Blatant Berry Blog

July 11, 2009 | Link This | Email this | Comments (4)

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

Industries: ALA Annual Conference News, News & Features, Products/Vendors

April 16, 2009 | Link This | Email this | Comments (0)

My reactions to the sad death of Judith Krug are in Blatant Berry. I hope and believe that Keith Fiels and the powers at ALA are keenly aware that they must search out and find a strong, effective, and high profile candidate to run OIF and maintain ALA's nationally known and strong role in support of intellectual freedom. The job simply must not be given to a non-librarian, or some noisily oustspoken person who is a member-in-good-standing of the gang of "true believers" and hangers on who are such a large faction in ALA's intellectual freedom club.   
Industries: Intellectual Freedom, News & Features

April 1, 2009 | Link This | Email this | Comments (6)

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

March 18, 2009 | Link This | Email this | Comments (3)

Michael Stephens 3/17 post on Tame the Web...Read More

March 10, 2009 | Link This | Email this | Comments (5)

There is a sad message from many of the "mentors" on NEWLIB-L, a discussion list for new librarians that is one of my favorites. The list has a home page at NEWLIB-L...Read More