Here is my schedule for ALA. I am even more interested than usual in meeting new people or hanging out with people I don’t see often enough. I know this would be easier if I had a cell phone, but hey I’ve got Wifi in the bizarre swampland they call JFK airport . I also know there’s free Wifi in the convention center [instructions here], so remember my contact info from the previous post and get in touch.
Tag: ala
big news for Jenny and ALA
Jenny Levine has got herself a job helping move ALA into the 21st Century. Congrats to everyone.
Jo Ann Pinder fired from Gwinnett library system in Georgia
I’ve been following the controversial story of Jo Ann Pinder’s firing this week. It’s a chiling story about the director of the Gwinnett County Public Library with 15 years of exceptional service fired by a 3 to 5 board vote, without cause. Her library system had been named Library of the Year by Library Journal in 2000.
Most people point to one board member and her influence over other members as the incentive for this move. Others point to the GCPLwatch website which clearly is concerned with issues like filtering [GCPL does filter], porn, the Boy Scouts and the American Library Association. Their issues page points to a “what’s wrong with ALA” article written by the folks at Family Friendly Libraries (whose website has been down all week for some reason). Their argument about ALA seems to focus on issues like ALA’s support of collections and displays containing information on Gay History (calling the Stonewall Awards “garbage”), books that are “expensive pop culture mind polluters” and the “hypocrisy” of the Intellectual Freedom Manual. The GCPLwatch.org URL is registered to Warren Furlow who has wanted to “harmonize the library system with conservative values” of the community. Other contacts for that group include Judy Craft, a local Family Friendly Library advocate who complained abotu the library providing books in Spanish, among other things.
This firing is bringing to the forefront a larger issue that librarians and library professional organizations have been discussing forever: local control. If you and your library support gay people being treated just like anyone else, but your community doesn’t, what do you do? This came up in a Council meeting last year when Council was discussing what to do about states that were discussing withholding funding for libraries who didn’t restrict books on gay topics to adult collections only. Some chapter Councilors discussed how having ALA come out against this would make their jobs difficult and that they were trying to work from within organizations to change attitudes and hopefully also funding decisions. Another Councilor likened being asked to not speak out on this topic to the Jim Crow laws where racism and segregation were institutionalized in the South. I don’t think this is any different. While I’m willing to listen to anyone explain to me what other reason a library board might have to fire their director without cause, this seems like predjudice and hysteria that the library community should not remain silent on.
More from the blogosphere: Sarah Long, Kathleen de la Peña McCook, Karen Schneider, Annoyed Librarian (with comment from one of the gcpl watch folks), photos of the meeting from Michael Casey, GCPL branch manager. [bugmenot login info]
Doe v. Gonzales: now it can be told, officially
Plaintiffs in Doe v. Ashcroft — the lawsuit that questioned the gag order provision of the USA PATRIOT Act, the one that the government decided not to appeal — tell their story at an ACLU press conference. They are employees of the Library Connection. Here are the official statements of George Christian, Janet Nocek, Barbara Bailey and Peter Chase.
It was galling for me to see the government’s attorney in Connecticut, Kevin O’Connor, travel around the state telling people that their library records were safe, while at the same time he was enforcing a gag order preventing me from telling people that their library records were not safe. On one occasion, we were both invited to speak at the same event in Hartford, sponsored by the Women’s League of Voters. Mr. O’Connor accepted his invitation, but I had to refuse mine because of the gag order.
ALA, at large, not at large
I found out via a roundabout way that my bid to be the Vermont Library Association’s chapter councilor wasn’t successful. This is good news and bad news. The woman they elected was probably more qualified than me, and will probably not dislike her time on Council as much as I have historically. I am not sure if she will advocate as strongly for web site improvements and increased technological access to ALA generally, but I’m sure there are things she is planning on promoting. I would have liked to have been a Councilor representing a specific group and not just the “at large” world but I’m young and there is still time.
For me, this means that ALA in New Orleans is the last meeting I will go to as a Councilor, for a while, if not forever. This means I can, if I want, cancel my membership to ALA. It means I can plan a Fourth of July party without being on my way back from a conference. It means that I don’t have to travel out of state twice a year in addition to all the other travelling I do. It means I probably won’t try to explain some of ALA’s decisions that I find inexplicable. It means I’ll get more involved with my local chapter — the irony being that if I had been at VLA’s annnual meeting, I might have had more of a shot at getting elected, but I was in Ohio at the Small Libraries Conference talking about the digital divide, and the libraries I worked with back home.
I’ve been following some of the ALA L2 kerfuffle which I was more interested in as a friend of Michael Stephens and Jenny Levine than as an ALA member. As a Councilor, I didn’t hear word one about this endeavor. As a member, I’m not surprised that ALA chose to hire a consultant group that talked a better game than they delivered, though for them the price was right. All I know is that if your consultant starts making blog posts like this one complaining about being complained about, and not getting paid enough, it’s going to be a hard tailspin to pull out of. I wish everyone the best possible luck making the best of things.