Fray by the Bay

The American Library Association's (ALA) annual meeting, June 14–20, consisted of a vibrant, versatile array of insightful sessions ranging from digital rights management to legislative forecasts and the latest product releases on the exhibit floor.

However, the exuberance was overshadowed at times by ALA politics, thrown into disarray by a labor controversy surrounding the show's headquarters hotel, the San Francisco Marriott. Hotel workers picketed the hotel vociferously over an ongoing labor dispute, leaving librarians uneasy at the prospect of crossing the picket line to attend sessions and forcing the last-minute cancellation of the Coretta Scott King Awards and the boycott of the hotel by several ALA honorees and officials—including ALA 2002–03 President Mitch Freedman and Lippincott Award winner Patricia Schuman. The workers have been seeking a new contract with the hotel since 1996. The workers at times beat drums, blew whistles, and chanted at attendees, "ALA, you don't have to stay" and "ALA go away." Some librarians sympathetic to the workers' cause joined union picketers on the first two days of the conference.

"I personally cannot cross a picket line," said one librarian, adding that she felt ALA officials were less than forthcoming about the labor situation as the annual meeting was being planned. "I found that very unfortunate." ALA officials, however, did note in preconference materials that the Marriott could be experiencing labor troubles and said they could not have backed out of the agreements without incurring a large financial penalty.

While many librarians chose not to cross the picket lines, many did so, and most sessions and ceremonies at the hotel were reasonably well attended. "I hope you will talk to the workers, or even pick up a sign," said Peter McDonald, a Syracuse University librarian who hosted a successful session at the Marriott. Clearly sympathetic, McDonald also told his large audience that the ALA Executive Board "did us a disservice" by scheduling the session in a hotel beset by labor strife.

Freedman supported a short but comprehensive resolution that would mandate that ALA include a boycott clause in future contracts. He called the situation unfortunate and said he had proposed alternatives to holding the ALA Executive Board meetings in the Marriott, working out a deal with San Francisco PL Director Susan Hildreth to hold the meeting there, but the change of venue was rejected by the board.

While some members criticized ALA for not moving faster and with more resolve to confront the hotel labor dispute and make alternative plans, the situation did not have a negative impact on the heavy conference attendance, since most people booked far in advance. The scenic city of San Francisco proved an irresistible draw for a record 26,542 attendees. This year's conference attracted 2000 more attendees than ALA's 2000 annual in Chicago, despite a confusing and poorly laid out multitrack schedule that had attendees poring over their conference programs to ferret out desired sessions. The show floor additionally boasted an impressive 835 exhibitors, who packed both the North and South halls of the Moscone Convention Center.

Baker gets warm response, tough questions

Perhaps Nicholson Baker, the author of Double Fold: Libraries and the Assault on Paper, isn't so controversial after all. Speaking to a room packed with librarians at the Westin St. Francis hotel, Baker received a warm response and was given an honorary membership in the Progressive Librarians Guild, which sponsored Baker's talk. Baker spoke for well over an hour and presented an entertaining slide show of the gems in his recently salvaged collection of the New York World newspaper. The controversial author told the audience that he loved libraries and that he wrote Double Fold to call attention to flawed library policies, not to bash the library profession. "There is a feeling in some quarters that I have wrongly attacked the library profession," Baker acknowledged at the beginning of his talk. "But there is nothing monolithic about what libraries think." Baker then pressed his point. "We need a national library to commit to the ordered storage of what America has published and read." His talk was interrupted several times by applause.

Despite the warm reception, the question-and-answer period provided an interesting counterbalance. Nearly every other question from the audience, written on index cards, was harshly critical of Baker. One question asserted that Baker's tome would make it far more difficult for libraries to get money and hence hurt preservation efforts. Another urged Baker to study more deeply the social and political circumstances under which librarians are expected to work. And one question in particular drew oohs from the crowd, as it accused Baker of consistently "toning down" or ameliorating his characterization of librarians in speeches and interviews in contrast to what he says in his book. Baker emphatically denied this charge, saying he would appreciate hearing of any specific instances where he might have done so.

