Month: January 2005

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

Feel free to puruse the archives yourself, they’re all online.

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?