Can you remember the last time anything a librarian wrote was in the Daypop Top 40? I think I'll leave Rochelle's words on the subject as the last thing I'm also thinking about all of this.

I read about this at about the same time I saw it in my RSS reader. Incoming ALA President Michael Gorman wrote an LJ opinion piece coming down hard on blogs and bloggers, quite possibly in response to some hassling he's been getting from some of of the conservative bloggers. I read about it on the Council list, and then Anna's blog, and then Karen's. There were some heated responses on the list, and Gorman's response that he was being satirical doesn't really ring true to me. I supported Gorman's ALA presidency last year and have always considered him an political ally and something of a comrade. Seeing him lash out -- whether in jest or for real -- in a way that makes him sound like he doesn't know what he's talking about disturbs and concerns me. Though the concern is more in a "will ALA ever get a clue?" way than in any "what will the fallout from this be?" way. Ugh, just ugh.

Anyone who is curious what I do at ALA Council meetings is welcome to take themselves to this URL

http://www.ala.org/ala/ourassociation/governanceb/council/councilagendas/councilagendas.htm

and follow along with the [Word] documents and three separate Council pages and see if you can follow along at home. No, I haven't been keeping this from you since early January, this page was just posted.

You have probably already seen this article about a library in Illinois who had a challenge to the [admittedly weird] movie Happiness. The library ultimately decided to keep the movie in its collection but to ditch the ALA guildelines from their policy manual for being "too liberal." I assume they were talking about the Library Bill of Rights though the ALA does have many guidelines about intellectual freedom for libraries. [libactivist]

And, speaking of laughing out loud, I present: ALA Council: The Drinking Game

- ALA referred a Workplace Speech resolution encouraging free exercise of workplace speech to legal counsel before it was voted on by council.
- ALA passed a resolution endorsing the Health Care Access Resolution.
- ALA debated a cell phone ban during ALA meetings but wound up voting it down after some amusing discussion.
- Council debated a resolution supporting lobbying to include standards for school libraries in a revised version of the expanded No Child Left Behind legislation. "If you can't beat them, we join them" according to one Councilor. Passed unanimously.

Good morning. Most of the ALA blogs have wrapped up but we've still got a few more Council meetings to go to and I'm not out of here until tomorrow. Back to work at the library on Thursday. Notable this morning is that ALA is launching a recruitment site to help bring more potential librarians into the field. I'm sure you know my position on this.

Hey there -- I'm in ALA and the escalators are off. We make jokes that it's because it's Sunday but really there was a power failure and they have to get a [union] electrician in to get the escalators going on a Sunday. Some fun. Good news is the wifi is strong and functional and useful. Come see me today at the skillshare at 1:30 in the exhibit hall. I've heard rumors that the nascent Intellectual Property task force of SRRT may be planning a program on Google [scholar/library/answers/&c.] for Annual in Chicago which I think would be excellent.

Steven's got a few pictures up from the exhibit hall, including one of me in mid-gesture at the skillshare that I will keep on my desktop as a reminder that, as much as I'd like to, I don't own my own image.

Speaking of ALA, they now have Google running their site search. This is an amazing improvement to the functionality of the site for a number of reasons: bookmarkable search results, rich search syntax, understandable familiar results. Let's hope this is a real step in the right direction of increased site usability overall.

Steven reminds me that he posted a workaround way to get ALA news via RSS while I was away.

Andrea has a wireless fyi about how to get wifi at or near ALA if you're not one of the Councilors who will [hopefully] have wifi at the conference.

Fun fact about the ALA Online Itinerary Planner, it doesn't seem to require a password, just a login with a valid email address. This means, if you know the email address of any registered conference attendee, you can look at and even alter the events in their planner.

ALA has a page up consolidating information on the damage and relief efforts for libraries following the tsunami disaster.

Start watching, it's happening: PLA Blog blogging from the ALA Midwinter conference and "The Official Blog of the Public Library Association"

Two other responses to the Boston Globe editorial, the one which strongly implied the "upcoming" librarian shortage. Meredith & Dorothea

Speaking of ALA, I have been trying to find a way to put into words the frustration I've been feeling lately with some of the things I've been trying to work through on ALA Council. Karen has summed up her feelings on some of the same issues. Most recently, we've been working on the issue of getting wireless capabilities at ALA. At the last conference, ALA splurged for wireless connections for councilors only and everyone else had to share the several dozen public access terminals in the convention center area, check email/web stuff from their hotels, or pay for access elsewhere. At other more tech-y conferences I know of, wireless access for attendees is part of the registration price. At ALA to date it hasn't even been available. Karen Schneider and I and others have been trying to push more Wifi accessibility, even if it comes at a price, just as an option. Looks like we'll have it for ALA Midwinter, again only for councilors, maybe by Annual we can have Wifi for everyone. Since all of ALA's Council discussions are public, you can read some of the more interesting comments on the wifi discussion.

- a "why wifi?" query
- my response
- a different sort of response
- an offered parable about efficiency
- Karen's offer of wifi assistance for folks who want/need it
- a response from a colleague that surprised even me with its vitriol

ALA is coming to Boston and this editorial penned by the ALA president and the Boston Public Library director talks about the library crisis. As I was driving home from work the other day I also heard a "Save Our Libraries" PSA by Bernie Mac talking about how libraries need our help. On the one hand, I think this is all great, good to get libraries off of people's back burners and into their daily consciousness. On the other hand, just like libraries are, at some real level, a local phenomena, dealing with the crisis on a national level is good for raising awareness but doesn't do much to address the specific causes of library downturns.