Putnam's trends at President's Program

Harvard sociologist Robert Putnam, author of the thought-provoking Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, drew an attentive and inquisitive audience at Nancy Kranich's President's Program. He detailed the decline of "social capital," as demonstrated in loss of participation in community groups (e.g., PTA) since 1970. "We're connecting less," he said. "We're becoming a less generous nation." Concomitant with the decline in trust, he said, has been a massive increase in lawyers—"synthetic trust."

What's the cause of these changes? Putnam ruled out the computer and residential mobility. The main culprit is "entertainment television," which he called a cause, not a consequence, of a more consumer-oriented, individualistic society. But it's vital to increase "connectedness," both for individual and collective well-being.

"The future of libraries is bound up with the fate of social connectedness," Putnam said, because more civically engaged people tend to use libraries. Though he didn't have a blueprint, he offered a parallel. A century ago, he said, America suffered from similar deficits, but citizens founded organizations—from the Boy Scouts to the United Way—in response. Similarly, "We need a concentrated period of ten years of civic renewal." Among his suggestions: school reforms and greater flexibility in the workplace.

When Putnam asked how many in the audience had recently attended a school or volunteer meeting, most hands went up. "This is probably the most civic room in America," he declared. However, a sobering contrast to that was raised when ALA President-elect Freedman pointed out that only 10,000 ALA members—less than one-sixth of the total membership—voted in recent ALA elections.

Increasing the likelihood that a court decision on the Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA) will be made before libraries must take definitive steps to either use filters or not, a trial date in the federal lawsuit challenging CIPA has been set for February 14, 2002. CIPA—which will link receipt of E-rate and federal library funds to filtering next year if it is not struck down—was the subject of several panels, including the Membership II meeting.

At that meeting, ALA attorney Dan Mach offered extensive commentary on the legal theory behind the lawsuit. "Even if filter companies try to conform to the legal categories"—including obscenity and "harmful to minors" material—"that would not suffice," he said, given that those categories require judicial determinations. Moreover, the law does not explain the "lawful purpose" under which librarians could unblock sites under the law. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) didn't even try to explain this issue in regulations, said Mach. "They punted."

FCC representative Mark Seifert found himself in the awkward position of facing such questions at a Washington Office Update session. Asked how a library using filters to comply with the law should address concerns about blocking constitutionally protected speech, he responded, "It's an incredibly difficult decision. We're going to have to rely on the wisdom of the community."

When it was pointed out that no software maker has stated that its products meet the law's requirements, Seifert responded, "Your question is better designated for another body." ALA consultant Tom Susman followed up, saying, "Congress really is the culprit. It passed a law that is badly written, cobbled together, in an election year—and it stinks."

What if libraries that do filter receive complaints from a parent that a child has accessed inappropriate material? Said Seifert, "We presume Congress did not intend to penalize those who acted in good faith."

Susman also criticized the FCC for offering a literal reading of the law, rejecting an ALA request for an exemption for computers used only by staff. Said Seifert, "Our intent is to do no more and no less than the statute requires." ALA representatives were pleased, however, that the requirements for "undertaking action" to comply with the law included attendance at ALA information sessions, and attendees were given certificates attesting to that. "The key thing is to create a paper trail," in case critics question whether the library is complying with the law, said Washington Office Director Emily Sheketoff.

At the conference, Judith Krug, director of ALA's Office for Intellectual Freedom, urged participants to donate money to help fund the legal challenge. The litigation against the Communications Decency Act, she said, was helped substantially by Internet Service Providers (ISPs). "This is not their fight," she said. "This is our fight."

As of July 2, ALA had raised $683,000, a little more than half of its $1.3 million target. Most of that was from ALA and related organizations—$500,000 from ALA, $50,000 (of a planned $100,000) from the Freedom To Read Foundation, $50,000 from the Public Library Association, and $25,000 from ALSC.

When Mark Stepik—whose work at Xerox PARC labs created some of the first reliable digital rights management (DRM) software—first came up with a way to control how digital information could be used, he said he had what some might consider an interesting reaction. "This is bad," Stefik recalls thinking. "It might work, but it's probably immoral." Stefik said he was concerned about too much control shifting to copyright holders, a problem he said he eventually was able to mitigate.

