I was surprised by how much activity there was yesterday over SOPA/PIPA.

If you’ve been following along you’ll know that SOPA/PIPA are the House and Senate versions of a bill that has been proposed in order to manage the fact that there are a lot of websites that basically help you get copyrighted content for free. I’ve spoken previously about my opposition to this legislation and I made my site “go dark” thanks to a WordPress plugin, to register my displeasure. On MetaFilter we made an interstitial clickthrough page so that everyone coming to the site would see it and would be encouraged to contact their representatives if in the US, or other actions for non-US people. And I knew other sites were doing it, most notably Reddit, but I was surprised personally at just how big it got how quickly.

And by the time I called Patrick Leahy, the guy who was actually responsible for drafting PIPA, and his Montpelier office said they were having technical difficulties and to please call the Burlington office, I knew something was up. And I spoke to a staffer who clearly thought I was some sort of “Hey the internet sent me” person, telling me “It’s not like Google says it is” and seemed surprised though maybe not pleased when I went into the details of what my objections to the law were. And I used the internet like usual, except things weren’t usual. Wikipedia was dark (read this link for some laughs). Reddit was dark. BoingBoing was dark. Cheezeburger network and Craigslist had clickthroughs. Google did a custom logo. In fact I found it a little tough to predict which sites might go dark. The Syracuse iSchool had a very well done page. ALA hadn’t done anything in the morning but thanks to a little nudging, had a message of support up in the afternoon. The protest made the news. Here’s a quick roundup of some screenshots I made, in case you missed some or all of them. And, to bring this full circle, here’s Jon Stewart talking about how this sort of thing just might drive people back to the library.

Ultimately what is interesting to me is what happened. Several legislators changed their votes (check yours here). It was interesting seeing these roll in over Twitter before turning into more official sounding statements later in the day. At last count twenty senators announced opposition to the bill this week. Check this graphic. That, to me, is sort of a big deal.

I oppose SOPA unequivocally; it’s vague, it’s anti-free-speech, and it won’t solve the problem it’s designed to combat. One of the things that is tricky about SOPA–the legislation moving through Congress that threatens to enact stiff penalties for online piracy–is the number of things you need to understand to even understand what it does. I’m very good with computers and I had to spend sometime getting my head around it. I suspect my legislators may not even understand what it means to start messing around with DNS files to essentially take a website “off the internet” if it’s found [through a not-very-confidence-inspiring process] to be hosting infringing content. The website I work for hosts almost no content but links to a lot of things and we could be mistakenly shut down for linking to people who host “illegal” content.

So, I think we need to do a few things: understand how this bill is supposed to work, be clear in our opposition to it as a profession, work with other people to inform and educate others so that people can make their own informed choices. Here is a short list of links to get you started.

• I’m usually not a huge fan of infographics. This one is a very bare-bones outline of what the key points are. Here’s a video that gives a similar explanation. This is a wordy but clear explanation of what DNS is and how it works. This video by Public Knowledge explains how the bill is moving through Congress. Here’s Stephen Colbert explaining some problems with SOPA in his humorous fashion, speaking with Johnathan Zittrain and Danny Goldberg.
• The Electronic Frontier Foundation has a very good document entitled How SOPA Affects Students, Educators, and Libraries. Here is a link to a letter from the Library Copyright Alliance expressing serious reservations about the current state of the bill. EFF’s Anti-SOPA Toolkit is a good bullet-pointed list of things you can do.
• If you use the Chrome browser you can use a plug-in like NO SOPA to see when you’re visiting a website run by a SOPA supporter. If you use Firefox, an add-on called DeSOPA has already been created that will allow the computer you are using to access the Internet to use other DNS servers that are outside of US control. I used something similar to this when I was traveling in Dubai so that I could access sites like Flickr.
• Read what other library blog writers are saying about SOPA: Eric Hellman, Peter Murray, Eric Goldman’s link wrap-up, Jimmy the Geek
• Some activist sites: AmericanCensorship.org, KeeptheWebOpen, WhiteHouse.gov anti-SOPA petition, GetYourCensorOn.

I feel that we as a profession need to be understanding this legislation and the mechanisms that it is threatening to dismantle or undermine. When big media companies who already enjoy tremendous market dominance and access to legislators and platforms for distributing their message decide they have their minds set on something, it’s important to balance the playing field.

