Banned Books Week 2010

Individuals must be free to express and consume ideas. Without this ability true democracy cannot take place. In honor of this year's American Library Association celebration of banned books I am posting a manifesto from Ellen Hopkins.

To you zealots and bigots and false

patriots who live in fear of discourse.

You screamers and banners and burners

who would force books

off shelves in your brand name

of greater good.

You say you’re afraid for children,

innocents ripe for corruption

by perversion or sorcery on the page.

But sticks and stones do break

bones, and ignorance is no armor.

You do not speak for me,

and will not deny my kids magic

in favor of miracles.

You say you’re afraid for America,

the red, white and blue corroded

by terrorists, socialists, the sexually

confused. But we are a vast quilt

of patchwork cultures and multi-gendered

identities. You cannot speak for those

whose ancestors braved

different seas.

You say you’re afraid for God,

the living word eroded by Muhammed

and Darwin and Magdalene.

But the omnipotent sculptor of heaven

and earth designed intelligence.

Surely you dare not speak

for the father, who opens

his arms to all.

A word to the unwise.

Torch every book.

Char every page.

Burn every word to ash.

Ideas are incombustible.

And therein lies your real fear.

— Ellen Hopkins

Volunteers extending library hours is a good thing imo.

The Library Journal recently wrote an article about the Charlotte Library's use of volunteers to extend hours. Some have questioned this move stating it could cause funders to believe libraries can operate off of a smaller budget. I think that's an unfounded fear as many institutions both public and private benefit from unpaid labor. Washington D.C. has the highest volunteer rates in the nation, so clearly volunteering for public institutions is not unheard of.

Besides what better way to spend one's time than volunteering at a local library. Some would argue there is no greater cause than facilitating knowledge acquisition. When I set-up a volunteer opportunity in the community college library, I had more students interested than I could place in positions. I think this is a great way for libraries to expand upon their services. While volunteers are manning the desk, staff can be developing new projects and fine-tuning their budget needs to ensure the institution remains vital.

Buying whatever they are pushing.

Publishing in the Higher Education world receives some of its support from journal subscriptions of libraries.  While in the past librarians played key roles in the selection of these items today with the rise of aggregaters like Ebsco, the decision becomes less about content and more about the IR system and the price.  With package deals such as Academic Search Elite or Curriculum Essentials, it is difficult to know what exactly one is buying.  The vendors push various products claiming more full-text or more images but deciding which one offers the most quality can be overwhelming due to the sheer number of titles.  Having access to so many titles is surely a good thing, but not so when the overall quality is lacking.  The task of deciding which aggregaters to license is beyond most individuals capacities.  These products have not been around long enough for us to truly know how to best to evaluate.  Often purchasing decisions are made on usage statistics alone, which may have more to do with product placement than quality content.  What’s even more troubling concerning purchasing quality content is how deals are negotiated by vendors.  Whereas with the onslaught of electronic publishing journals and publishers dealt with all the major vendors, now we are seeing more exclusive contracts such as the one between Ebsco and Time Inc.  Our reliance upon big vendors to tell us what to buy, causes concern for the role of academic libraries in supporting scholarly publishing.

Lending more than just books

I like the idea brought up by Library Journal Insider of libraries lending toys.  Apparently this already takes place across the United Kingdom.  What a great idea as libraries remake themselves in a digital world.  Toys, tools, fishing poles and all sorts of items would be well suited for the library business model of lending to multiple users.    I was recently reminded of how convenient and cheap it is to borrow non-books from the library and was very impressed with the collection of movies and music available.  What sort of things would you borrow from a library?

Reader's Advisory for Ernest Hemingway

As one of my favorite authors I thought I would create a list based on what Ernest Hemingway would like to read. Writing in simple sentences with heavy undertones Hemingway is moved by stories of men who must test their virtues. Notions of courage and honor as well as cowardliness and infidelity are often feature plot lines. Morbidity and death are also addressed by Hemingway. Romance is common but from a males perspective such that his descriptions aren't sappy they are cold and direct but still manage to tingle the female reader. Being an avid hunter and fisher many of his stories derive from his experiences. This is also the case concerning his war themed stories as he was an ambulance driver for the Red Cross during WWI. His writings are also reflective of his ex-expatriate status and circle of friends, having spent much time in Europe and Cuba throughout his life. Based on his own life experiences and the types of things he liked to write about I've selected five stories. I mainly used Guys Read and Worldcat.org Genres to find my selections.

Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson (2008)

A beautifully written novel discussing growing older (facing death) and coming to terms with one's past, this novel would be a favorite of Hemingway. The writing is simple and descriptive with heavy undertones. Much of the plot is based on the main character's memory of his strong father and the realizations of his imperfections. Also Hemingway did a good job of describing the scenery as does Petterson, making you feel like you are sitting in the woods of Norway or mountains of Spain.

Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane (1968)

Hemingway's penchant for war stories and battles with courage would surely put the Red Badge of Courage at the top of his list. Additionally, the author's ability to convey the impact of war upon one's psychological state is a trait well-developed by Hemingway as well.

Ugly American by Eugene Burdick and William J. Lederer (1958)

This collection of short stories provides humorous yet pointed descriptions of Americans abroad and specifically in Southeast Asia during the cold war era. Hemingway's travels, concerns over American foreign policy and love of Cuba would make this a great addition to his collection.

The Whole Sky is Full of Stars by Rene Saldana (2007)

This is the story of a young male who lost his father and now must face manhood on his own. With a boxing competition, underhanded backroom dealings, along with coming-of-age tribulations this story would surely catch Hemingway's attention.

Black Dogs by Ian McEwan (1992)

McEwan's noted abilities are not unlike Hemingway's in their ability to create simplistic yet suspenseful prose. Black Dogs focuses upon matters of the heart intertwined with the realities of the world, concepts Hemingway explores thoroughly in For Whom the Bell Tolls. The French country side setting during WWII would also attract Hemingway.

Green's 1876 look at the profession

I recently read an article for class entitled, "The Personal Relationship between Librarian and Reader" from an 1876 public librarian. It provides a nostalgic and interesting look at how the role of reference librarian was established. The public librarian attempts to argue the importance of mingling among librarians and readers to best serve the needs of the community. He states, "The more freely a librarian mingles with readers, and the greater the amount of assistance he renders them, the more intense does the conviction of citizens, also, become, that the library is a useful institution, and the more willing do they grow to grant money in larger and larger sums to be used in buying books and employing additional assistants."

His description of a reference assistant gives insight into the political correctness of the time:

"Now, the policy advocated of freedom of intercourse between librarian and readers, when adopted in the conduct of these departments, does much to give efficiency to the efforts of the officers to get readers to take out wholesome books and such works as are adapted to their capacity and the grade of enlightenment to which they belong. It is a common practice, as we all know, for users of a library to ask the librarian or his assistants to select stories for them. I would have great use made of this disposition. Place in the circulating department one of the most accomplished persons in the corps of your assistants--some cultivated woman, for instance, who heartily enjoys works of the imagination, but whose taste is educated. She must be a person of pleasant manners, and -while of proper dignity, ready to unbend, and of social disposition. It is well if there is a vein of philanthropy in her composition. Instruct this assistant to consult with every person who asks for help in selecting books. This should not be her whole work; for work of this kind is best done when it has the appearance of being performed incidentally. Let the assistant, then, have some regular work, but such employment as she can at once lay aside when her aid is asked for in picking out books to read. I am confident that in some such way as this a great influence can be exerted in the direction of causing good books to be used."

http://polaris.gseis.ucla.edu/jrichardson/DIS220/personal.htm

Poem in your Pocket Day 2010

Take a moment to enjoy a nice poem today...here are a couple of my favorites:

As You Go Through Life

Don’t look for the flaws as you go through life;
And even when you find them,
It is wise and kind to be somewhat blind
And look for the virtue behind them.
For the cloudiest night has a hint of light
Somewhere in its shadows hiding;
It is better by far to hunt for a star,
Than the spots on the sun abiding.

The current of life runs ever away
To the bosom of God’s great ocean.
Don’t set your force ‘gainst the river’s course
And think to alter its motion.
Don’t waste a curse on the universe –
Remember it lived before you.
Don’t butt at the storm with your puny form,
But bend and let it go o’er you.

The world will never adjust itself
To suit your whims to the letter.
Some things must go wrong your whole life long,
And the sooner you know it the better.
It is folly to fight with the Infinite,
And go under at last in the wrestle;
The wiser man shapes into God’s plan
As water shapes into a vessel.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox



Circle of Life

We are connected
one another, every moment,
every place, every cell,
every movement, every utterance
each action, reverberates
echoes, across time,
through space
splits, echoes back
in millions of waves
from different points
on the expanding sphere encircling
each speck, each tiny spot
each one of us, infinitesimal
members clinging to the web
for dear life

Raymond A. Foss

The Competitive Edge for Libraries

All the survey's say information seekers routinely turn to Google because its fast, simple and familiar. One of the reasons libraries have struggled to provide a definitive role in this new information jungle is their failure to adopt competitive strategies such as simple search results. Today's library users must navigate through a haggard collection of information silos scattered virtually across a website and physically across a building. In addition to selecting a silo the user must recall how to execute the search function for a variety of interfaces, some offering the full content others requiring additional tricks to discover the golden text.