However, that's not to say concerns don't linger. Just what will the rights landscape look like for libraries in the digital future? How much of a factor will piracy really be? How will the balance between fair use and rights-holders restrictions shift, and how will technology aid this shift? At a large, well-attended two-part session some of the information community's most influential players addressed these questions as well as the future of DRM. Speakers included the Coalition for Networked Information's Cliff Lynch; Stefik, whose software led to Xerox's spin-off DRM company, ContentGuard; Prasad Ram, cofounder of Savantech with former Association of American Publishers copyright specialist Carol Risher; Dennis McNannay, formerly of InterTrust; and Johns Hopkins University Librarian James G. Neal. In a lively discussion, the panel disagreed about the need for, the dangers within, and the efficacy of DRM technology. Ram told the audience that DRM was needed to restrict unauthorized use and to compensate rights holders. "At the end of the day," said Ram, "copyright is to help people make money." McNannay asserted that "DRM is a technology that can be used in very helpful ways." Playing to some of librarians' other fears about the Internet, he explained how DRM could be used to ensure the integrity of information on the Internet.

Neal: don't believe the DRM hype

Johns Hopkins's Neal, also a well-known expert on copyright, sat politely through each of the presentations. Speaking last, he began his talk by telling a joke intended to send a clear message to those in attendance: don't believe the hype. DRM is not about helping libraries. Neal urged librarians to remain vigilant and to take the time to understand DRM initiatives, place them in context, and negotiate strongly for the rights of users when signing license agreements. "Information has become less and less for the public good," said Neal, "and more and more a commodity." Neal implored, "We have a responsibility as librarians. We need to be knowledgeable for our communities. We need to be active legislatively. We need to educate about the impact of these changes. We need to answer the call."

Napster CEO surprise guest on digital age panel

ALA officials might have been slightly disappointed when Jonathan Earp, a public relations representative of the embattled peer-to-peer music share network Napster, relayed his last-minute inability to attend the session. But they were delighted by his stand-in: none other than Napster interim CEO Hank Barry. Barry kicked off a lively and well-received session on sharing and ownership in the digital age. National Public Radio's (NPR) Chris Arnold hosted former ALA legal counsel Adam Eisgrau, author Siva Vaidyanathan, and UCLA professor of information studies Howard Besser, in addition to Barry.

The session was sponsored by ALA's Washington Office and the Association of College and Research Libraries copyright committee and offered one of the most informative looks yet at the cultural and legal landscape that will affect libraries in the digital age. "Napster is important because it represents the idea of distributed computing in a moderate way," Barry told librarians, saying his legal battles were just the beginning of a fight toward a tremendous "social goal." He characterized the Recording Industry Association of America as "copyright absolutists" and urged vigilance in the library community, saying the fight "is a big fight and is going to last ten years."

The other panelists agreed and offered interesting paradigms for librarians to understand the true nature of peer-to-peer, distributed computing and its effects on the work of libraries. "I've grown tired of talking about Napster as a sports story—who's going to win, who's going to lose," said Vaidyanathan, a professor of communications at the University of Wisconsin and frequent contributor to The Nation. He said librarians should be at the forefront of helping information users understand the nature of the beast. Besser agreed, saying, "Let journalists make sense of the moment, let us make sense of the movement."

A contentious debate remains over pending database protection legislation, which pits providers of financial service, realtor, and legal databases against libraries and some interesting allies, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and portals like Yahoo. In April and May, interested parties met weekly to try to hammer out a compromise, but, said the Assn. of Research Libraries' Pru Adler, "The gulf is so wide and so deep, there may not be a common ground."

The politics of LSTA have changed a bit, given that, as of Midwinter, Sen. James Jeffords (R-VT) and Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA) had agreed to cosponsor ALA's proposal to increase funding over the President's figure of $168 million. However, the duo had not yet endorsed the $350 million ALA had sought as a first step toward a larger reauthorization figure next year of $500 million. "So we no longer have the chair and ranking member [of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee] on board," said Washington Office Director Sheketoff. "We are going back to the drawing board, looking for a cosponsor."