This site deals with book censorship attempts which actually resulted in some action, even if it was later reversed.

Freedom of speech is for everyone, and includes the freedom to say “I don’t think this belongs in the library,” just as it also includes the freedom to say “sorry, but the library is for everyone in the community, including people who find this book useful” or “I can understand that you wouldn’t want your child reading books on that subject, and I can respect your opinion, but some parents do want their children reading books on that subject.”

As with last year and the year before, I tracked the libraries that I visited this year. I usually take pictures if I can. I use Daytum to track visits. The graph it produces is weird because the one big chunk is the library I work in but the other big chunk is called “twenty-four more items” which is sort of a weird way to display data. If anyone has a better lifetracker app they enjoy, please do let me know.

I went to forty-four different libraries for eighty-three visits total, I’m sure I have forgotten some. It’s a big increase over last year. Here’s the short annotated list of what I was doing in libraries last year. I have a few library photos in this Flickr photoset.

• Kimball Library, Randolph VT – this is the library where I work as an on-call part timer since I live up the street, and also where I check out books
• Hartness Library, VTC, Randolph VT – this is the good college library nearby me where anyone in the state can get a library card
• Westport, MA – the library in the town where my father lived and where I still spend a good amount of time. Great booksale.
• Fletcher Library, Ludlow VT – I was part of the e4VT program here and taught a basic skills computer class with ARRA grant money, a lovely old school library
• Ann Arbor PL, MI – gave a few talks over a few days and got to hang out here, love this place
• Milwaukee Public, WI – a library I hadn’t been to in a long time, an impressive building that maybe used to be a zoo?
• Howland Green, New Bedford MA – one of New Bedford’s “not the main library” libraries.
• Terraza PL, Austin TX – a cool little branch near where I was staying.
• UNT – Willis – got a tour, enjoyed the open spaces
• Hudson PL, MA – a small funky branch right by a river
• Chapel Hill NC – in the mall for the time being, but pretty neat for a temporary library
• Lubec, ME – lovely and small with great furniture and mosaics outside
• Central Branch, Portland OR – long been one of my favorites
• Marquette, Milwaukee WI – got a tour from a friend and saw the abandoned old entrance
• SIBL/NYPL – the best place to check email downtown
• Southworth PL, Dartmouth MA – another small branch in Southern MA
• Emily Fowler Library, Denton TX – got some local history and learned about local architecture here
• Central Branch, Austin TX – another perennial favorite – got some books for the plane
• Ryerson Library, Grand Rapids MI – an impressive library with a lot going on inside
• Pierson, Shelburne VT – underneath the town hall with a good board game collection
• Kalamazoo Public – neat and fancy, got a tour of the basement
• UNT – Eagle, Denton TX – checked out the new learning commons getting set up
• Denton North Branch, Denton TX – a weird side-of-the-highway large branch
• Kent District, Kentwood MI – neat suburban library with some cool public art and terrific views
• Bar Harbor, ME – got a tour while they were setting up for the booksale
• Lawler PL, New Bedford MA – another small New Bedford Library, sort of sad looking
• Roanoke PL, Roanoke TX – a small library doing a lot with what they had
• Twin Oaks PL, Austin TX – a fancy new little branch
• Bailey-Howe, UVM, Burlington VT – one of my faves, especially the special collections in the basement
• TWU, Denton TX – got a tour from my friend Greg and enjoyed the history and the air conditioning
• Maine State Library, Augusta ME – a great hideout after a long day conferencing
• Ransom PL, Plainwell MI – one of the little libraries we saw driving from Kalamazoo to Grand Rapids
• Kilton PL, Lebanon NH – tour from my friend Virgil! Neat new branch.
• Olin College, Needham MA – tour from the head librarian, neat materials science collections
• Alling PL, Williston VT – a small library good for checking email when on the road
• Hartland VT – my friend Mary works here!
• Allegan District Library, MI – a pretty straightforward library
• Parchment PL, MI – a diaorama of the parchment factory is hidden in the basement here
• Peabody Institute, Danvers MA – a beautiful building with a lovely landscaped grounds, nice for hanging out
• Putney PL, Putney VT – warm and small with a lot going on for a teeny place
• New Bedford PL, New Bedford MA – beautiful old building sort of clunkily repurposed, always great for a visit
• Ferguson Library Stamford CT – went to a CLA event here and bought expensive books from their booksale
• Holland MI PL – fancy and with turtles
• Brooks PL Brattleboro VT – some neat open source stuff going on there, got a tour after giving a talk

