Thanks to Dorothea for pointing out that it’s CSS Naked Day. Simply put, you toss up your website without a stylesheet. Then you see if you can still read it and use it. Then you think about web standards and intentional usability and good web design. It’s time to show off your <body>, for a good cause. If you don’t normally look at this website through anything other than an RSS reader come check it out.
jobs I would want if I were looking for a job
I’d like to see some sort of Librarian Dream Jobs blog that had all these funky jobs like this one: “Poster Archivist. The Center for the Study of Political Graphics (CSPG) is seeking an experienced, detail-oriented professional to oversee the cataloging, preservation, and management of its unique domestic and international political poster collection.”
homeless and libraries and the high cost of perceived safety
There is a theme in today’s posts. I was contacted by a nice lady from the media asking to talk to me about homelessness and libraries, no doubt brought about by this AlterNet post (originally here) written by the retired assistant director of the Salt Lake City Public Library System. I’d seen the link earlier but read about it, and participated in some discussion, on MetaFilter. I pointed people to the American Library Association’s Library Services to Poor People policy, and encouraged a visit to ALA’s Hunger Homelessness and Poverty Task Force website which is full of resources and thoughtful discussion.
When I was in Australia I went to many urban libraries and didn’t see the same homeless populations that I do in most urban US libraries. I also saw a lot of security cameras in the libraries, on the streets, everyplace. I’m fairly certain Australia has a better social safety net than we do in the US, but it was clear that keeping a close eye on the population may be part of that, which I was reminded of by reading Aaron’s post today about cameras in London. All the cameras just made me feel … weird.
Another Federal Library Closure?
A somewhat urgent sounding post from FreeGovInfo: “[A]t a time when the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are greatly ramping up the need for evidence-based medicine in the military, the Pentagon seems to be choosing to gut their medical information resources.”
The high cost of everything
This is one post about a few disparate topics that all congeal on one issue: money. See if you can follow it around this thread.
- Brian talks about the high cost of databases. In all my thinking about what database access costs — a difficult number to really hone in on because of the bundled pricing and difficulty getting concise statistics like the ones in his post — I never thought we were talking about several dollars per session. Now Brian works in a mid-sized public library so maybe there are economies of scale with larger libraries or consortiums but still. When your patrons wonder where the money goes, you can tell them what you’re being charged for databases.
- Meredith has a crabby post about the costs and expenses associated with giving conferences and speaking at conferences. Again the real interesting part, to me, is in the comments where we find out that the TX library association is billed “$995 for a day for hard-line (internet) access for the presenters.” No that is not a typo. How does something like this happen? A thousand dollars? To plug into a wall? Unless I am missing something, this is unconscionable and library associations should immediately stop paying these extortionate fees. I realize that sometimes are hands are tied when we are purchasing services from vendors and conference service providers, but I think we can all look at that dollar amount and the service provided and say “This is too much.”
- A little tooting my own horn by association, Dan Chudnov talks about speaker’s fees and I chime in a little. I love public speaking and it helps me get the word out, but this year I’ve also started saying “no” just a little. Steve and Dorothea and Sarah also have fine posts on the topic.
My take on the speaker thing is more along the lines of Dan’s in that I don’t feel the need to speak anywhere, but I often enjoy it, get to travel a bit on my otherwise low income, and get to talk to people who haven’t heard it all before. I have fees that I consider “hassle expense” which is more compensation for travelling, getting up early, not sleeping in my own bed, and getting someone else to fill my birdfeeders. I like giving talks so much they could pay me in sand and I’d still do it, but getting on a plane to do it, that’s what I like some compensation for. This year I’m doing much more local speaking which is lower-cost from my end and less-compensated from a strictly money angle and it’s just fine with me.
I realize this doesn’t address the larger issue of people who get invited and are then asked to pay (a bad practice imo) or the weird in-state/out of state divide (also a problematic minefield) or the “we are going to invite you to give two talks in two days for us and will offer two nights hotel but we’re five hours away from your home” almost-right offers because I’m not sure what to think, honestly. It’s a diffcult issue to discuss because for every nitpicky issue I have about having to pay for my own wifi, there is someone else who is saying “hey I’d be happy to come talk and I promise to be lower maintenance and lower cost and just as interesting” and you know what, they probably can be. Until we decide what roles speakers are playing at these conferences — paid high profile talent, experience for newer professionals, skillsharing with experts, honors for esteemed colleagues — we’re going to have a hard time figuring out what people are “worth” to us.