PLA Blog

I won’t give a blow-by-blow account of the Malcolm Gladwell/epidemic President’s Program, since Andrea and others will probably do a much better job of summing it up. What I thought was awesome/amusing/serendipitous, was that as Gladwell was talking about how librarians could use the epidemic model to “reframe” the way people think about libraries, there were at least three bloggers propped up against the back wall of the packed ballroom, laptops at the ready, trying to reframe the way librarians communicate and work, providing a small example of the sort of grassroots advocacy/action that Gladwell was talking about. If we as an organization don’t start to reframe how we work and present ourselves to each other, our chances for re-presenting ourselves to our communities in a way that sparks support and acknowledgment of our value is not likely to succeed.

While there are those who don’t get why this blog is a pretty big deal to us and, hopefully to our colleagues not in Boston with us, I still think it’s a fine start, along with projects such as Radical Reference. We’ve got a good start on reshaping the frame surrounding the profession. We’ve got saws and hammers and nails in the technology at our disposal, and we’re not afraid to use ‘em.

Update: I was typing this from the Council chambers, which I thought would be empty and quiet, but found a small meeting where people were talking about the new interactive workspace for ALA members which will hopefully faciliate working, meeting and communicating outside of conference. More people with saws and hammers!

I hemmed & hawed a bit over blogging this myself, because I don’t want to be one of those “look at ME” people, but it seemed both silly and coy to ask someone else to blog it for me. So here goes. I’ll definitely be seeing you all in Chicago, because I was selected as a recipient of the Baker & Taylor/YALSA Scholarship Grant. The scholarship “is awarded for first time attendance at an Annual Conference” and is awarded to two recipients: a public Young Adult librarian and a School Media Specialist serving YAs. Tori Jensen, of John Glenn Middle School in Maplewood, Minnesota, is this year’s SMS recipient of the award, which provides $1000 to each of the recipients to defray the cost of attending our first ALA Annual Conference.

It would be safe to say that when committee chair Sarajo Wentling (and full disclosure — Sarajo is my YALSA mentor, too, though she waited to speak last when the committee was reviewing my application, and we exchanged only the most cursory of e-mails until the day I found out I’d won) called me to relay the good news, I wasn’t even remotely this composed. It might even be fair to say that I indulged in a few moments of unadulterated, possibly incoherent squee when I found out.

Incidentally, I did find the ALSC awards listed here:
http://www.ala.org/ala/alsc/awardsscholarships/literaryawds/2005MediaAwardWinners.htm

Because they post the Printz award winners when they SAY they are going to post the Printz award winners. And you don’t have to dig dig dig into the site to get the information. And their server hasn’t crashed yet from too many people at home trying to get this information:

Printz Award (literary excellence in young adult literature:

Winner: how i live now by Meg Rosoff (Wendy Lamb Books/Random House)

Printz Honors:
Airborn by Kenneth Oppel (Eos/HarperCollins)
Chandra’s Secrets by Allan Stratton (Annick Press)
Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy by Gary D. Schmidt (Clarion/Houghton Mifflin)

Margaret A. Edwards Award (lifetime achievement in YA lit): Francesca Lia Block

While many attendees were listening to Malcolm Gladwell on Sunday afternoon, some of us had the chance to take a tour of the Boston Public Library’s main branch in Copley Square. Over the course of an hour, Robert Dunn of Boston Public Library explained the art and architecture of the McKim Buiding (built between 1888 and 1895,) its outdoor courtyard and the much newer, modern Johnson Building. For those of you who missed the tour (and the President’s Reception last night in the McKim Building,) the Copley Square branch is open until 9pm tonight and Tuesday night. See it before Midwinter ends!

The PLA Blog gets a huge thumbs up from one of our greatest allies, Jenny Levine:

“When is the last time you felt enthusiastic reading about a library conference, especially in real-time? I think it started with the InfoToday conferences last year, but the PLA Blog has taken it to a new level. It’s the proof-of-concept that we’d always hoped for, and my greatest wish is that every library organization read it to understand how well this can work for them.”