NCLIS won't be abolished

Despite President Bush's attempt to abolish the National Commission on Libraries and Information Science (NCLIS) (see News, LJ 5/1/01 ), it looks like the change in party control in the Senate will preserve the agency. Sheketoff told the ALA Executive Board that Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV), home state Senator of NCLIS Chair Martha Gould, has requested that the agency's funding be restored. "This will be taken care of," said Sheketoff. "[NCLIS will] be back next year."

Gould herself was a bit more circumspect. "We're hopeful," she told LJ of the funding restoration. Reid has requested that NCLIS get its full funding request, $3 million, which is a significant increase from the previous budget of $1.4 million. Gould said NCLIS hoped that the funding would be restored in June, but it may not occur until September. She added that a bipartisan group of Senators, including Joseph Lieberman (D-CT) and John McCain (R-AZ), have voiced their support for NCLIS.

Despite the underwhelming presence of e-books at BookExpo America (BEA) in Chicago, ALA sessions on the format drew large crowds. Speakers at one session agreed that libraries can and should play a role in promoting e-books. Doing so, however, is a daunting task because there is no accepted gadget or platform. As Rivkah Sass, Multnomah Cty. Lib., OR, said with a nod to Gertrude Stein, "E-books are the new Oakland. There is no there, there."

While vendors work to create a more convenient and affordable design for both librarians and patrons, Sass said librarians need to adopt a "cybernaut" image. Just as public libraries introduced CDs, they can introduce e-books. "Vendors need to see us as comarketers," Sass said. She also reiterated a common frustration among librarians: the dearth of diverse e-content. As familiar as librarians are with netLibrary, it offers "too much Henry James and not enough P.D. James." ebrary's Chris Warnock, who spoke on the same panel as Sass, says he has the solution to that problem via his web-based model, which launched a beta version July 25. ebrary posts copyrighted information on the net and acts like a photocopier: reading material is free, but copying requires a fee.

Nora Rawlinson, editor-in-chief of Publishers Weekly, echoed Sass's Stein sound bite at a different session: she had been planning to speak on how e-books are transforming trade publishing until she went to BEA and "learned that e-books weren't transforming trade publishing at all." Rawlinson believes that publishers are cautious about investing in e-books because of the "CD-ROM debacle" of not so long ago. Textbooks and travel books are her picks for genres most likely to succeed as e-books.

Virtual reference projects' progress report

Virtual reference remained a hot topic at the conference, on the show floor, and at seminars. In the week leading up to the conference, two reference projects—KnowItNow in the Cleveland area and 24/7 Reference in the Los Angeles region—both debuted 24-hour online reference for public library patrons. Indeed, the Cleveland project attracted the attention of NPR.

Meanwhile, at a Reference & User Services Association (RUSA) program on reference, more than half of those attending raised their hands to agree that reference services are not keeping up with the times. "We shouldn't provide access without service," declared Joe Janes of the University of Washington. "Nobody would have dreamed about leaving the building open without staff. That's a question we haven't faced yet."

At another session, Diane Kresh of the Library of Congress (LC) provided an update on the ambitious but slow-developing Collaborative Digital Reference Service (CDRS), an international network of libraries, with LC and OCLC at its core. The project continues to add participants but is still working on a Knowledge Base of answers that could speed responses. CDRS also plans to add a chat component. Next year CDRS might be offered to end users.

Of course, a key question is cost, and two sessions at the conference were designed to plumb users' opinions of an appropriate subscription model. "We will probably continue to offer it free through the calendar year, trying to figure out what it is worth to people," Kresh said.

On the floor, Susan McGlamery, who developed the 24/7 project with Steve Coffman at County of Los Angeles PL before he left for LSSI, found herself in a competition of sorts with LSSI. Both projects have adapted the same e-Gain software for virtual reference library use. Though McGlamery's organization is a nonprofit, she was there to find new clients for "cost recovery."

