PLA Blog

update: links should work now
Jessamyn already wrote about the “Small But Powerful Guide to Winning Support for Your Rural Library” (available here as a PDF). You can now also access the Small is Powerful Online Toolkit for Winning Support for Your Rural Library online. I haven’t had a chance to study it in depth, but it’s certainly something I’ll be turning to for my small rural library.

Saturday, June 24 was a sort of unofficial Day of Rural, Native, and Tribal Libraries at ALA. I attended a variety of programs on rural, native, and tribal libraries, including the official unveiling of the Guide and Toolkit, a Town Hall Meeting on issues facing rural, native, and tribal libraries, and a program on Intellectual Freedom in Rural Libraries presented by John Ellison of the University of Buffalo.

While much of his program contained advice about handling challenges that would be applicable anywhere, some of the tips were particularly relevant to rural librarians, who are isolated from their urban colleagues and often from each other. (I am lucky in that regard–although Wyoming is the least populous state in the nation, its libraries have worked very hard at creating a community. We all share the same ILS, and we meet frequently, both in person and online.)

Ellison stressed that the most important thing you can do to protect intellectual freedom is to educate people about it. He suggested incorporating intellectual freedom messages in every medium you use to communicate with the public:

• Displays
• e-mail signatures (”A censor is a man who knows more than he thinks you ought to.” –Granville Hicks
• web page
• bookmarks, posters
• letterhead (”Unrestricted access to information since 1896″)
• bumper stickers (”I support the library and I vote”-make them available at the library for the community

He then presented a checklist of things to do in case of a challenge:

• Persons other than the librarian should be the voice defending the library
• Form an advisory community-library school friends, colleagues, attorneys, etc.-people who can provide support and tell you when you need to keep quiet
• Study the challengers-where do they come from? What are their beliefs?
• Determine the needs of the community (not just the users of the library) and meet those needs [something one hopes one is doing before the challenge]
• Inform the media if necessary (should not be first step)
• Defend the principles of intellectual freedom, not the item in question
• Use technology-connect with other libraries, different communities (Board, Friends, staff, etc.)
• Learn the hidden agenda of challengers (intelligent design, religious education, protect others from evil, right to life, whatever)
• Hold public forums if necessary
• Prepare for rhetoric battle (challengers will say items are destroying family values, motivating sexual violence, etc.)
• Expose all of challengers’ beliefs

If you’d like to hear the whole program, it will be presented by OPAL sometime later this summer.

During the conference, most attendees stayed near the Convention Center and French Quarter areas. Luckily those areas are on higher ground and weren’t severly damaged by the hurricane. Unfortunately not all of New Orleans fared the same way. Monday afternoon I went with two of my friends, Jennifer and Donna, to see what devastation Katrina had created on the city of New Orleans. We drove through one of the heavily damaged areas, Lakeview (next to Lake Pontchartrain and the 17th Street Canal). Entire streets of homes were destroyed, with no sign of life except for FEMA trailers. One of the most dishearting sights was a school’s sign stating “School starts August 8, 2005.”  

Afterwards we attended the PLA President’s Program, featuring Anderson Cooper. As one who weathered the hurricane and the aftereffects in New Orleans, Cooper had many emotional stories to share with the audience. One of the vignettes he shared was about himasking his mother for career advice. She said simply, “Follow your bliss.” Even though that’s not what Cooper was expecting his mother to say, it’s a good mantra to emulate (and I hope we’re all following our bliss!).

I want to thank everyone for visiting my home state and hope the conference was everything they wished it to be.  From all the locals being excited we were there (usually no one notices us!) to the energy of the conference attendees, this has been one of my best conferences. As we say in Louisiana, “Laissez Les Bons Temps Rouler! (Let the Good TImes Roll!)”

 I attended the ALSC-sponsored program “Lyrics to Literacy” on Monday, June 26. This program caught my eye by the description: “Through song, story, rhythm and chant, learn techniques to develop early literacy skills. Participants will learn how to enhance self-esteem, strengthen reading readiness, language development and promote brain growth.” Doesn’t that sound fun?

