Sluggish Floor in San Diego; Progress on Range of Issues

No one theme dominated the American Library Association's (ALA) Midwinter Meeting in San Diego, January 9–14, though public librarians face challenges in complying with the Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA) or replacing federal funds linked to CIPA compliance, and libraries of all types face budget pressures. Institutionally, ALA reported some progress on the long-emerging ALA-APA (Allied Professional Association), support staff were offered membership, and Council struggled with a range of political questions, most notably how to respond to the arrests of Cuba's "independent" librarians.

San Diego was expected to attract a smaller crowd than the 2003 meeting in Philadelphia. Indeed, it did; the total registration was 10,788 vs. 13,664 in 2003. There were 7,944 attendees vs. 10,254 in 2003, and 2,844 exhibitors vs. 3410 in 2003. There were significant declines in onsite registrations in both categories.

In the placement office, 197 job seekers registered and found 129 job openings available. The most opportunities were in academic and public library administration.

Somewhat more of a surprise, however, was the sluggish show floor, where, for the third straight year, over two full days and parts of two others, exhibitors reported light traffic. Their protests forced some changes (see below and Inside Track , p. 110).

Several issues, such as the debate about core values, ALA's relationship with longtime legal counsel Jenner & Block, and the implementation of RFID (radio frequency identification) tags in libraries, likely will receive much more discussion at the annual conference in Orlando in June.

One small but important issue was settled. Does the ALA motto—"The best reading, for the largest number, at the least cost"—adequately reflect the aims, missions, and activities, of the organization? A few councilors said that that motto, coined by Melvil Dewey himself in 1892, was outdated, but their resolution was rejected, as most cited the motto's historical significance. (See also the ON THE FLOOR

Protests mean progress

For many years exhibitors pleaded with ALA conference organizers for a no-conflict time. ALA chose to open the exhibits on Friday evening instead of Saturday morning—not what all exhibitors wanted. Not only does the Friday opening add travel expenses, but the Friday hours seemingly have decimated the weekend traffic. Prior to the Friday opening, which launched at the 2002 Midwinter Meeting in New Orleans, Saturday had enjoyed steady traffic.

Many exhibitors dislike the Friday opening; others disagree. Random House's Marcia Purcell told LJ that Friday was a great success, with attendees buying $1000 worth of books inscribed by author Bertice Berry.

At the Exhibits Round Table (ERT) postmortem on January 12, participants debated methods to attract librarians to the show floor at future conferences, including moving the raffle drawing enticement to the last day and having numerous winners over the course of the day. Some vendors said they had signed a letter of intent to disengage from future Midwinter Meetings; others hoped that the existence of such a letter would prompt ALA to respond. The money generated by the exhibits pays ALA's expenses for the show and helps keep librarian registration costs below $100.

Indeed, the Executive Board, when presented with the skeleton schedule for Midwinter 2005, approved three no- or low-conflict times, each 90 minutes long: Saturday, 3:30–5 p.m.; Sunday, 2–3:30 p.m.; and Monday, 9–10:30 a.m.

New vendors alliance to lobby

Before expressing grief over the lack of attendance on the exhibit floor, ERT members brought more positive topics to bear. The Association of American Publishers (AAP), Friends of Libraries U.S.A. (FOLUSA), and ALA's Washington Office (ALA WASH) are sponsoring a vendors' alliance to lobby legislators. Representatives urged vendors to attend the March 3 meeting in Washington, DC.

Looking beyond CIPA

While CIPA, which requires filtering in public libraries receiving federal funds for Internet connections, may not affect all libraries, technology analyst Omar Wasow offered words of wisdom worth heeding. Speaking on "Living in a Post-CIPA World" for the ALA President's Program, Wasow encouraged listeners to project five or ten years ahead, when Internet access is even more pervasive and CIPA becomes less relevant.

"The future of libraries is in helping everyone to learn to think like a librarian," he said. "I want to challenge people about all the other filters that are not as obvious. The real skill that allows you to succeed is not to get online but to think critically."

Responding to CIPA

Alan Davidson of the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT), noted that most filtering products are not built for libraries. (Still, at least one product on the show floor claimed to be CIPA-compliant.) "Libraries need to demand library-appropriate technology," he said, adding that it's important to educate the public about the impact of filtering. He said that CDT would enter into a dialog with filtering companies, and "we'll explore a 'roll your own' option that maybe a separate system for libraries should be built."

Apparently unaware of ALA's fierce resistance to rating commercial filters, Davidson said, "We need a Consumer Reports for filtering, and that doesn't exist for the library community."