Are libraries doing poorly because people forgot about them? No, not mostly. Libraries are doing badly because people are having to make tough choices about where their money is going and they're chosing policemen over librarians. Libraries are having trouble because the cost of health care is going up by double digit percentages every year and you can bet that library funding is not increasing by the same amount. Libraries are having trouble because of the spiralling costs of serial subscriptions and the shady business practices of some of the former major players. Libraries are in trouble because aggressive "small goverment" advocates are hellbent on convincing people that spending public monies on them is wasteful. Librarians personally are in trouble because some of these library issues pit library vendors against library budgets and one organization -- the American Library Association -- represents the interests of both. I think ALA is doing a good job raising awareness of library issues, but I'd like to see them get to the roots of more of these problems so that we can have more open dialogue about where the money is and isn't going, and how we can realistically address that. Please also note the nod to the upcoming "librarian shortage" coming at a time when hundreds of library students can't find work and tell me how much ALA should be promoting higher library school enrollment?

There has been some discussion on the ALA Council list lately about why people go to conferences and why they don't go to conferences. As an outreach librarian who asks a lot of people why they DON'T go to the library, this question interests me. Rochelle has a little mock-up of an unofficial survey over on her blog. If you've got some feedback that you'd like to give to an ALA Councilor, head over there. If you'd like to read some of the Council back and forth, you can check out the ugly but quite functional ALACOUN list archives where surveying is discussed.

Walt Crawford is inviting those who are interested to submit reports about ALA's Midwinter conference and other programs and discussions of interest to his readership, for publication in Cites & Insights. [beyondthejob]

I'm not sure exactly what an Internet Administrator is, but ALA is hiring one. I am really really curious what this job pays, especially given the quirky description.

Don't like the ALA web site's search engine? Help them replace it with this survey page.

The ALA web site FAQ has returned after an 18 month absence. You might recall that I reported it missing in June of last year, replaced by a "how to use this new web site" faq. Of course, the handy URL http://ala.org/faq still goes someplace else. There are also a few other ALA FAQ's hanging around the site including this one which occupies the coveted FAQ position on the sidebar. Don't try looking for FAQs in the search engine [which is due to be replaced within a few months, woo hoo!] because since the word FAQ is in the footer text, a search for "FAQ" will bring up every page on the site. Councilors just got a report from ALA president Kieth Fiels about, among other things, the web site stating [emphasis mine]

This article from the Cleveland Plain Dealer gets at what I was talking about yesterday regarding inaccurate books, and includes some quotes from ALA president Carol Brey-Casiano. [link o'day]

According to ALA, the three top reasons for book challenges are: the book is “sexually explicit,” the book contains “offensive language,” or the books is “unsuited to age group.” Please note that one of the most challenged books for 2003 "Arming America: The Origins of a National Gun Culture" by Michael A. Bellesiles, was challenged for inaccuracy. A cursory amount of research will show that according to many the book has been discredited. The original publisher, when faced with the evidence against the author, ceased publication of the book. A smaller press is now re-issuing it, but in a revised edition, with a 50 page addendum. The author resigned from his university job.

Where does this leave librarians? I know this is a sticky issue. I'm just wondering if it's possible that there are appropriate reasons to challenge a book? Not a storybook about raging-hormone teens or the antebellum South, but a true book about history. A book that many, including its publisher, believe to have errors of fact and conclusions based on poor or inaccurate research. Do you keep it for historical balance? Do you include a note saying "this book has been found to be untrue in parts?" Do you include a book about the errant book, setting the record straight? This seems to be the week to talk about this. On the one hand, we as a profession defend people's rights to the privacy of what they read, and say "Just because someone is reading about bombs, it doesn't make them a bomber." on the other hand, we say that "Reading changes lives." and view every challenged book -- challenged for whatever reason -- as an injury to the profession. As usual, I have more questions than answers on this one. Oddly, the ACLUs list of the "most banned books" doesn't include Arming America while the ALA list, and their press release clearly does.

Happy [Buy] Banned Books Week. I think ALA really says it best on their Banned Books web page which, if you check the URL out in Google says

What else could your ALA membership money be used for? TangognaT explores.

Professional organizations begin to push back over the serials crisis and publishing mergers and media consolidation.

Karen shares her opinions about what ALA could be doing better with their web site, and with technology cluefulness in general. Her idea sounds like it might even be able to be implemented before the end of the year.

Michael would like to see the ALA web site have blogs. I would just like to see the site have a well-functioning search engine, not say things like "the content should be here in mid-August" in late August, and not have pages like this or this or an organizational FAQ like this. If you'd like to know what progress is being made, you can check the ALA Website Advisory Committee Documents and their list of weighted priorities and of course, the status report.

ALA's new president Carol Brey-Casciano responds to NEA's "Reading at Risk" article. Basically instead of ending with a "The NEA needs your support more than ever" note, it ends with "Libraries need your support more than ever" note. While I'm skeptical that simply funding libraries more will alleviate this problem, it certainly couldn't hurt, could it?

This week's Library Juice has some good ALA wrap-up including Councilor James Casey's report and an English translation of a paper giving some analysis of the Cuban library situation w/r/t the independent librarians.

Chuck has posted some of his impressions of the ALA Conference