The big news coming out of ALA Midwinter, besides the news that Dallas is a mediocre conference city, is that the “leaders” of ALA are going to meet today with at least three of the Big Six publishers. Based on the perspectives shared in the LJ article, the meeting promises to be a big mess. There’s some tough talk from the ALA Executive Director, who said, “I want to assure you that the dialog will begin with us saying ‘you need to deal with libraries and you need to do this as soon as possible,’ then we can have a dialog  starting from there.” I’ve attended a lot of meetings in my time and I’ve never seen one that began so belligerently accomplish anything. Were I a Simon & Schuster representative - and for all you know I am - my response to that line would be, “Or what?” That sounds mild, but I’d say it in a really hostile tone of voice, and I’d be really menacing and all. It sounds like a threat, except the ALA has nothing to ...
Read More >>

As in a lot of places, libraries in Chicago have faced budget problems as the cities have faced budget problems, and based on this article it seems the mayor and the local union have been having difficulty finding any agreement. After all the recent closures and firings, the mayor now has a plan that will reopen Chicago public libraries on Mondays, reinstate some laid off employees, and return some others to full time from part time. Sounds good, right? According to the head of the union, that’s not good enough “for the people of Chicago.” It’s nice that someone is sticking up “for the people of Chicago”! Based on comments from the head of the union, I think it would be hard for anyone who wasn’t a librarian wanting a job to sympathize with them. On a minor note, I wonder if the head of the union had been a woman instead of a man, would she have called some Chicago aldermen “handmaidens of the mayor”? Seems like one angry man trying to ...
Read More >>

ALA Midwinter is winding down. I didn’t write about it last week because it looked like it would be pretty boring. The what’s happening page had a long list of speakers, most of which I’d never heard of but didn’t think I’d want to see, plus some others I knew enough about to deliberately avoid. On the other hand, Dallas in January is a lot better than Boston or Philadelphia in January, and as conference cities go it’s not as bad as I thought it would be. The weather was pleasant. Nobody in Dallas walks anywhere, so the sidewalks weren't crowded, though I wouldn't call the place pedestrian friendly by any means. There were no restaurants to speak of near the convention center, but then again the attendance was only about 4,000, so it didn't matter much that the only convenient food was the convention center swill. As conference cities in Texas go, Dallas is a lot like San Antonio, minus the charm. And the restaurants and pedestrian friendly atmosphere. Which ...
Read More >>

Here in the United States librarians might be ignoring my advice to convert to the new religion of Kopimism, but I’m a genius in France, at least if we go by a group of French librarians who are encouraging people to visit public libraries and copy the books and DVDs they get there. Apparently, the French government is as wild as the American government, or at least American publishers, to fight Internet piracy, and at least one librarian is fighting back. 30-year-old blogger Silvae is a librarian and calls on members to copy borrowed material. On his blog Bibliobsession, he encourages readers and librarians to launch "copy parties" in public libraries and says others share his views. “Copy parties”? Instead, they should call them “copy services” as they practice Kopimism. On second thought, if they called them “copy services” someone might confuse them with Copytop. According to the article: “The concept of the copy party is simple, members bring ...
Read More >>

Perhaps the oddest somewhat library-related event last week was the Occupy Wall Street Library party at the New York City nightclub Works in Progress. The OWS partiers occupiers set up a library, which was supposed to “serve as outreach for the movement to a heretofore untapped demographic, while soliciting book donations for its collection,” according to the account in the Village Voice. The OWS website promoted the party. “DJ Spooky is throwing a party at W.i.P. (work in progress) and asked the People’s Library to come set up a mobile unit so you can take a book or leave a book while you dance. Finally, libraries and nightclubs getting together! 2012 really is the year!” It turns out that 2012 might not really be the year. I was unfamiliar with “DJ Spooky,” who apparently “has built a career on self-consciously remixing and re-purposing archival material." It sounds like he’d be a perfect convert for the religion of Kopimism. Since the OWS ...
Read More >>

Librarians may have found their new religion, unless they’ve already found one of the myriad old religions, but the old religions didn’t have anything to say about file sharing and this one does. By now, you probably know I’m talking about the  Church of Kopimism, which the Swedish government has finally and formally recognized as a religion. It’s the best thing to come out of Sweden since Ikea and Stieg Larsson. The Church of Kopimism believes in the following tenets: All knowledge to all The search for knowledge is sacred The circulation of knowledge is sacred The act of copying is sacred All people should have access to all information produced For the most part, that sounds an awful lot like the tenets of librarianship, except for the sacred part. They believe that CTRL+C and CTRL+V are sacred symbols, and if you go to the Swedish language site you can see a short video showing you how to make the sacred signs. I expect to see librarians ...
Read More >>