Attendees were given a set of CDT principles for the implementation of CIPA-mandated filtering in public libraries, among them tailored blocking (limited to categories in the statute, allowing libraries to create white lists of sites), the right of adult users to have a filter disabled anonymously and without explanation (including a means to obtain unfiltered access that persists for a period of time), transparency (users should get lists of blocked sites), and privacy and anonymity (a user's request to have sites unblocked or filters removed should not be recorded in any way that can be linked to the user's identity).

Patriot Act

Despite some gloomy news from ALA WASH about the need for continued vigilance on copyright and privatization of standards, "it's actually been a pretty good six months on Patriot Act issues," noted staffer Patrice McDermott. While several pending bills in Congress address Section 215 of the act, which involves business records, others also address Section 505.

"The Attorney General says Section 215 has not been used, but part of the reason we think it's probably true is Section 505, which we haven't been talking about enough," McDermott said. Section 505 allows the FBI to get internal administrative subpoenas; there's no need to go to a judge, even under the relaxed standards of Section 215, she noted.

After some debate, Council voted to support legislation currently in Congress to amend sections of the Patriot Act. ALA also recorded its opposition to H.R. 3261, the Database and Collections of Information Misappropriation Act, which would provide copyright-like protection to databases.

What are claims worth?

How much might libraries and publishers with claims against the bankrupt divine, Inc., parent of subscription agent RoweCom, receive when the case is resolved? Christopher Panos, a lawyer representing RoweCom creditors, said the numbers were still murky, but, under one set of assumptions, his "back of the envelope" estimate was "just under 25¢" per dollar. He stressed that no creditor should act on the scenarios discussed at the meeting, given the fuzziness of the numbers.

Speaking to a very interested—and clearly embittered—crowd of librarians and publishers who lost funds in the case, Panos noted that RoweCom received about $73 million in prepaid orders that was taken by divine rather than fulfilled. Because publishers agreed to fulfill a majority of orders and thus assumed those claims against RoweCom, currently there are nearly $29 million in library claims and $45 million in publisher claims against divine, according to one estimate Panos provided.

Not enough money left

There's not enough money, however, to pay those claims. Both RoweCom and divine have liquidated most of their assets; the RoweCom estate has about $6.2 million in cash, while divine has $55 million, plus up to $3 million in stock. There remains a possible claim against divine officers, who have a total of $20 million in liability insurance.

Besides the claims of libraries and publishers, another set of creditors claims up to $144 million against divine. Panos said that figure is high, and some claims will be screened out. Given that lawyers representing claimants against RoweCom and against divine have basically agreed on a formula to acknowledge the claims of libraries and publishers, once the true value of claims is sorted out, a settlement could proceed.

It would take six months, in a best-case scenario, for libraries and publishers to start seeing cash, Panos said. Meanwhile, some "claims buyers" have been soliciting libraries and publishers, asking to buy the claims. One publisher incredulously reported that the offer was 12¢ on the dollar. "It's risk and time value of money," Panos observed. "Some creditors would rather take their money and never look back."

Better news on E-Rate?

The E-rate program of telecommunications discounts disproportionately benefits schools—they get 96 percent of the funds—but libraries have lagged not only because they are outnumbered but because the funding formula favors schools.

Libraries may soon get a leg up, said Charles Parker of the E-rate Task Force. With the discounts linked to poverty rates, individual schools have been able to claim the poverty rate of their community while libraries have been forced to rely on the school district in which they operate.

ALA has been trying to get the Federal Communications Commission to agree to classify libraries by elementary school zone, not school district. Currently, Parker said, only two of 67 county library systems can get internal connection discounts. A change in the formula "could have a significant impact on low-income communities."

$42M for government info?

At EBSCO's seminar for leaders of large academic research libraries, Kenneth Frazier, director, University of Wisconsin-Madison Libraries, suggested a national strategy to secure and distribute government depository collections.

He advocates creating a public domain database for legacy collections, open to the world at no cost. Some 2.2 million eligible items, representing 60 million pages, should be put in such a database. The estimated cost to convert the documents: $42 million.

Only the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) community could get such a massive project started, Frazier asserted. "The cost may freeze us," he warned. "It is easier to buy a commercial product than to get the money [from academic administrators] to create a public good." Such a freely available legacy database of government documents, Frazier said, would benefit users, create a yardstick for evaluating commercial services, and provide an opportunity to identify partners to share the expense. An ARL working group plans to present an outline for a model project by May.

New ways to raise funds

The panel was scheduled well before the announcement of new budget cuts facing universities in California (see Late Bulletins, p. 13), but a discussion on "earned income in academic and research libraries" seemed particularly apt. Among the panelists, John Richardson, associate dean of the Graduate Division of UCLA, noted that each year the division processes 400 visiting scholars and 1100 post-docs without charging a fee for library services.

