A kind reader sent me this critique of the Nassau County (FL) library system by a “conservative” in Florida, if “conservative” is defined as people who hate people different than themselves, which is what the remnant of intellectually respectable conservatives have let it come to mean.
This critique is very different from our Oakland friend “the Boss,” who bases his antipathy to libraries purely on the principle that they’re paid for by taxes, which according to him are inherently socialist and oppressive, except when they’re not.
Instead of the libertarian, live-and-let-live-as-long-as-I-don’t-need-anything-from-the-state conservatives, Nassau County seems to grow the kind who just hate everyone not exactly like them.
When I read the diatribe of this alleged Christian, the hatred was palpable. So much for “God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him,” much less “let he who is without sin cast the first stone.” Those quotes ...
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Beware the Radical Militant Librarians
Melting in the Big Easy
New Orleans is much as I expected it to be at this time of year, sweltering and miserable outside, the only comforts being a semi-air conditioned tavern and a cold martini.
I say “semi” because anything else is intolerable. New Orleaners, if that's what they're called, seem to compensate for the ridiculously hot temperatures outside by creating ridiculously cold temperatures inside, so if you dress for the one you are bound to be very uncomfortable in the other.
I would Tweet that, but Twitter doesn't allow for complex sentences or, based on reviewing the ALA tweets, complex thoughts.
At least that’s my impression after reading through numerous tweets about #ala11, which mostly seems to consist of the shallow talking to the bored, or perhaps vice versa.
It’s difficult to tell if the majority of Twitter users are just shallow and boring extroverts, or whether the limitations of Twitter means that people who aren’t always shallow and boring can only show that side ...
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Upcoming Council Controversies!
As you read this, I’m probably wending my way to New Orleans, soon to be miserable in the tropical heat and French Quarter filth. Why, oh why, does ALA ever have to be in places like New Orleans in June?
If you’re going to be in the NOLA, you’ll definitely want to drop by the ALA Membership Meetings for discussions of four hot resolutions being proposed. Three of them no less are about Wikileaks, and the fourth is on an even more controversial topic: self serve hold practices!
One of the resolutions “Supports the rights of WikiLeaks to publish leaked government documents.” This is partly backed by a clause from the Library Bill of rights stating that “Libraries should cooperate with all persons and groups concerned with resisting abridgment of free expression and free access to ideas.”
Is there any right to publish leaked government documents? What rights are these? Where are they located? If there are no such rights, what exactly would the ALA be ...
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Anarchists @ Your Library
A couple of weeks ago I commented on the poorly thought out criticism of libraries in Oakland by “the Boss.” I thought that while Oakland libraries might lose the financial battle, they wouldn’t lost the intellectual one.
After reading about the pro-library protests in Oakland by an “anti-capitalist initiative” called Bay of Rage, I’m not so sure. Anarchists protesting in the streets won’t save libraries, because anarchists annoy people. It's enraged folly like this that has nitwits claiming public libraries amount to socialism.
As anti-capitalists in the West tend to be, they are very upset, and would prefer that Oakland cut cops before cutting libraries. Considering the crime in Oakland, maybe there could be some compromise.
However, they do like libraries, because libraries are anti-capitalist, or so it would seem. Andrew Carnegie would be turning in his grave. Maybe he is, for all I know.
In an article comparing libraries to banks, Bay of Rage grabs the ...
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Libraries or Librarians?
A kind reader sent me this opinion article about AB 438, a bill in California that would make it extremely difficult for municipal governments to outsource library services to private contractors, and seemingly impossible to save any money by doing so. The bill has passed the Assembly and is headed to the state Senate.
You can read the article for details, but basically any outsourcing would have to continue to protect union jobs, which is the goal of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the brains behind the bill.
They have a website supporting the bill. The "privatization beast." Oooh, how scary! It hosts a very tedious video with people saying how great public libraries are, which is somehow relevant to someone, though I’m not sure how, since outsourced libraries are supported by the public and do the same things regular public libraries do.
There is a guy in the video who says, “Public libraries are supposed to be public, not private.” That’s mighty ...
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Improvisational Innovation
Our very own Library Journal cosponsored a symposium last week called Play, Learn, Innovate, and I was sorry to see there was no exclamation point after the title. If you missed it, you can read all about it in this article at Library Journal.
I didn’t attend the symposium, or perhaps I did, but I was interested in the the discussion of the “rules of improv acting as [a] frame for a broader discussion of fostering innovation and creativity,” because the rules reminded me of the managerial strategy of a librarian I once worked with who was in charge of a largish department.
“The rules include ‘always agree and say yes,’ ‘make statements’ (instead of merely raising questions), and ‘there are no mistakes, only opportunities,’ conceived to allow playful momentum to build.”
Always say yes, don’t ask questions, I never make mistakes. These were the words she lived by, so maybe she was an improv actor!
"Always say yes" makes it easy to set people up for ...
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