I wasn’t able to stay for the entire program, but I was able to grab the handouts and learn a few songs. This program was presented by Debbie Clement and Carole Peterson, two singer/songwriter/performers. Some highlights:

Carole’s 7 Terrific Techniques For Using Active Music:

1. Eye Contact
2. Encouraging Nods and Smiles
3. EXPLAIN: Give clear instructions and expectations BEFORE activity begins, AND how as it ends!
4. Tempo - slow the song down to teach it, turn off the boombox
5. Be prepared - Have all materials ready and tapes cued
6. Use props, visuals, and manipulatives
7. Pace - vary the activity level, and bring excitement down to end session

Debbie’s Directions:

1. Have fun! Enjoy! Smile! Laugh!
2. Repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat. (4x)
3. Follow your rituals and recipes.
4. Be willing to take a risk.
5. Begin slowly. Play with the speed.
6. Choose a comfortable key/pitch.
7. Animate and exaggerate your face.
8. Watch the children for clues/ideas.
9. Remember rule #1 at all times: have fun!

I don’t want to post the song lyrics (possible copyright issues, since the songs are all originals), but more information can be found on their individual websites:

Carole Peterson - http://www.macaronisoup.com/ (Music CDs - good for storytimes!)

Debbie Clement - http://www.rainbowswithinreach.com/ (Music CDs and more - check out those cute shaker eggs!) and http://kweezletown.com/ (the site isn’t fully up yet)

The PLA All-Committee Meeting was held on Sunday, June 25, at the New Orleans Marriott. Forty-three committees met at separate tables to plan and discuss upcoming events.

I am a member of the Services to Preschool Children and their Caregivers Cluster. One problem that the committee noticed is that so many great sessions are planned during conferences, but not everyone is able to attend every program. Also, since programs are held at conferences, we never reach those who cannot attend the conferences. A solution was to post information on PUBYAC or other similar listservs. Does anyone have any other suggestions?

We also discussed our upcoming program at ALA Annual 2007 in Washington, D.C. Titled “Snips and Snails and Puppy Dog Tails: Every Boy Ready to Read @ Your Library”, the session will discuss using brain research to plan early literacy storytimes for both genders. As one who performs weekly preschool storytimes, I’m looking forward to learning more about planning storytimes for the male gender (those boys love to run and be active!). Look for it at next Annual!

No, this was not another session about food but rather about strategies for reaching out to diverse communities. I came in on the second set of speakers, librarians from the Las Vegas County Library which has an increasingly diverse population of Chinese, African American, Hispanic and Native American individuals. So, the main question is, how do you reach out to all the communities? The library’s board of director made this issue a priority and dedicated resources specifically to it.

The goals:
- Families who have been traditionally under-served will find diverse cultural heritage and ethnicity reflected in the library’s collections.
- Residents will receive library services that meet their diverse cultural heritage.
- Increase library card usage.

The first step is to ask questions:
1. How can I build the best system to reach the most people?
2. How can I recruit and keep the best people, especially of color?

The keys to a successful plan:
- Make it clear that this is not an affirmative action plan
- Provide existing staff and new employees with opportunities to learn about the diversity plan. For example: brown bag lunches with speakers discussing diversity related issues.
- Monitor the accomplishments of the diversity plan.
- Focus on staff development.

Find the right stuff (books, etc.):
- Read the media (Criticas, Multicultural Review).
- Develop new relationships with vendors you know.
- Seek out new vendors (wander those far-flung aisles in the Conference Exhibit halls).
- Test drive variety.
- Choose topics based on existing English language materials
- Track your new collection to see what is used (Very important to invest in cataloging so individuals can find materials they are seeking!)
- Once the collection is established, patterns will emerge.

Programming:
- Celebrate the four national months: African American History, Asian Pacific, Hispanic and Native American.
- Recognize other heritages in the programming.
- Partner with other organizations to participate in heritage celebrations.
- Create a logo and visual materials.
- Create info guides (or path finders) with the resources in the library, including ESL programs, activities, crafts, recipes.
- Food is important for every culture: plan culture fairs with recipes, demonstrations and samples.
- Create exhibits and displays both virtual and in galleries. These offer great opportunities for organizations to sponsor receptions.
- Develop reading groups.
- Plan age-appropriate craft activities for adults and children.
- Participate in community outreach: march in parades, have booths at community cultural fairs, etc.