Noting that university librarian Gary Strong told him that serving post-doctoral scholars costs some $493–$690 per capita, Richardson, a librarian and professor of information studies, said he was considering proposing that post-docs and visiting scholars pay a library services fee.

Another panelist, Bill Brown, associate director for public services at the Bancroft Library, UC-Berkeley, discussed one possible source of revenue: the library's online store. At Berkeley, the store (www.shop.store.yahoo.com/ bancroft-store) offers a variety of historical and literary publications, fine press keepsakes, and other images, posters, and souvenirs derived from the library's collections. These include materials relating to the history of California, the American West, and Mark Twain.

The Cuba compromise

A careful compromise put ALA between members who wanted to demand that Fidel Castro release imprisoned "independent librarians" and others who wanted no action except removal of U.S. embargoes on goods and travelers headed to Cuba. Ultimately, Council adopted a Report on Cuba based on the findings of a task force of members from ALA's committees on International Relations and Intellectual Freedom.

By adopting the report, ALA joined IFLA, the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions, in efforts to support and assist the Cuban library community to safeguard free access to print and electronic information, including the Internet. ALA continued its call, with IFLA, for the elimination of the U.S. embargo that restricts access to information in Cuba and for lifting travel restrictions that limit professional exchanges.

ALA joined IFLA to express "deep concern" over the arrest and long prison terms of political dissidents in Cuba in spring 2003 and urged the Cuban government to respect human rights defined in Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. ALA, again with IFLA, urged Cuba to eliminate obstacles to access to information imposed by its policies and supported an investigative visit from the UN Commission on Human Rights.

A resolution by Karen Schneider, director, Librarians' Index to the Internet, to demand that Castro release those imprisoned in 2003 was soundly defeated, and efforts by Councilor Ellen Zyroff to introduce a similar one were ruled out of order.

Who's afraid of Hentoff?

Nervousness over the debate on Cuba was fueled by several columns by syndicated columnist (and winner of ALA's 1983 Immroth Award for Intellectual Freedom) Nat Hentoff attacking ALA for not demanding release of the prisoners. Hentoff actually phoned library leaders, threatening to write more hostile columns if ALA didn't take the position he demanded. ALA member Robert Kent, leader of Friends of Cuban Libraries, which receives some U.S. government funds, also fed the fire with regular emails and press statements.

The nervousness was magnified, just before the Council debate, when the local San Diego Union attacked ALA in an editorial for not demanding the release of the Cuban prisoners. Ultimately, these tactics unified ALA councilors and members who dug in their heels, favoring the report's compromise without any changes.

ALA-APA

Will ALA members bolster the new ALA-APA, formed to support salary advocacy and grant certification? It gained only $5,992 in contributions in FY03. For the current fiscal year, the goal is $48,570 in donations.

ALA executive director Keith Fiels noted that a new $2 checkoff on the membership form should hasten donations. "If we get 10,000 members to do the checkoff, that's $20,000," he said, adding that a separate campaign "should bring us closer to the target." "I'm hopeful you see results from ALA-APA, so you give because you agree with what's happening," said immediate past-president Mitch Freedman.

Presidential initiatives

ALA president Carla Hayden's presidential initiative on Equity of Access will produce "Something for everyone @ our Library" ads and other public service spots and materials. ALA vice president/president-elect Carol Brey-Casiano has chosen grass-roots advocacy as her presidential initiative for 2004–05, under the slogan "Stand Up and Speak Out for Libraries—Turning Passive Support into Educated Action." The Executive Board approved $100,000 to finance the effort. The web site is www.CarolBrey.com.

Voter registration?

Emily Sheketoff, director of ALA WASH, announced at a Washington Office Update that ALA would join with Working Assets—which calls itself "a long-distance, wireless, and credit card company that was created to build a world that is more just, humane, and environmentally sustainable"—to help voters to register online at their public library. See www.yourvotematters.org, which aims to register one million new voters before the election in November. For each registration via a public library to that web site, ALA would receive $1.50, and for each change of address update, 50¢.

Some librarians raised questions about the program, urging caution. Sheketoff referred LJ to Susan Roman, director of ALA's Development Office, who said on January 21 that the agreement was not yet signed, but the program probably would kick off in March.

Presidential platforms

Michael Gorman, dean of library services at the Henry Madden Library, California State University, Fresno, and Barbara Stripling, director of library programs at New Visions for Public Schools in New York City, are both E-board members and candidates for the 2005–06 ALA presidency.