I did a lot of reading-while-traveling this year. I got a lot of travel books from random library booksales. I’ve still been reading in paper-book form, as much as I see the compelling argument for ebook readers, I haven’t made the switch. Here are previous year end lists: 2010, 2009, 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004. My booklist lives over on jessamyn.info/booklist and it has its own RSS feed. Here’s the wrap-up of what I read in 2011.

number of books read in 2011: 56
number of books read in 2010: 48
number of books read in 2009: 39
number of books read in 2008: 31
number of books read in 2007: 53
number of books read in 2006: 60
number of books read in 2005: 86
number of books read in 2004: 103
number of books read in 2003: 75
number of books read in 2002: 91
number of books read in 2001: 78

average read per month: 4.67
average read per week: 1.01
number read in worst month: 2 (Feb/April/Dec)
number read in best month: 10 (July)
percentage by male authors: 72
percentage by female authors: 28
fiction as percentage of total: 54
non-fiction as percentage of total: 46
percentage of total liked: 92
percentage of total ambivalent: 5
percentage of total disliked: 2

I read a lot of books by a few authors that I found and liked the year including Tana French, Geraldine Brooks and Connie Willis. Still not really on the ebook bandwagon. Still enjoying reading paper books in bed. Still finishing a few books I started in 2011, I expect this trend to continue. Wish me luck, and happy reading in 2011! Feel free to link to your own reading lists in the comments.

A few weekends ago I gave a talk at the KU Diversity Summit, an online conference that took place virtually, but also physically at the Kansas University School of Journalism in Lawrence Kansas. As you know, I have a soft spot for Kansas. As you may or may not know, I usually don’t do online conferences because I have a hard time dealing with the technical and social snafus that usually accompany them. I like to give talks, not be told I have to install Windows-only software or register for a site with sketchy privacy policies just to interact with listeners. I know other people can deal with this stuff gracefully and I happily recommend them when I’m saying “Thanks but no thanks” to people. I may be getting a little cranky in my old age, but I’m also just interested in giving higher quality talks less frequently. This is a goal for 2012.

Anyhow, the team from KU charmed me and assured me the tech issues would be minimal; I could do everything over Skype, have slides or not have slides and they’d field questions from the live audience and from Twitter. It went well. They had a tight schedule so asked me if ten minutes was okay. I said “Fifteen?” As it was I managed to do it in about twelve. The full video, all five hours of the conference, is available online here, but I’ve trimmed out the part that I did, short talk, short Q&A session afterwards and links to more information are at librarian.net/talks/ku. It think it’s a pretty concise summary of the major digital divide issues that I think are facing people and libraries.

There’s an ongoing theme in library programming: trying to find stuff that isn’t the stuff that’s already been done. While there are aspects of “Just play the hits, man” in a lot of the work we do, that doesn’t mean we can’t find new, original and/or interesting things to do with the huge amount of local cultural content that we have at our fingertips but that might not be common knowledge in our larger communities. The Library as Incubator Project is a site full of great ideas, lovely photographs, sharp writing by three UW-Madison School of Library and Information Studies (and guest bloggers) outlining ways that libraries and artists can work together. Good ideas, well-presented.

I think one of the many many things that is exacerbated by the digital divide is the gap in understanding about digital content. That is, the difference between what digital content is innately, what it becomes when it becomes a transactional item (i.e. with checkoutability), and what aspects of both of these “states of being” are created by whom.

