Blatant Berry Blog   

Last night from about 10pm-1am, the ALA establishment met in the Chicago Hilton suite of Camila Alire, president elect to be inaugurated at the end of this conference, to celebrate the election of her successor, Roberta Stevens.

Many of the olde hands were there; a smattering of young crashers managed to give the place at least a little youth. On the scene schmoozing and boozing were ALA Executive Director Keith Fiels and a half dozen past ALA presidents, including Jim Rettig, Pat Schuman, Nancy Kranich, Barbara Ford, and Camila herself.

Among the hundreds others present: REFORMA President Loida Garcia-Febo; Oak Park PL (IL) Director Dee Brennan and her buddy, Springfield PL (MA) Associate Director Molly Fogarty; Jana Varlejs of the Rutgers School of Whatever--they dropped the L word; Patricia Tarin, who runs staff development and education programs at the SFPL; ...Read More

Just after LJ interviewed the candidates for ALA president I received messages from each side. A Stevens supporter sent me a hot link to a Canton Rep article about how the library union in Kent Oliver's library had complained about Oliver using library staffers to work on his campaign. Fortunately for Oliver, the comments following the piece were mostly in his favor (against the union), and most librarians I asked said they couldn't care less if Oliver staffers from the library had volunteered to help him.

Prior to that an Oliver supporter dropped me a note questioning Stevens claim that it was her decision, due to altruism or that it was the right thing to do, to take a leave of absence without pay fr...Read More

The discussion triggered by Mary K. Chelton on JESSE and the report by Norman Oder of the North Carolina program to train 300 librarians in job searching for library users, reminded me of Jennie Flexner and the original model of the Readers' Advisor.  

When I was in what we called "Library School" at Simmons College, professor Sigrid Edge told us about working as a Readers' Advisor with Jennie Flexner and her team of librarians at the New York Public Library in the depths of the depression of the 30s. Flexner had them set up booths in the great lobby of NYPL at Fifth Avenue and 42d Street, and people would come with their problems. The librarians would provide books and lib...Read More

“Bigger is better” was the mantra during the decades following the appropriation of the first federal library money. Many still believe it, but now there are new reasons for doubt. Bigger libraries and library systems are not always stronger or better.

In the 1950s, we thought that small libraries were inherently weak. Many served jurisdictions so small that they were chronically underfunded. Even today, many small libraries can't even afford to hire the professional librarians needed to guarantee excellence.

The argument for bigness, for ensuring that small libraries joined bigger systems, was so inflexible that some states did it by force. Few can forget the war that raged in Florida as state and federal aid were used as a club to compel libraries once governed by communities into new coun...Read More

I was amused by the Annoyed Librarian’s  April 16 good old days rant about the beginnings of National Library Week (NLW) when the publishers (the National Book Committee) who started it thought the best strategy to support libraries was to promote reading and books. ALA suckered along. I remember those beginnings, and the angry criticism of the emphasis on reading and books by many library leaders. “Why not call it National Reading Week?” they said. In truth NLW  has not done very much for libraries or books. Despite Annoyed’s assertions to the contrary, the popularity of libraries grows more than...Read More

Every librarian must read Rebecca Lossin’s “Iraq’s Ruined Library Soldiers On,” in the Nation online. As Lossin, a graduate student in the School of Information and Library Science at Pratt Institute in New York, points out “the lack of solidarity from the American community of librarians and scholars for their Iraqi counterparts is shameful.” American librarianship can take many cues from these embattled Iraqi librarians. Our own professional fate at the hands of our various levels of government is less disastrous, but disaster lurks near every library budget hearing this year.  

In an interesting discussion on the NewlibL list one poster said: "ALA doesn't even list the ALA accredited MLS as a preferred qualification for this job. They are not looking for a librarian to fill this position. This job is usability testing, a skill we all learned in library school. Perhaps they don't think someone who emerged from one of the programs they accredit will do a good enough job at it.  Kinda makes you think, doesn't it?" 
I've been worried about the apparent attack on librarianship's basic credential for quite a while. First there was the hiring of folks without the degree to run many of our major libraries, some of whom were then sent to LIS programs to get the credential, but some of whom weren't. Then there was the birth and promotion of the ICaucus schools, who have promoted only...Read More

You may not have noticed, but I haven’t blogged here since last April. I was silenced by a combination of other deadlines, technological change, and a beautiful summer of gardening, traveling, and all.

Most important, it was NOT  the argument over anonymous postings which shut me up. Yes, we allow anonymous postings here. And yes, I even agree with the Annoyed Librarian that anonymous postings are protected expression, and our courts and First Amendment apply to them. But Annoyed got very defensive about it all, even quoted a long statement by the Electronic Frontier Foundation about it. But I haven’t changed my mind, and I still think most who hide behind anonymity or some pseudonym are simply cowards, afraid to tell us who they are. I don’t deny them their right to do it, and if I were AL, for ex...Read More