With attendance at a record high, the exhibits at San Francisco were proportionately large. The 835 exhibitors offered a brimming assortment of books for readers of all ages and the latest wizardry, from singe databases and helpful gizmos through full automation solutions designed to service hundreds of simultaneous users (see also InfoTech, this issue).

The San Francisco gathering offered a new twist as ALA raffled off a car on the show floor. In order to win the Chrysler Sebring convertible, roughly 30 attendees an hour were selected to do what librarians do best: answer questions. Those responding correctly then spun a carnival wheel, determining if they had a shot at the car or would receive a lesser prize. Gale Group sponsored an ALA version of Win Ben Stein's Money, hosting the comedian at its booth. Stein selected librarians from the floor and posed reference questions that they answered via Gale's InfoTrac. Stein proved a huge draw for Gale, so look for other vendors to bring celebs to future gatherings.

Children's books continued to dominate the publishers' wares displayed on the show floor, but adult titles and authors are gaining ground. Publishers that previously brought children's titles exclusively are now including a number of adult titles as well. Random House continues to have the largest adult book presence, with autograph sessions with 16 of its adult authors, including the controversial Nicholson Baker and ornithologist David Allen Sibley, who proved the largest draw with his surprise hit The Sibley Guide to Birds. Random's Marcia Purcell told LJ, "We can't print the [Sibley] books fast enough" to meet demand. Publishers also seemed more willing to part with galleys and some even offered free copies of finished books: DC Comics provided free copies of a large, hardcover Batman anthology to librarians only.

The big systems vendors were prevalent at the exhibits, squatting like giants on huge chunks of floor space. ALA, however, was also inhabited by myriad small techie exhibitors. Among those were newcomers ALLDATA, a vast database of auto repair manuals, and Serials Solutions, which is proving to be a great librarian success story (see "Peter McCracken: Librarian as Entrepreneur "). The company was founded by, among others, a Seattle-area librarian who created a serials cataloging product that is drawing the attention not only of fellow librarians but of vendors as well.

"We have arrived," declared attendees at the first-ever National Conference on Asian Pacific American Librarians, following the exhortation of keynote speaker Phoebe Eng (Warrior Lessons). The conference, held immediately preceding the ALA annual conference, was cosponsored by the Asian Pacific American Librarians Association (APALA) and Chinese American Librarians Association (CALA). Many CALA members also belong to APALA.

The theme of "Shared Visions" aimed to highlight the diversity of heritages among all Asian Pacific Americans and to celebrate their common professional and social interests and concerns. "I care very deeply that we keep what keeps us different, how an Asian heritage can inform an American one," declared Eng, "but at the same time I want people to know that I'm just like them." Her solution for such "balancing acts": to cross boundaries via "a sense and skill in the art of fluency," which requires lifelong learning.

Luncheon speaker Emil Guillermo (Amok) spoke of an America that has becoming increasingly Asian, especially in California, along with the possibility of a fraying Asian American identity, given intermarriage and assimilation. But the conference taught him, he later reflected in a postconference column in Asianweek, of the importance of community for the far-flung Asian American professionals "in the hinterlands."

The conference attracted 310 participants, among them 32 library school students on scholarship (thanks in part to the ALA Executive Director's office). It featured 80 concurrent programs, 13 author signings, and 23 vendors. "Attendees felt energized and empowered," reported Ling Hwey Jeng, associate professor, SLIS, Univ. of Kentucky, a conference coordinator. "There is a sense of pride in what all participants were able to accomplish," she added, noting that a second conference is anticipated.

Among attendees were representatives of ALA's other ethnic caucuses, several of whom participated on a panel concerning ethnic coalition-building, with a conference of those caucuses anticipated in 2005–06. ALA Executive Director William Gordon cautioned that participating organizations must be clear on their commitments of time, money, and staff—and must figure out a way to balance and apportion such commitments among groups of different sizes. Susana Hinojosa, chair of Reforma's second national conference last year, suggested that the groups first work on smaller programs as a way to test coordination.

Few Asian Americans head libraries

While the number of Asian American librarians is comparable to their current percentage of the population, they are not nearly as well represented among leaders in the profession. Ben Wakashige, New Mexico State Librarian, pointed out that he is the only Asian leader of a state library; only one Asian leads an Association of Research Libraries library; and no Asian Americans lead Urban Libraries Council institutions.