So, it’s one thing to say “We have ebooks!” and quite another to represent the “ecosystem” of ebooks (to quote a recent talk I heard from a representative of the American Publishers’ Association) as being analogous to the one that paper books inhabit. This is just a long lead-up to linking to this article about bittorenting and using it to access copyrighted works and what you might find there. The author, Jeff Duntemann, is a friend of a friend and wrote a piece looking at which Dummies books are actually available on The Pirate Bay in the light of Wiley filing a copyright lawsuit against people pirating their books using Bittorent. For people familiar with the world of underground ebooking, this will be nothing new. For people who aren’t quite sure exactly how people get and/or redistribute digital content, this post should be helpful for you. Duntemann notes that the bulk of ebook swapping likely isn’t even taking place on big public torrent tracking sites like The Pirate Bay because ebook files are smaller and can be distributed in any number of different ways. He notes:

Video rules the torrent world because video is big, and the BitTorrent protocol is the most effective way to get video downloaded quickly. Small files like ebooks are elsewhere, unless they’re gathered into massive collections the size of Blu-Ray rips. Ebook piracy seems to be a minor issue today because ebook piracy is mostly invisible. It’s out there, and for all that I’ve pondered the problem, I return to the conclusion that the problem has no solution other than to sell the goods easily and cheaply, and to stop teaching people to be pirates by making the media experience complicated with DRM.

In the meantime, I’m considering purchasing this book for my local library. I think we as librarians need to understand these systems if we’re going to be working within and around them.

Someone pointed out on MetaFilter (warning: long thread) that Penn State has created a page about the Sandusky Scandal in their research guides section. This is a great way for an institution to have a somewhat official response that is outside of the usual damage control stuff we usually see when things like this happen. I also noticed the nice bar across the top of the page (as of this writing) with an alert saying the digitized collections will be down for maintenance.

The more libraries can be responsive to what is going on within their communities and can respond with resources and facts, the more we’ll be seen as integral to our communities. Even after 5+ years of Library 2.0 discussions, this sort of thing is still so often not managed as something the library should have a central role in.

I’ve been waiting a few days to post anything. There have been conflicting reports on what happened to the Occupy Wall Street People’s Library when Zuccotti Park was raided and people in the Occupy Wall Street occupation were removed, sometimes forcibly. There were reports that the 5000+ books from the OWS Library had been tossed in a dumpster. Then there were reports that the materials were removed but not disposed of. The feeling that I got was that your impression of what happened to the stuff was shaped largely by which side of the project you sympathized with the most, but I was holding out hope that the OWS People’s Library materials would be found safe, even if I didn’t personally believe that would be the case. Today I have been reading the official reports from the people who had been working in the library and it seems that while some of their stuff is okay, much of it has been destroyed or missing. This is the current post that is being updated about the state of their stuff and the state of the people who were arrested inside the library [as of now, one appears to be out, one is still being held]. If you’re in the area, they’d appreciate some help sorting through things and especially transporting them.

update: very good overview about yesterday’s activities by Rachel Maddow. Nice shoutout to LibraryThing!

I went to a staff meeting on Friday at the local library where I sometimes work. We did some strategic planning, some walking around the building looking at stuff that could be improved, and some “how to download various digital media format” exercises. We use Overdrive via Listen Up Vermont which gives us access to audiobooks and ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats. I’m pretty okay at this sort of thing so we clicked around and saw how stuff worked and had a few little glitches but basically stuff was okay. I’ve been following the Amazon book lending story through the blogs the past few weeks and I’ve been skeptical but more curious than anything. I don’t have a Kindle but I’ve seen how popular they are and I was curious how this would all work. Well, as some bloggers have pointed out, it sort of doesn’t. Or, rather, it seems to require compromises to our systems and more importantly to our professional values. I’m hoping these issues can be resolved, but honestly if we can’t lend with some modicum of patron privacy, we shouldn’t be lending.

This is all leading up to an email exchange I had with a reader who was wondering the best way to raise concerns with his librarian about the user experience of borrowing a Kindle book from his library to use with the Kindle app on a non-Kindle device. Apparently, while the process to obtain the book wasn’t too difficult, the process to actually get RID of the book once returned [without a lot of pesky "hey maybe you should BUY this" cajoling] was actually fairly difficult. The default settings are, not surprisingly, strongly urging that the patron purchase (not renewal, not some sort of overdue notification) the book that they have just “returned.” I’ll let the patron speak for himself on this process. His name is Dan Smith and this is reprinted with his express permission.
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My first experience at “borrowing a Kindle book from the library” has left me with a bad taste in my mouth. It did not feel like borrowing a book from a library. It felt like a salesperson had sold me a book with a “no-risk free home trial” and was pestering me to buy it at the end of the trial period.

