ALA accreditation has a new logo (if you consider January 2007 new)

I am a bit late on the draw here, but if you haven't heard there is a new logo that schools with ALA accreditation can use. If you're curious, here is the US Patent and Trademark Office listing for it.

Here are the guidelines for using the ALA Office of Accreditation logo (interesting note- one of the rules is that "ALA accredited programss may not use the logo on merchandise intended for sale." I suppose they are not really thinking of their program as merchandise- I'll have to see what non-accredited programs such as Berkeley's School of Information, aka iSchool, has to say about the logo).

Final thoughts on ALA Annual 2007 in DC

Facebook library friends met at an establishment that night- no one had conference badges on so we did not know that for at least an hour we were sitting next to a table full of librarians. We can be quite a raucous crowd. Even our waitress was in library school. Only because of this night am I now on Facebook. SOOOO much better than MySpace.

Monday was my final day, and before I headed to the airport I attended OCLC’s President’s Luncheon. That got me fired up. OCLC is doing some wonderful things. Now I see why Michael Porter and others work there- seems like a great dynamic. I left the luncheon wanting to go fill out an application, or at least follow up on projects such as Identities, Fiction Finder, the WorldCat pilot project at the University of Washington, and the Delivery pilot project in Wyoming.

I made some excellent work contacts, and a few friends that I want to keep in touch with. So, overall, it was an epic conference (for the record, the categories are ‘epic’, ‘worthwhile’, and ‘should have saved the money’).

Thoughts on vendors at ALA

Taylor Francis has yet to make contact to alert me that I won the iPhone- this is an oversight I am sure, and trust it will be remedied this week.

Several vendors schmoozed with their customer base (effectively, I might add):

Ebsco provided lunch for about 700 people, and told us about some of the new databases they would be offering soon (more on those databases later).

OCLC sponsored a Blog Salon where I met, among many others, OCLC CEO Jay Jordan

Proquest hosted a dinner for about 150 people at the National Museum of the American Indian. The museum is a very cool public space, rounded walkways and an ‘organic’ sort of feel to it.

3M hosted a dance party at the Grand Hyatt- where else could you have all ages of vendors and librarians sharing a dance floor to the sounds of Outkast and Sir Mix-A-Lot?

Sunday at ALA

Stephen Abram spoke on Sunday morning and his topic was “What are you promoting?” His point was that we need to be welcoming in our physical and virtual spaces. We need to give the user a positive experience. We know that we have the content- now we need to provide that to the users in an enjoyable way.

I went to a session about recruiting Black Male Librarians, as did about a dozen other people, only to find out that it had been cancelled. I took the initiative to gather business cards and promised that I would follow up. I feel that this workshop is important and ought to be rescheduled. ALA-Midwinter?

LITA hosted a Hot Tech Trends panel discussion Sunday afternoon, with Joan Frye Williams, Marshall Breeding, Roy Tennant, Karen Coombs, John Blyberg, and one more person who I don’t recall. Argh. His name will come to me at some point.

Robert F Kennedy spoke, and I had never heard the man before but I would like to sign up for oration class if he is teaching. Now I know what brilliant public speaking is all about. He had some powerful messages and presented them so as to leave little doubt that action was needed on several fronts (environmental, political, etc.). He was going to sign books after his speech, so I ducked out 15 minutes early and was 5th in line for his signature. I mentioned the Mono Lake Committee, hoping that he had heard of it, but alas there was no recognition in his face as he handed my autographed copy.

Gaming and Information Literacy at ALA

This was one of the top three workshops I attended; it was presented by CJCLS. The speakers were Dr. Gee and Dr. Needham, and they presented compelling arguments regarding the use of videogames (online as well as standalones such as Nintendo Wii) in education.

