Congress that thoroughly and completely exposes the whole tempest-in-a-teapot for the farce that it was: http://www.loc.gov/blog/?p=207.

In that same blog post there is discussion about the current ALA president, James Rettig, and his comments to Congress about what he sees as major deficiencies with recent changes in cataloging and so forth. Here is part of what he stated that the Library of Congress needed to do:

“…require the Library of Congress to consult broadly and meaningfully with the library community, including organizations central to bibliographic control, regarding all future decisions to substantively modify the character and quantity of bibliographic records”

Good grief. What on earth does he think LC has been doing? And has always done?! I can (barely) grasp that Congressmen might be ignorant but for someone at the highest levels of librarianship in this country to make such dumb statements is, in my opinion, inexcusable. Even worse to my mind was that many of my librarian colleagues cheered him on. It’s yet another reason I am so thankful that I no longer belong to the American Library Association (as if I needed any more reasons).

Maybe I’m just being grumpy

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Marc Meola from ACRLog writes about the Wall St. Journal article on LibraryThing. What stood out to me in his post was the phrase “Maybe I’m just being grumpy…” I am glad he wrote that, admitting that sometimes we who blog can sometimes just be in a particularly negative frame of mind. That is often my problem, too. For instance when I wrote about a panel discussion at the American Library Association conference a while ago, I think I must have been in a particularly grumpy mood. I reread that post now and cringe a bit. All of this is just to lead up to a point that has been made umpteen times before, and that is, that it really pays to think carefully about the tone of one’s remarks before hitting that Publish button.

…and these people expect to be taken seriously?! [Updated]

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This afternoon I read a report of some kind of panel discussion at the American Library Association between three well known and highly visible librarians on the issue of “who controls the future of search.” Things were fairly ok up until I read the following statements:

“stephen: in the battle of the river and the rock, the river wins

joe: that’s deep”

These people expect to be taken seriously? Puhlease. I’m so glad I wasn’t present because otherwise I think I wouldn’t have been able to suppress a loud guffawed at this point in the conversation. Mind you, I realize that the quote above is taken out of context and that if I had been there I might have taken it differently. Go read the whole report on this conference session if interested. I am becoming increasingly intolerant of talking heads who spout their own particular brand of evangelism to an increasingly dimwitted and befuddled flock of sheep, er, librarians.

[Updated June 25, 2006: I found two other writeups of this same session for comparison. Check them out here and here.]

Yet another bungled ALA initiative

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This is the last post of the evening, I swear. I have made clear my problems with the American Library Association (ALA) in the past, and these problems stem from what I have seen from the inside, having actively participated in ALA and attended many, many ALA conferences over the years. Recently ALA began publishing a somewhat glitzy, heavily graphics oriented email newsletter called American Libraries Direct. I’ve read that some other librarian bloggers have trashed it but my initial thought was something like, “Hm, not bad. At least they are making some attempt at technological relevance.”

However when I perused today’s edition, in the ALA News section, my eyes were drawn to a blurb stating something about “ALA Recruitment Assembly launches recruitment website.” I then read more about the new site, www.librarycareers.org, and how it is focused initially on providing information on why and how to become a librarian and will soon be expanded to provide links to available jobs in librarianship. This really bothered me. Why? Because there are at least three excellent, well known, and widely used websites already out there that cover most if not all of the same territory as this ALA creation! These include Rachel Singer Gordon’s LISJobs.com, Priscilla Shontz’s LIScareer.com, and www.libraryjobpostings.org, maintained by Sarah Johnson and Rachel Singer Gordon. To be fair, some of these are mentioned in the www.librarycareers.org site. But still, my perspective is, why should ALA waste their efforts (and money) on reinventing the wheel? Why didn’t they or couldn’t they reach out to these well known, librarian operated sites and offer to partner in some way with them?

With the money they could have saved by doing this, maybe they could have put more effort into improving their horrible website.

It’s late, I’m probably overly grumpy, and I need to go to sleep.

Ross Atkinson dies

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Yesterday I was saddened by the news that Ross Atkinson, Associate University Librarian at Cornell, had died. I never met him but I’ve read many of his writings, so my view of him is definitely second hand at best. My opinion is that Ross was one of the most important thinkers regarding libraries, collections, and acquisitions of the past several decades. I thoroughly enjoyed his writing style, his deep and sometimes provocative thoughts, and his perspectives on important issues. One of his articles (Toward a Redefinition of Library Services” (In Virtually Yours. Chicago, ALA, 1999; p. 3-21)Find in My Library) is a required introductory reading to the course I teach and it invariably sparks a lot of discussion. Other articles or writings of his are also part of the course. If you don’t know much about him or are interested in his writings, I highly recommend that you find a copy of Community, Collaboration, and Collections: the Writings of Ross Atkinson published in 2005 by the American Library Association. Here is the complete citation in Chicago Manual of Style format:

Atkinson, Ross, Robert Alan, and Bonnie MacEwan. Community, Collaboration, and Collections : The Writings of Ross Atkinson. Chicago: Association for Library Collections & Technical Services, 2005.Find in My Library

A public park for your brain

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Quote “overheard” from an excellent blog called It’s All Good, derived from notes jotted down during a live symposium sponsored by OCLC at the American Library Association’s Midwinter Meeting (known as ALA Midwinter). The full quote was “It’s like a public park for your brain” and this statement was made by one of the presenters in the context of discussing the importance of libraries.