I feel that Amazon’s commercial promotion is excessive, and imposes inappropriately on public library patrons. Would you allow distributor’s rep to stand in the hall, grabbing people on their way to the return slot, saying “Stop! Why RETURN it when you can BUY it instantly for just $12.95?”

Yes, some of the irritations can be sidestepped, and as a savvy user I now know how. But Amazon took advantage of my innocence.

FIrst, the book was all marked up! Dotted underlines here and there on almost every page. It was like taking out a library book and finding someone had gone over it with a highlighter! Amazon allow “library” ebooks to be marked and annotated. Instead of cleaning them up for the next patron, it leaves them in place, and encourages you make your own marks for other people to see. I thought this was just some misguided idea about social networking, but it’s more sinister than that.

I turns out that there is a global setting, “Popular Highlights,” which controls whether you see these marks. But it is on by default! I never knew it was there, because it is only activated when a book has lots of them, and this was the first Kindle book I’ve read that had them. The setting to turn them off is buried, and couldn’t find it right away. Blame me for stupidity, but also blame Amazon, because I don’t think most readers want their books scribbled up, and I think Amazon defaults the setting to “on” to serve their own agenda.

Second, at the end of the loan period, instead of politely announcing that the book would be returned… or offering a renewal… or possibly even sending overdue fines to the library :) … I was instead confronted by intrusive ads, both in my Kindle application and in my regular email, urging me to buy the book from Amazon.

The email made a point of saying “If you purchase ‘The Bed of Procrustes’ or borrow it again from your local library, all of your notes and highlights will be preserved.” So, that’s why they encourage readers to scribble in library books: they want to hold our marginalia up for ransom.

Third, when the book is returned, it does not simply evaporate. The title, jacket and all, remained visible on my Kindle, exactly as if it were still there, but the behind the book cover is nothing but a notice that it has gone back to the library–and a button I can press. Renewal was not an option. The only option shown is to buy it from Amazon.

It looks like a book, but it’s a wolf in book’s clothing.

Fourth, it was hard to clean that ad out of my Kindle application. I could not find any “delete” option. There is an “archive” option, but all it does is move the book into an “archived items” list, where it continued to sit, looking just like the real books I’ve paid for and might want to re-download. Except that if you click on this one, all you get is a choice of “cancel” or “purchase.” Who would want to save that? But neither I nor an Amazon rep was able to find any deletion option within the Kindle application. The rep claims that the actual Kindle device has this capability, but could not explain why the Kindle application doesn’t. I was able to remove it by using a Web browser, logging into my account on the Amazon website, navigating to a “Manage Your Kindle” page, and deleting it via regular Web access. Fine. Now I know. Twenty minutes of my life wasted finding out.

I’ve now gotten a SECOND email solicitation from Amazon urging me to buy this book. How many I more I will receive?

Amazon gets plenty of promotion just by being the only Kindle book source. Their pushy “Don’t RETURN it, BUY it” attitude is out of bounds.

I missed the original article when it came out on Make: Is It Time to Rebuild & Retool Public Libraries and Make “TechShops” but have to say, this idea has me complately jazzed. I’ve often wondered how we could take our spaces and go from a place where people get access to information to getting access to tools so that they can become makers, people who can build things from scratch and not just have to take vendors and dealers’ words for what is possible. And of course this concept comes up against the same old issue “Freedom of the press is for those who own one” These tools, the tools to build tools, are often expensive, especially for one person to own. Maybe there’s a way we could share our tools and spaces…?

Fayetteville Free Library [NY] is taking steps to make that sort of thing happen in their space, an old building that used to be an old furniture factory. They have space, and some grant money, and a few people who really want to make it happen. I’m excited to see where this goes. I’ve always thought that the digital divide wasn’t just where everyone had access to broadband, or a computer, but where everyone had a social community space that was for learning about and using technology. The library is sort of that–it’s totally that in some places–but now the technology is changing. Free printers? How about a 3D printer?

I regularly trot out Open Library as an example of both a project that is nice and library like while also being attractive and usable and, at the same time, pushing the envelope of “how to be a library” in ways that are dignifying to both patrons and librarians alike. I was delighted to read this article about the results of a recent meeting where ALL state librarians voted unanimously to form an alliance with the Internt Archive’s Open Library project.