Essentially, they said, the education world has for decades been trying to get kids excited about doing long, hard, complex work at school. Private industry has somehow managed to get kids to do this type of work, and pay $60 for each game. What are we doing wrong and what are they doing right? For starters we educators make the kids read first, then play. The games encourage play, then reading. Let’s begin there…

They noted that librarians are no longer “information priests” now that users have a deluge of content coming at them from all angles. Instead, we need to be thinking about what the user can contribute. Indeed, Dr. Gee noted that for many of today’s ‘prosumers,’ information is useless they can modify it in some way.

Hollywood Librarian

Friday night was the world premiere of the Hollywood Librarian here in Washington, D.C. They rolled out the red carpet for us librarians, and some of us entered with style (read: did everything we could to get our photo taken). I did OK- its not everyday that an Okie librarian gets his photo and quote in the Washington Post style section. I should have, however, made them agree to mention my blog URL. Next time.

Once I got beyond the flashbulbs of the red carpet, I settled in for the movie. It was all documentary, and its good that Ms. Seidl chose librarians as her inaugural audience. At 100 minutes long, it will be a hard sell to regular audiences. To be marketable to non-librarians, it would need to be cut in half (ie, take out everything but the old movie clips).

Saturday morning there was a discussion panel that noted the movie playing on the library 'victimization' model: "woe is us because look at how others perceive us and gosh we don't have nearly as much money spent on us as we do on military operations around the world." My theory is that until we assert ourselves we will not reach our full potential with regards to funding and respect. We need to practice proactive librarianship and have the ear of key community leaders well before any shutdown occurs. Along those lines, maybe library school needs to include more emphasis on negotiation and proactive marketing (case studies on successful bond measures could be a place to start).

The movie spent a solid 15 minutes on the story of the Salinas Library system quagmire. Ok, what did we learn? Be more proactive and get out the word that the library needs continued support. Next slide, please-let's move on and not dwell on it.

One cool thing that I learned about was the San Quinton State Prison/Marin Literacy program that provided prisoners with the chance to learn how to read.

Other than that, the most relevant parts of the movie were the library-related movie clips and citations:

City of Angels
Cleopatra (twice)
Twilight Zone
Plaza Suite
Big Bully
Goodbye, Columbus
It's a Wonderful Life
Party Girl (thrice)
Chicka Chicka Boom Boom
Matilda
Dangerous Minds
Pat and Mike
Desk Set (twice)
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Goodbye Columbus
Librarian: Quest of the Spear
Music Man
Station Agent
No Man of Her Own
Threesome
Love Story
Storm Center (twice)
Time Machine
Battlefield Earth
Soylent Green
Zardoz
Cesar and Cleopatra
Fahrenheit 451

At the end of the film Ms. Seidl mentioned that we could all pick up a free copy of the film in the exhibit hall if we agreed to two things. First, we had to show it in our communities during Banned Books Week, September 29- Oct 6, 2007. Second, we have to charge admission- $8 for adults and I don't recall how much for children. The proceeds would be split among the hosting library, Ms. Seidl, and a third entity that I do not recall. Jury is still out on how many libraries will actually show the film in their town. I agree about charging money so people will respect what they see, though.

first day at ALA smashing success

Today I attended a preconference called "Accepting an Electronic Resources Librarianship Position: the Best Professional Decision You Ever Made! Now What?" The presenter was Anjana Bhatt, E Resources Librarian at Florida Gulf Coast University. There were 45 people who each paid $200 (or their institution paid) for this 3.5 hour workshop. Overall it was worthwhile, although the price should have been about $115. There was a librarian from Amsterdam, Netherlands there. How worldly can you get? The workshop made me feel that my community college is doing well in the E Resources area, and we are poised to take the next step with an ERMS (excuse the shop talk...). I made good contacts and will be able to use some of the material as soon as I get back to Tulsa.

Oh, and the fellow from the Netherlands told me of a song I had never heard of, "Twenty four hours from Tulsa," the lyrics of which can be found here. Not a ballad I'll be singing anytime soon, but one more song reference for our fair city.

I took the Metro to the Library of Congress, Jefferson Building, and ohmygoodness I was impressed. The place is incredible. They stayed open from 5 to 7 PM on a Friday night for us fellow librarians. Very cool.