At a candidates forum, Stripling championed building communities. She supports an associationwide strategic recruitment plan and expansion of the Spectrum Scholarship Program. Gorman said he would advocate for core values and issues. He referred to the fragmentation and specialization within ALA. "We are librarians first, school librarians second," he said. Library education must attract diversity, he declared, also voicing support for the Spectrum initiative.

Asked how many priorities one association can have, Stripling focused on 21st-century literacy, including civil and cultural literacy, diversity, and citizen empowerment. Gorman said ALA should formulate priorities by standing by our core values of intellectual freedom and preservation of the human record.

Turnout for the session was light; the Executive Board later approved a skeleton schedule that will move the Presidential Candidates' Forum to Sunday morning from Monday afternoon.

Election, honors

Janet Swan Hill, University of Colorado Libraries, Boulder, and Nann Blaine Hilyard, Zion-Benton PL, IL, were elected by Council to three-year terms on the ALA Executive Board. The other candidates were Ling Hwey Jeng, School of Library and Information Science, University of Kentucky, Lexington, and Melora Ranney Norman, Maine State Library, Augusta. At a preelection Q&A session, all four candidates expressed strong preferences that professional librarians serve in top jobs in ALA but would not offer more specifics.

Council unanimously approved two ALA honorary memberships. Norman Horrocks, professor emeritus, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, and LJ contributing editor, was cited as a leader in the growth and development of libraries on three continents: Europe, North America, and Australia. Sanford (Sandy) Berman, retired from the Hennepin County Library, Minnetonka, MN, was praised for his accomplishments as a catalog theorist and practitioner, using subject headings as a tool for social awareness. The honor, ALA's highest, will be conferred at the Opening General Session of the annual conference in Orlando.

Law firm conflict?

Several leaders, including Freedman, criticized ALA's law firm, Jenner & Block (J&B), for representing bankrupt divine, Inc. In recent months, some ALA members have raised serious concerns over J&B's representation of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), which aims to quash peer-to-peer technology. The Executive Board concluded there was no conflict and reaffirmed the relationship. Freedman, however, noted that J&B's link with divine, Inc. was different from that with the RIAA, since the latter "has not specifically damaged libraries and library suppliers."

Still, a resolution to express outrage with J&B was rejected, as councilors said they didn't want to micromanage ALA. They also wanted to see the results of Freedman's separate resolution to establish a new policy on legal counsel, which was referred to the Budget Analysis and Review Committee.

SRI pilot, endowment news

Despite obvious hostility to the idea from senior endowment trustee Rick Schwieterman, the Executive Board recommended that $200,000—of $19 million—be used to test a socially responsible investing (SRI) mutual fund. ALA endowment trustees will meet in the spring to discuss the policy.

The $19 million represents an $8 million increase, which includes portfolio growth of $2.3 million and $5.4 million from the sale of 30 E. Huron St., part of a development in which ALA had a limited partnership. (ALA continues to own its property at 50 E. Huron St.)

The sale, completed last July, resulted in $10.6 million (plus a previous partnership advance distribution of $2.9 million placed in the endowment in 1999) but with a projected tax bill of $5.3 million. From that, $1 million will be reallocated to the Spectrum Endowment Fund.

The Executive Board also authorized further investigation of purchasing real estate in the Washington, DC, area for use by the Washington Office. Some $1–$1.5 million from the Chicago sale would be used for the down payment. "Our rental costs will be $250,000 within the next five years," said Fiels.

Crisis belatedly addressed

The first ALA-APA Committee on Salaries and Status of Library Workers, chaired by Freedman, began work at Midwinter, but the ALA Recruiting Assembly meeting illustrated how the crisis over the future of the profession is only beginning to be addressed. The Monday morning gathering drew only a handful of representatives from ACRL, PLA, and individual public and academic libraries.

Larry Neal, representing PLA, said the group is actively developing a recruiting tool kit. In contrast, ACRL has yet to establish an initiative but is working toward one that concentrates on growing the work force from within.

Boosting support staff

Support staff also feel isolated; while they comprise 66 percent of library employees, they represent only one percent of ALA's membership. It was recommended that ALA initiate a more affordable dues level for support staff membership. Indeed, on the recommendation of the ALA Membership Committee, Council later agreed to ask members to vote on a new library support staff member category.

While there was widespread backing for more inclusive membership, the $35 fee generated lengthy discussion. It was pointed out that degreed librarians in some areas of the country make far less than support staff elsewhere. The group agreed to look at some type of flexible membership fee scale to reflect those realities.

—Reported by John Berry, Susan DiMattia, Bette-Lee Fox, Norman Oder, & Michael Rogers