[Oregon state librarian] Scheppke said this allows libraries the chance to envision digitizing everything in their collection, from books about local history to works by local authors.

“If that doesn’t happen who knows when those books will become ebooks, maybe never,” Scheppke said. “That’s what really appeals to the state libarians; it’s a solution we haven’t had up until now to have a much more complete ebook collection,” he said.

I have friends working in the various Occupy X libraries. We don’t have a very big Occupy presence near me in Vermont and I was curious how things work there. Kristin Parker (@parkivist) is an anthropologist who received an MS (Simmons) with a concentration in archives management. She worked for twelve years managing the collections exhibits and archives at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and is now managing the art collection at the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis. She’s a newish associate of the Boston Radical Reference Collective and is one of the people who has been organizing and staffing the A to Z (Audre Lorde to Howard Zinn) Library at Occupy Boston. I asked her a few questions over email. She writes…

“The A-Z Library is a partnership made up of the Boston Radical Reference Collective, the Progressive Librarians Guild of Simmons College and Metacomet Books of Plymouth, MA, run by John Ford who recognized a need for a durable setting for books at Dewey Square (the Occupy Boston site). He graciously installed a military tent and brought in a third of his own personal book collection. Other donations soon arrived through the librarians and members of the public. The library has been up and running for more than 2 weeks now. Every day we receive donations – it’s amazing. Books are organized according to subject, in plastic milk crates and wooden cranberry bog crates, for easy transporting and shifting. As described in the statement (link below): ‘The library aims to provide high-quality, accurate information to all interested parties. The collection contains material on topics such as political thought and social movements, activism, history, philosophy, religion, finance, consumerism, gender, race, as well as a large fiction section.’”

What your role is with the Occupy library in Boston and could you suggest a few links for people interested in the Occupy Library System generally?

Why I got involved – I love answering reference questions and I really enjoy working with the public. I’ve always admired the work of Radical Reference librarians and understand the importance of offering folks an alternative way to navigate resources and identify new ones. As an archivist: I remembered reading about the American Radicalism collection at Michigan State University, and how archivists sometimes have to be pro-active when it comes to documenting certain moments in history. I recognized pretty quickly watching the movement grow and definitely after my first visit to Dewey Square that this was an historic event and I wanted to attempt to capture activities at Occupy Boston in a way that would be useful for occupiers, visitors to the Square, and into the future.

We created a binder full of documents printed from the wikispaces (reference copies), that includes Occupy Boston’s statement of solidarity, the General Assembly Process for Consensus and other operational information. There are also copies of the GA minutes and other important documents from the various working groups. So, ideally, people can come to the library and get caught up on what’s what and hopefully the information is up-to-date, though things move quickly. We’ve also created an active archive bin that mimics the reference copies, aiming to document in print all records produced by the working groups etc, as well as a sampling of ephemera that might capture the day to day life at Dewey Square.

- Occupy Boston website announcing establishment of the library about a week before the GA [General Assembly] announcement:
- Occupy Boston Wiki, Library page where all documents are poured
- Radical Reference
- New York Times article on “tent libraries”

Have you taken the library concept/idea to the general assembly yet? Do you have to?

The Library was up and running about two weeks before it was announced at the GA: On Saturday October 22nd, representatives announced the Library Working Group at the GA and we received a lot of “sparkles” – hands with wiggling fingers, raised in the air, declaring their support and consensus. Here is what was read at the GA:

[we announce] “The Audre Lorde to Howard Zinn Library” — aka the A to Z library.

We have chosen these two individuals because, in their own words:

‘To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness.’ Howard Zinn

and ‘There is no such thing as a single-issue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives.’ Audre Lorde

And because as Zinn taught us, ‘Tyranny is Tyranny, let it come from whom it may.’

and Lorde reminds us, ‘Revolution is not a onetime event.’

And lastly, because we agree with Zinn that:

‘Dissent is the highest form of patriotism.’

and with Lorde that: ‘Without community, there is no liberation.’

We name the library at Occupy Boston The Audre Lorde to Howard Zinn Library because Audre Lorde was an activist and a radical librarian and Howard Zinn was an activist with strong connections to Boston. From A to Z they give us inspiration, knowledge and power.