A friend lands an interesting job

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ALA | ALA Editions names Bloss RDA Project Manager

I was pleased to see that a friend of mine, Marjorie Bloss, has landed an interesting job at the American Library Association. She will be spearheading development of a new standard for digital environments called Resource Description and Access (RDA). I was previously unaware of the development of this new standard, which shows how “out of it” I have been these past few years. Congratulations, Marjorie!

Yet another anti-blog statement by a “librarian” (Updated)

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[Update: I feel obligated to add a bit more to my posting on this topic. See changes/additions in brackets below.]

I haven’t joined the hundreds (thousands?) of others who commented negatively on Michael Gorman’s well-publicized anti-blogging diatribe a few months back[, until now.] I know [just] enough about him and his background to not be surprised by anything he has to say. I am just about as anti-ALA (American Library Association) as you can get. The fact that this guy is that organization’s incoming president is more proof (not that I needed any) of its need for reform. There are some areas of ALA that are notable exceptions such as LITA, but my experience after having been involved in a number of areas for years has been [pretty] negative.

As an aside, the recent angry row in ALA Council over the “audacity” of giving Laura Bush an honorary award is yet more proof that this organization is [dysfunctional]. Yes, I am conservative in my views in general, which automatically places me on the extreme fringe of librarianship. However, even librarians from the more liberal side who are heavily involved in ALA (see here and here) have figuratively rolled their eyes over this.

I heard today (see link above) about an editorial written by Blaise Cronin, dean of the library school at Indiana University, that criticizes blogs and bloggers in much the same dismissive tone as that used by Gorman. This is another guy whom I’ve never taken a liking to, although unlike Gorman, I know next to nothing about him other than that he tends to be controversial. If I were an Indiana student, alum, or faculty member, I’d really be cringing right now.

[I should make it clear that this is not a knee-jerk reaction to any criticism of a form of communication that I like and benefit from. Actually, I don't object to criticisms of blogs and blogging. There are problems or weaknesses that reasonable persons can see with this mode of communication and publication, so there is a grain of truth or substance to some of the criticisms I've read. What I do object to, though, is the over-generalization to which many critics like Gorman and Cronin seem prone, as well as the rather arrogant and dismissive tone that tends to be used. Sure, blogging is faddish right now, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be taken seriously or that it doesn't have value. A recent online article I first heard about at It's All Good, published by Knowledge@Wharton, made a good point (among others) when it stated that while blogging almost certainly will lose some of its current trendiness, blogs will "continue to be disruptive to traditional media."

Blogs, to me, are a true "killer app" -- an indispensible way for me to keep more readily informed about what's going on in areas that interest me. Knowledge is power and blogs, even with their inherent biases or singular points of view, are an incredibly valuable resource that helps me do my job better just about every day.]

ALA = Democratic Party

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I had a thought yesterday as I was struggling to articulate what pains me so much about the American Library Association (ALA) these days, especially as I read about the special screening of Michael Moore’s latest movie and Richard Clarke’s keynote address at ALA Annual in Orlando. There is absolutely no attempt at objectivity or even-handedness that I can see in these (and other) “progressive” moves on ALA’s part. Why do I dislike ALA so much? Well, how long do you have to read the litany of reasons ;-) I articulate some of those reasons below after having been very active in at least two major sections of ALA (LITA and ALCTS) for a number of years, after dealing with ALA Publishing and also participating in a search process to fill a position within ALA. In other words, these are not just the views of an uninformed outsider, but one who has participated and been involved. I also make these statements realizing that they are generalities, there are exceptions, as always.

Anyway, back to the thought I had: ALA is much like the traditional Democratic Party. It is an attempt to be all things to all people, which falls so far short of the mark, it’s ridiculous, due in no small measure to the litany of special interests that control and influence it. It is a bloated, overly expensive organization that, in my opinion and in my experience, fails to deliver real value to its members. It has some basic societal ideals that are laudable and good (freedom to read, equal access for all, and many others), but it never seems to truly deliver on its promises. It gets so caught up in “social responsibility” issues, rabid defense against what it terms censorship, and left wing radical agendas that it tends to miss the boat entirely when it comes to confronting and dealing with many important library issues such as funding, professional development, and others.

I decided a couple of years ago to call it quits. I did not renew my membership. I couldn’t afford it anymore, I couldn’t afford to travel to ALA conferences, and I just didn’t feel right about contributing to an organization that so blatantly disregards, and even attacks, my worldview. I have many colleagues whom I admire and respect (yes, some of them are those right wing radical evangelical Christians like me whom everyone loves to pillory) who continue to maintain their membership in this organization. That’s ok, and maybe I’m not taking the right step on this one. Maybe there is a need to continue to try to work within the system to change it for the better. I don’t know. Maybe I’ll change my mind in the future, but for now, I’m content with being out of that scene.