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.
hug me tight, librarian
I don’t speak Portugese, but I can make out the hug me tight part of this librarian sculpture. [thanks david]
hi – 23feb
Hi. I try to update my about page every year or so. I’ve just updated it. This week also saw two checks in the mail. One from Powells for $45 or so for my yearly affiliate fees and one from my publisher with this year’s royalty check for $200 or so. Revolting Librarians Redux has now sold over 1000 copies which makes me sort of happy.
blog policy questions
Now that organizations are starting to get their own blogs, people are starting to have some of the blog-policy questions, which is something you get when trends becomes more institutionalized. Karen has been working on blog ethics for a while and her recent post discusses CLA’s new blog and their stated intent to make the blog feeds a CLA member benefit. She discusses the whole idea of member benefits which confront the more wired idea of getting and giving content for free. ALA has back issues of American Libraries as a member benefit. At my library we used to have nine public access computers but only one for non-patrons that could access email. The three other “email computers” were a patron benefit. Not only was this system not particularly useful to our patrons — many people who want Internet access at the library specifically want to check their email — but it made us, as librarians explaining the system, look like we didn’t “get technology” We had to make the computers do something that they wouldn’t do normally in order to put a barrier between what we wanted to give away for free, and what we wanted people to pay for. Similarly in the CLA case, blogs made with any current CMS have an RSS feed. Whether or not you link to it, it still exists, right?
CLA may have produced a great journal in the past; now it can produce a great blog. It will not be a great blog if only its members can access it, because what makes blogs great are their impact on society. CLA, the cluetrain has pulled into the station. Please, I beg of you: get on board.
ipod shuffle for books on tape?
If your patrons could check out books on tape loaded onto this cute little number, do you think circulation might increase? [thanks scully]