How much, if any, interaction has there been between the various Occupy libraries (can I do ILL?) and what sorts of interactions have you had with other non-Occupy libraries and librarians?

I’ve personally not observed any formal interaction with other libraries yet, though I think we’re all interested in one another’s Occupation activities – I know I read the facebook page for OWS library, for example. We get messages from visitors to the tent who tell us a bit about what OWS library is up to. OWS has an online catalog of books (we’ve opted not to catalog) that our online site will link to for visitor’s interest. We’re not quite ready for interlibrary loan :) . I wonder if there will be any sort of difference between collections at different occupations – that would be interesting to learn more about.

update: A number of us have been to OWS and are in touch with the librarians that are organizing the library there (many of us are in the same national group: Radical Reference Collective). There is a solidarity bus traveling to OWS soon – representatives from Boston working groups will meet their OWS counterparts and share information and updates.

What, to you, is the most important thing you and others have been doing in the A-Z Library?

The most important thing? I could poll the group and ask their opinion if you like? To me personally…hmmm. Helping visitors become oriented to activities at Occupy Boston, and to offer resources that will help fuel visitor’s interests in the movement and support their thinking. Dewey Square is a think tank, with ideas percolating around every corner/tent, and I hope the library offers a comfortable space in which to share and find ideas. It’s really amazing how many people come in through the tent, sigh, and say “Ah! A library! I LOVE libraries!” I think there’s something comforting and familiar about a library space – we are a village at Occupy Boston, a community, and I’ve always been of the mind that any town worth living in had to have a library. (I’m also heartened by the excitement people have for the printed word – there are no public computers at Occupy Boston as far as I can tell – though we have a laptop people can use to access and input to wikispaces – people are very content to walk away with a printed book tucked under their arm.)

What’s your favorite part of all of this, the library, the Occupy movement, whatever?

My favorite aspect is the diversity of people I’m privileged to meet (today I met an ex-airforce Russian linguist working on site, a fellow who works for a prison book program, a teenager writing a paper for school, and a psychic who predicted an earthquake would hit Boston). We have curiosity seekers and folks who really.need.info.now! The volunteers I’ve spoken with so far and I agree that we each seem to have a weepy moment every time we work, overwhelmed we are by the support and energy of everyone around us at Occupy Boston. It seems that, if one person tires, someone else swoops in and offers to take up the slack, and, in this way, we keep going, enthusiastically and determinedly. The energy draws you in and it’s difficult to leave at the end of your shift…

How many people work there, ballpark and do you guys have any real internal structure to speak of? Anecdotes to share about General Assembly?

This is a contact list of working groups. There are 30 members on our contact list and 12 of us on the roster to be on-site librarians so far, plus John Ford who lives on site 24-7. We are leaderless – we present ideas in our google group, weigh in, figure out. We set agendas weekly meetings in person. Each person brings their own interest or level of experience to contribute and we learn from one another.

People can watch examples of the general assembly on the occupy boston live stream and youtube. Check the GA schedule and perhaps folks can watch one live. They are really moving. Although GA’s occur most every night, the etiquette remains the same throughout the day, every day, during lectures/classes, etc. A good way to communicate within a group. Here’s the process and the hand signals. Here’s a recording I made of a GA after the October 11 arrests of 141 people at Dewey Square and some other exampleds (1, 2)

Do people have library cards or any sort of ID or is it all honor system stuff there? Is the place staffed 24/7?

All honor system :) . We do have a check out process (visitors write title of book and date checked out on index card), and we ask folks to bring books back when they’re done. It is most important to get the information out there as far as I’m concerned, rather than get too too hung up on who is borrowing what and for how long. There are several valued books that we’ve nominated for reference only that do not leave the library – such as the Occupy Boston documents binder, or a particular edition of Howard Zinn’s People’s History for example (though we have multiple copies of that to circulate, courtesy of a man who read of the Boston library in the NYT).

We’re not staffed 24/7 but for several hours a day though that would be awesome – mainly evenings during week, afternoons on weekends so far. John is there pretty much all the time since he lives there. But we want to give him some relief!

Anything else you’d like to add?

This project is a recent endeavor so things will change and grow – keep checking back! I want to mention how grateful I am to be able to participate in this process and for the passion and hard work of fellow librarians!