Here is my humble photo essay for today (photos are taken inside Convention Center and Library of Congress, Jefferson Building):

Getting ready for ALA in Anaheim 2008

Library of Congress, Jefferson Building

Words that will be applicable forever in our democracy











Inside the Reading Room


















A friendly note from the librarians to the regular Reading Room crowd










This photo is for Gisele- those are Contemporary Authors!


















A view from the 4th floor (where I was not supposed to be...)

















Tennis, anyone?


















A kayaking we shall go


















Let the music go around





















And I have yet to get to the Hollywood Librarian movie premiere- that will have to wait until tomorrow as it's 2 AM and I'm beat.

Dynamic Librarian in DC

Karen Harris and I are representing Tulsa Community College here at ALA's massive annual conference. And I do mean massive. There will be about 30,000 of us librarians here.

Today was travel day, and the most interesting thing was the guy in handcuffs on our Tulsa-Memphis flight. I didn't ask questions- he was guarded by two burly men and I felt pretty safe.

The second most interesting thing was a comment about cabin pressure that prompted me to look up the demise of Payne Stewart. Worth a read if you are not familiar with the story.

So here I am at Hotel Washington. The only building that is between me and the White House is the US Treasury. I am about a mile from the Convention Center, but I don't mind the walk and all the hotels were booked when I made my reservations. This one fits me, though. It is 90 years old. :-)

I'm planning my day tomorrow while I watch soccer (Houston is embarrasing Chivas- the score is 4-0 and it's not over yet. This is big because Chivas has never lost by more than 3 goals). Let me know if you have any comments/vendors you want me to visit, if you haven't already.

-Nathan, F.I.G.
(Friendly Information Guru)

'Hollywood Librarian' to make its debut Friday night

Roll out the red carpet, get the papparazzi out here- DC is the place that the feature-length movie called 'Hollywood Librarian' will be debuted on Friday night.

I will be there and I'll let you know about it tomorrow night. For now here is the trailer:

Heading to ALA

I'm off to DC June 21 for the American Library Association conference, and it will be my first as well as possibly my last ALA conference. I get to see Stephen Abram, as well as the premeire of the Hollywood Librarian, some cool museums and a female Muslim refusenik named Irshad Manji. Some vendors will give me a free meal- the price I pay will only be my time as they introduce the latest product they have out. I am excited to go, though I may not sound like it. :-) We'll see if ALA can deliver- I'll be posting a few highlights here.

I have a theory about organizations: when they become too large (number of employees, number of people they are supposed to serve, etc) they become ineffective. There was a book written to this effect called Small is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered, and maybe someday I'll take my friend Greg's advice and read it.

Back to ALA, it has become too large. It is ineffective. I send emails suggesting ideas for ad campaigns or requests for information, and I don't get a reply. None. Zip. My renewal confirmation comes 3 months after I send in my dues. How is that effective?

The Free Range Librarian says that the short answer to effect change "is to take over ALA governance." Awesome- let's do just that. I'll vote for you. There's a start. (Along those lines, if every 18-30 year old voted in 2008, we could put whoever we wanted in office. Pedro, anyone?)

Library Rebranding Survey

The ALA Emerging Leaders program has a short survey out called the 'Library Rebranding Survey.' They ask some great questions such as:

Do librarians wear cardigans and glasses?

Are librarians technology experts, book experts, or research experts? (You can't answer all of the above- they want you to put these in order...)

The results will be presented at ALA next month and I'll bring back the results to share.

So please, spend about 4 minutes of your time filling out this one page online survey.

ALA resolution for minimum librarian salary

Check out the ALA's recent resolution on a minimum librarian salary of $40,000. We know we are all worth it, what are we doing to make other people agree?

'Pimp My Bookcart' Winners

Check out the winners of Overdue Media's 'Pimp My Bookcart' contest. Which one is your favorite?

The contest spurred librarians down under (Australia) to start a 'Pimp My Book Trolley' contest...