Important points learned:
- Expand cultural programming year-round; infuse diversity into everything!
- Celebrate as many cultures as possible.
- Create an advisory board of local community members that belong to that culture.
- Remember that nothing is universally embraced; be prepared that some of your programs will touch bigger nerves (in the Las Vegas library the GLBT programming is the most delicate).

So this session was not absolutely about library services, but it was really treat for me and there was quite a bit to be learned.

The first speaker, Wendy Woloson, Curator of Printed Books at the Library Company of Philadelphia, told us the history of sugar in America (an abridged version of her book Refined Tastes: Sugar, Consumers, and Confectionery in Nineteenth Century America).  Especially interesting was the shift in attitudes toward sugar as it became more common and less expensive with time.  Initially, sugar was seen as a prized commodity, but eventually it was demoted to today’s junk food status.  From a luxury good available only to the wealthy it became a necessity for everyone and with it lost any glitter that it had previously possessed.

The second speaker, Gerald F. Patout, Jr. the Head Librarian at the Williams Research Center/Historic New Orleans Collection spoke about Louisiana food culture and culinary research.  This is his outline for culinary research which he applied in his own Louisiana cookbook collection, but which could probably be applied to any regional cooking research:

1. Bibliographies of cookbooks
2. Dissertations/Theses about culinary history will often include bibliographies of resources
3. Others’ book collections throughout history (for example, household inventories from previous eras)
4. The cookbooks themselves may include references to other books and resources
5. Serials
6. Newspapers- and where there is no index of early issues, this is quite the manual labor

He brought many examples of early Creole cookbooks, and spoke of the importance of these artifacts to the cultural history of a region.

The third speaker, Susan Tucker of the Newcomb Archives and Varhoff Library, Seltzer Gerard Reading Room, Newcomb College Center for Research on Women at Tulane University, is currently writing a book entitled Atomic Foods of New Orleans, which discusses in detail the twelve specific foods that reflect New Orleans. One such food: Bread Pudding.  In her words, this reflects the thriftiness in the home (i.e. using day old bread) and grandeur on the outside  (you’ll know what this means if you have ever tried good bread pudding).  Additionally, this shows the French influence of the region, since it is not a very sweet dessert; the French view of sugar is not to use it too excessively, instead to find a happy medium.

Tucker presented videos of oral history interviews about food that they had done prior to Katrina.  She spoke about the Slow Food movement and about the food-related problems in New Orleans, especially among the lower income neighborhoods, where no fresh produce is available and where the food culture has become more about fast food.  About Katrina and its aftermath she said that in the midst of the recovery effort you occasionally pause to think about how you can create a better society out of the disaster, but that living in the midst of it, you are basically in survival mode and have no time.  She encouraged the audience to think of ideas for improvement, since we might have more resources and time to do so.

She also handed out a list of food and drinks that we all must try in New Orleans: French Bread, Poor Boy Sandwich, Muffelletta, Jambalaya, Shrimp Remoulade, Gumbo, Turtle Soup, Stuffed Artichokes, Mirlitons and Shrimp, Red Beans & Rice, Jambalaya, Oysters, Crawfish, Boiled Shrimp and Crabs, Daube Glacee, Grits and Grillades, Creole Tomato Salad, Creole Cream Cheese, Beignets, Bread Pudding, Pralines, Calas, Cafe Brulot, Snowballs, Coffee & Chicocky and Sazerac Cocktail.  I’ll be sure to use this as a checklist for my next visit to New Orleans!