There is a core of Asian American library leaders at other institutions, and Wakashige's survey of those leaders produced mixed results on whether a glass ceiling exists. Still, he mused that, given that most of those leaders come from an older generation, there may not be a new cadre of middle managers ready to step up. Charlotte Kim, assistant commissioner of the Chicago Public Library, recounted episodes from her own career in which she took chances and moved ahead. "The glass ceilings are attainable," she said, advising that professional growth requires both individual commitment and "helping hands from others."

A sign of the importance of leadership came at the conference banquet, where Betty Tsai, professor/systems librarian at Bucks Cty. Community Coll., PA, was named recipient of the first Ching Chih-Chen Leadership Development Award. Tsai cofounded APALA and served as its president; she also served as president of CALA. She chairs ALA's Committee on Minority Concerns & Cultural Diversity. The award is named for Ching Chih-Chen, professor, GSLIS, Simmons College, Boston, who, with her family, made a major contribution to the award.

At the conference, five Asian Pacific American Awards for Literature were presented, including those for adult fiction (Land of Smiles by T.C. Huo) and adult nonfiction (First They Killed My Father by Loung Ung). The conference also featured 11 poster sessions covering subjects ranging from the New York Public Library's programs to welcome recent New Yorkers, starting English-language libraries in underdeveloped areas like Laos, and the Southeast Asian Archive of the University of California, Irvine, Libraries.

Mary Moore, chair of the ALA Committee on Education (COE), presented a proposal to establish an allied professional association to certify individual librarians in areas of specialization beyond the ALA-recognized master's degree. Council promptly approved the policy statement supporting the establishment of this new body and then spent a considerable amount of time discussing its name and organizational structure. COE proposed naming it the ALA Institute for Professional Practice (IPP). Councilor Prudence Dalrymple disliked this name and moved to strike it from the document but was voted down. Beverly Lynch (UCLA GSLIS) opposed the suggested administrative structure for the IPP, whose Board of Directors would comprise the members of the ALA Executive Board. To guard against possible conflicts of interest she favored a Board of Directors based on the Freedom To Read Foundation (FTRF) model. However, Council was keen to move ahead and approved the IPP Board of Directors proposal.

COE stressed that this was a voluntary certification program, but by choosing to require it for appointments employers could impact its adoption. The first such certification program proposed is for Certified Public Library Administrator, open to those with an ALA-recognized MLS plus three years' supervisory experience in public libraries. LAMA, LITA, and ASCLA are also interested in developing certification programs in their areas although they may ask for three years' experience rather than specifying "supervisory experience."

Since former ALA President Barbara Ford appointed the Outsourcing Task Force in 1997, there has been much discussion in Council and the divisions on outsourcing and privatization and how the two relate to ALA's core values. The Council has acknowledged the difficulty but not the impossibility of defining "core services" for any single library. However, it has accepted that "libraries are an essential public good" and that policymaking and policy implementation should not be shifted to the private sector in publicly funded libraries. Executive Board member Sally Reed presented a resolution containing a policy statement to this effect, which the Council approved.

In an encouraging break from an unfortunate pattern of very poor attendance at previous ALAs, the second of two Membership Meetings had a quorum. The question remains whether reaching a quorum at future ALA Membership Meetings—replete with Motions and Resolutions prepared by members for debate and action—is a realistic notion, considering the advance notice Krug's update had received (see Intellectual Property section).

Ensuring access to information for all has been very much in the forefront of ALA's policies in recent years. At the Midwinter Meeting, Council adopted the Library Services for People with Disabilities policy; new president John W. Berry appointed a Presidential Task Force on Equitable Access; and ASCLA established the Roads to Learning Initiative (RLI), funded by a grant from the Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation, which, among other things, had an Accessibility Pavilion in the exhibits hall to demonstrate new services and products offered by vendors. The RLI ends in October 2001, and ASCLA, supported by a range of Councilors, brought forward a request that ALA allocate resources to continue the commitment to library services in this area.