ala – Page 30 – librarian.net

a few ALA wrap-ups

I finally made it back to my house after an extended trip home [extra time in airports, extra time in Boston, extra time on the bus] and it’s great to be here. I felt that this was one of my most productive conferences yet, even though it was a bit lacking in the “seeing all the friends I don’t see often enough” scale. I’m still putting together a wrap up, but in the meantime, feel free to read the ones I’ve found online:

Pink Sneakers blog
Karen’s LITA Councilors report
Rochelle’s Council wrap-up from which I will pull this list of notable resolutions and add one that was important to me at the end
- Resolution in Suport of Immigrants Rights to Free Public Library Access
- Resolution on Disinformation, Media Manipulation & the Destruction of Public Information
- Resolution on the Connection between the Iraq War and Libraries
- Resolution on Threats to Library Materials Related to Sex, Gender Identity or Sexual Orientation
- Resolution on Support for Community Broadband Initiatives [paraphrased for now]
Some official numbers from ALA, record-breaking attendance.

later days of ALA

Posted on 28Jun0528Jun05 by jessamyn

I’m working on a longer report about Council and Membership meetings, but for now, here are some things you can go look at.

My conference pictures on Flickr & other conference pix on Flickr
My notes for my skillshare on rumor control are online in slightly unconventional format. It was fun to have people walk by the Counterpoise booth and see a bunch of people sitting on the floor and say “wow, that looks interesting” and stay.
Photos of the blogger get together or, as I like to call it The Steven Cohen Experience are here
ALA launched another rss feed for their press releases. You can see it right on the main page
Thanks to all who came to the membership meetings. It was really gratifying to see a quorum and see some business get done there.
Jenny gave me a poster that came from a part of this session she went to. Interesting conclusions gained from interesting premises. They manage to say both that books aren’t going away, but that traditional libraries will. If you plan for this and don’t just fight it, you can go some interesting places. Read more.
Andrea uploaded some video clips from the Obama speech to the PLABlog

direct democracy @ your library conference

Posted on 22Jun0524Jun05 by jessamyn

I’m not sure how many people really feel like they need to have a say in how ALA conducts its business. Membership Meetings at ALA have been a chance for rank and file ALA-ers to have a chance to discuss issues and write, discuss and even pass resolutions. In the past, the quorum for the meetings was set sufficiently high [1% of membership] that it was hard to get the requisite number of people for them to act offically.

Thanks to a bylaws amendment ratified by membership, quorum is now set at 75 members, though the bylaws currently do not reflect this online [don’t get me started on how hard it was to pry all of this information out of the ALA website]. There are at least two resolutions coming before membership this time around. I’ll be at both of these meetings. If you want to get a peek at ALA democracy in action, the meetings are at

Saturday 4-5 pm [before Barak]
Monday 11:30-12:30

ALA bloggers list

Posted on 22Jun0522Jun05 by jessamyn

Meredith’s ALA blog has a list of people who will be blogging at the ALA Conference. I leave tomorrow. My schedule is here. I like meeting folks, though my time is getting pretty well-spoken for. If you see me in the hallway, or eating alone, please come up and say hello.

color me unsuprised, law enforcement do ask about patron reading habits

Posted on 20Jun0520Jun05 by jessamyn

Libraries Say Yes, Officials Do Quiz Them About Users, in the NY Times today, according to the results of a recent ALA survey. While this is not evidence of USA PATRIOT Act abuses per se, it points to increasing concern on the part of law enforcement of what people are reading [the article points to a cases of libraries being asked for a list of patrons who had checked out a book about Osama bin Laden] in ways that compromise state library privacy laws. As of this morning, ALA has missed a chance to capitalize on this good press by having anything at all mentioning this study on the front page of their web site, pity.

Ms. Sheketoff at the [American] library association acknowledged that critics of the study may accuse the group of having a stake in the outcome of the Patriot Act debate. “Sure, we have a dog in this fight, but the other side has been mocking us for four years over our ‘baseless hysteria,’ and saying we have no reason to be concerned,” she said. “Well, these findings say that we do have reason to be concerned.”