The fourth and last speaker was Jason P. Block, a doctore at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston who is originally from New Orleans and came back after the hurricane to help in Red Cross shelters.  Dr. Block’s role in the program came from an article he had co-written: “Fast Food, Race/Ethnicity, and Income: A Geographic Analysis” (American Journal of Preventive Medicine 27 (2004): 211-17).  His presentation focused around the obesity epidemic and its main factors:

- genetic
- physiological
- behavioral
- environmental (especially important to note: decreased availability of healthful products in low income, low education communities)

The solutions are complicated and much debated:
- educated people about portion size, calories
- Address problem of fast food as the only choice in many neighborhoods

One positive light: doctors who pay more attention to their patient’s  culture, background, etc. when instructing them about better habits (i.e. you can’t direct someone with a fixed income to shop at an upscale organic supermarket, but you can help them find a better diet with the resources they have).

The session ended up with a discussion to try and tie together all this food information and lore.  I am just beginning my exploration into library services and the library world in general, but as centers of information, libraries do have a role in educating people about better choices.

After recuperating for a week and getting back in the swing of things, here are some of my notes from a session I attended.
(I apologize, I came in late to this session and was unable to get the speakers’ names)
The title came from a statement made by journalist Cynthia Tucker quoted in the Conference program: “it’s easy to forget that there are people too poor to have a car, a credit card or a checking account, people stranded outside the magic circle.” This was said in regards to the Katrina evacuees, but in fact, this is the reality for many who are “too poor, isolated, displaced–people locked outside of circles of privilege.”

The discussion centered around New Orleans statistics and experiences, but could refer to any part of the country. Some interesting points were made.

The role of the library:
- Create access- find ways to engage people; libraries are for those who love books, but those with need are not of the book-loving culture. We must do outreach into the community.
- Technology is important, use it to engage the population, especially the young.
- Library should be used as a combined open space with other social services
- Form strong partnerships and become advocates: what happens when a librarian gets angry?

Other speakers spoke of how no life is completely inside the magic circle; a hard fact they discovered post-Katrina when individuals and institutions of all economic and cultural strata were hard hit. They discussed the lack of communication, the undependable nature of technology in times of natural disaster, and concluded that libraries must have a crisis communication plan for the event of such disaster, so that there is a way to contact everyone.

If you’re reading this, I’m guessing there’s a pretty good chance that you already know about the Librarians’ Internet Index (lii.org) and that you’re subscribed to their “New This Week” newsletter. I’ve know about LII for about two years, and I’ve been getting the newsletter via RSS for about a year and a half, but I decided to go hear LII chief Karen Schneider give a talk called “Building the Ultimate Portal: Selection Secrets of the Librarians’ Internet Index.” Karen is an energetic, enthusiastic, and informative presenter, and I learned a few things I didn’t know. It was especially exciting, though, to see members of the audience come in not knowing a thing about LII or RSS and leaving planning to check both of them out (after all, who can live without RSS after seeing a demonstration that includes Cute Overload?).

In case you don’t know, LII is just what it sounds like–an index of high-quality websites compiled and annotated (and regularly checked) by librarians. You can browse through the 14 main topics and over 5000 subtopics, or you can search for a specific topic (more on that later). LII currently contains over 19,000 websites, and new ones are added each week. If you’d like to get a sampling of the new sites added each week, you can subscribe to “New This Week,” which comes out every Thursday and is available by e-mail or RSS. This past week’s issue included sites about ” money, insurance, climate change, contrails, crop diversity, John Cage, the Sears Tower, Spain, sunscreen, shell collecting, zinc, business etiquette, California authors and Washingtonian bloggers.” LII frequently features California (and sometimes Washington) specific topics because they receive funding from those states.

Each web site indexed by LII has its own page on the site. Here’s one I’m particularly interested in, being a pale-skinned person in a sunny, high elevation climate: How Does Sunscreen Work?. If you look at the page, you’ll see that there’s a description of the site, including what it covers and who produced it, with some other details sandwiched in between. In the upper right hand corner there is a little series of icons which let you do handy things like print or e-mail the item, or send a comment to the librarian who indexed the item. If you do a search, you’ll see another little icon next to each of your results–a magnifying glass. Clicking on that gives you a page like the one above–the complete metadata for the item, including who indexed it and what topics LII has indexed it under. Some entries also contain Library of Congress Subject Headings. As you can see, the topics are linked, so that if you want to see what else LII has indexed under that heading, you can do so with just a simple mouse click.