While libraries diligently offer assistance in navigation and continually seek improvement of current information portals and traditional catalogs, much consternation is being wasted when really what we should be doing is uniting behind a common interface and search mechanism for the entirety of a library collection. WorldCat offers the size and scale needed to compete and as Mark Dahl (2009, 7) highlights " With WorldCat.org, OCLC takes a lesson from Google and Amazon and understands that Web scale matters. In order for library content to be noticed on the Web, it needs to be presented by a global player, not in a diluted fashion from thousands of separately managed library catalogs."

By adopting a standard interface such as WorldCat, libraries can offer conventional search features much in the same way as Google and provide well created metadata for everyone on the web Libraries benefit from mimicking strategies of their competitor but at the same time enhancing that which must be their core competency: providing quality descriptive metadata and facilitating understanding of it.

While others may have lost faith in the role of libraries in my own experience I can still identify the necessity and importance of providing access to information and information literacy instruction to the public. There must always be an alternative organization offering access to proprietary information resources and offering assistance in making sense of it all.

Libraries adopting standard virtual spaces and forming networks at the size allowable with today’s technology would mean increased satisfaction rates for constituents and increased buying power with vendors. The ability to provide specialized collections through libraries which are searched again in a familiar manner will also strengthen the competencies of libraries.

Libraries failed to recognize the changing modes of information production and lost their comparative advantages to innovative business models and competencies such as those offered by Google. The slow and at times moralistic fight against adoption of new modes has left the library at a disadvantage. However recognition of core competencies in accordance with the changing information environment could provide the competitive edge libraries need.

Dahl, Mark. 2009. The Evolution of Library Discovery Systems in the Web Environment. Oregon Library Association Quarterly 15(1): 5-9

Full Circle - Why we do it

Wow so I just wrapped up another session with my new volunteer. She's just getting started in community college and is helping out in the library to gain volunteer hours for the Tulsa Achieves project. So far I think its going to be a great opportunity for us to learn from one another. She's helping with tasks like shelf reading and weeding. Meanwhile I'm helping her get trained up on computer and information literacy with hopes she might be able to help us teach other students and better understand how students use the library. Today she went through some Word and Ebscohost tutorials and then wrote up a little review. I must say I almost cried upon reading it. How awesome to see it from her point of view and to see her learning! Yay its all coming full-circle this is why we do it!

Libraries and Competitive Intelligence

In my recent class discussion regarding the differences between strategic intelligence, and competitive intelligence, the statement that libraries should act like businesses reminded me of why they are not, but how they can make use of knowledge management tactics for decision-making.

Strategic Intelligence most accurately describes a information related to the plan of action of competitors (i.e. basis for decision-making). Competitive intelligence seems to be a more codified approach to gathering and making-use of information to make one more competitive. Codified in the sense that clear ethics are defined and policies adhering to best practices for CI are implemented. Because strategic intelligence is often invoked in a National security setting, realist principles of behaving dominate at times blurring the boundaries of ethics.

In regards to the library an important reason why it is not run like a business is its role as providing accessing to information. While a public library may supplement its funding through books sales, and community fundraising, decision-making cannot be based on a profit motive. The same is even more true for academic libraries where knowledge generation is the priority. Because places like Barnes and Noble or Blockbuster may at times censor certain materials to acquiesce to shareholders acting like a business is not always desirable. After all a library as an arsenal of liberty cannot be beholden to corporate interests.

A library however can embrace the benefits of CI through understanding market forces and positioning the institution in a favorable manner. An example in which the library world needs to be most aware of the political, social, and economic factors affecting the progress of libraries is evident in the case of Google. Libraries as others have stated, should have long-ago sought to offer an alternative to the dominance of one corporation in control of the worlds information. Libraries have the ability to organize and coordinate efforts to ensure access to information whether it is digital or not. As we move forward academic libraries must be front runners in understanding how information is collected, organized, and decimated as this is their business and must seek to learn from the success of other competitors such as Google.

Librarians must realize it behoves us to market ourselves as information brokers. In addition to fulfilling the role as an alternative to a single corporation providing all access to information, we must realize our importance of information professionals in giving context to and making sense of the information.

Before the onslaught of technology the general public agreed libraries serve the public good by offering this access. This sentiment must be invoked once again to understand the monumentous but essential task of continuing to provide that access as well as making sense of the never-ending information flow.