LII is browseable, but it’s also searchable, and later this summer, LII will be rolling out its spiffy new search engine, which uses Siderean and will provide faceted searching of LII content. Eventually, LII users will also be able to tag and rate the content on LII. Several audience members were a little apprehensive about the idea of user ratings. Wouldn’t they undermine the work of the librarians? Karen talked about user ratings as an added enhancement, and how sometimes the wisdom of the crowds can provide information that otherwise would not exist. As an example, she discussed her recent search for a video camera that would do a good job of recording in low light. Consumer Reports doesn’t rate video cameras on that criterion, but Amazon.com reviews turned out to be very helpful. Other audience members chimed in with how they use user ratings on travel sites or on Epicurious.

If you spend a lot of time in the blogosphere, you’ve probably read innumerable debates on taxonomy vs. folksonomy and the wisdom of professionals vs. that of ordinary people. It was fascinating and illuminating to watch a mostly non-blogger crowd working their way through some of those same arguments (even if they weren’t using the same terms) and to see them realize that they already use some of both, and that the answer can be both/and, not either/or.

Anderson Cooper, the CNN reporter known for his emotional coverage of Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath, was the keynote speaker at Monday night’s PLA President’s Program, held at the Morial Convention Center during the ALA Annual Conference in New Orleans.

PLA President Dan Walters welcomed attendees, and after various announcements and the distribution of the annual PLA awards, introduced Anderson Cooper. Cooper took the stage and in rapid-fire patter detailed his early years as a reporter, his experiences around the world, and most pointedly his experiences in New Orleans immediately after the hurricane. Much of his hurricane reporting was done from the convention center and the audience (numbering nearly 1500) listened in rapt silence as he described (twice stopping to compose himself) what he saw there.

After his emotional talk, the host of “Anderson Cooper 360″ signed hundreds of copies of his book, “Dispatches from the Edge, A Memoir of War, Disasters, and Survival” for eager fans. Attendees then joined PLA for a gala reception featuring New Orleans style music and food. Pictures to come soon - check back!

It was SRO at Chris Anderson’s presentation on “the long tail,” the subject of a 2004 article in Wired magazine (where Anderson is the editor in chief) and now the title of a new book, subtitled “Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More.”  Why big crowds at a session that was really about modern economics?  Because it’s important and fascinating theory with implications for all libraries.
The long tail is the portion of the market that is niche-driven, not hit-driven.  For those of you who are visual learners, it looks like this:

Here are a few observations made by Anderson:

• The 20th century was a time during which our shared culture was driven by “hits.”  That is, more than 70% of American households watched the TV program “I Love Lucy” at the same time on a given evening in the 1950’s.  Today, the biggest hit on TV is “CSI” which is viewed by just a bit over 10% of households.  Obviously, this is because we have more choices in television than we did in the 50’s.  More choice in television, music, books, all means business can be successfully done in a smaller niche market.
• Another example is in the music industry.  65,000 albums were released in 2005.  Wal-Mart, the nation’s largest music retailer, carried around 700 of them. Rhapsody, an online music source, made nearly all of these songs available.
• Ditto for NetFlix over Blockbuster’s stores.
• Each year over the past 3 years has shown an increase in music, video, and books sales in niche markets — in the long tail — and a comparative reduction in the hit market.
• WorldCat and ILL make our library circulations less hit-driven, too — easy access to more choice.
• Amazon’s interface that offers out-of-print, used as well as new titles (and, with a plug-in from GreaseMonkey & others, access to library holdings and even shelf status, too) is meeting the needs of those whose interests are in this “long tail.”

Here are Anderson’s five long-tail lessons:

1. Don’t confuse limited distribution with shared taste.
2. Everyone deviates from the mainstream somewhere.
3. One size no longer fits all.
4. The best stuff isn’t necessarily at the top.
5. Mass market is becoming a mass of niches.

To read more, find The Long Tail:  Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More,  by Chris Anderson (New York: Hyperion, 2006).