This is my goal as well. In fact, the buzz around the meeting (that Jenny hasn’t been hearing) is that a blog should be used by every division at ALA Annual in Chicago to keep their members updated. The PLA bloggers will be very active there. Will your division follow suit?

Well, only one spoke at the ALA President’s Program on Sunday, but the New York Times has an article on similarities betwen Gladwells theories and the iPod Shuffle: Living in the moment.

I had dinner the other night at Pho Pasteur, a Vietnamese restaurant, and had pho - noodly goodness! with Robin Brenner. If you haven’t seen Robin’s amazing graphic novel website No Flying No Tights, check it out, it is a great reader’s advisory resource.

Today I met William Sleator, who I remember reading avidly as a teen - House of Stairs was one of my favorite books. Also met Bill Barnes and now own an autographed edition of Unshelved. I have this library comic set as my homepage, and decided that $15 is a great price to pay for 365 laughs a year. I gushed to a vendor about my favorite author MT Anderson and scored an ARC of his new book, and then the distributor said he’d SEEN him earlier -that he was around. I immediately started skulking around trying to find him, but it was getting close to 5 PM, and I never caught up with him.

Today I also met Cathi Dunn McCrae, esteemed editor of VOYA and witnessed a miracle when library professor and writer Mark K. Chelton dropped by to deliver some information Cathi had requested that morning. Mary K. claimed it was serendipity (the librarian’s best friend, remember?) but Cathi said it was a miracle.

Friday night I met Walt Crawford, and I think he seemed more delighted that I hadn’t heard of him than if I had gushed. After checking out his site, Cites and Insights, I am a new devotee. It’s a mix of technology and library issues, and although I seem to recall Walt saying he’d been told he wasn’t a humorist, his writing does have a wit and slyness to it.

Malcolm Gladwell spoke about how creating an epidemic can serve as a catalyst to change, and how creating and directing a real, positive epidemic is really dependent on the framing of the issue or cause. So how can and will librarians frame our profession to create an epidemic to make libraries successful? How can we frame the promotion, success, importance, of libraries? If we frame it well, librarianship can be a powerful epidemic in libraries.

Right now, we have what Malcolm calls a “negative epidemic” in librarianship. The public sees the library as an institution on the way out, exhausted librarians are losing hope, and the internet is a mixed blessing that we’re having a hard time reigning in. To him the key to libraries framing their epidemic towards success is creating one simple idea of what the library is, and framing that idea to a positive direction.

Here’s my thing: the thing about reframing *anything* is that it requires substantial change, especially for libraries. And, well, while libraries are ripe for change, libraries seem to be a bit resistant to change these days. Honestly, I really think that the PLA Smartest Card Campaign is totally a move towards a positive epidemic, as a flexible way for each library to pick their one simple idea and frame it to work for them. The Karen Hyman 12-step plan is good for initiating and promoting change.

Margaret Blood echoed much of Malcolm’s message, including four lessons of her efforts as president of Strategies for Children, to paraphrase:

1. Reframe the issue.
2. Powerless children [and powerless libraries] need friends more powerful than they are, corporations to fund, and politicians to support, their efforts.
3. Engage likely allies.
4. Research makes all the difference.

On the topic of powerful friends, allies, and research, when Malcolm said, “There isn’t political power of consequence in this room,” it made me sad. Librarians *should* have great political power, and they should be their own — and be able to recruit — friends and allies because they can do the right research that can make all the difference.

It harkens back to a presentation I saw at Computers in Libraries in March of 2004 about librarians getting into local government as local political advocates for their library. When librarians take initiative to have great political power by getting involved in town meetings, local councils, and other local government, we can make changes more directly, and better represent the library and its needs. It’s ridiculous, really, because in a way political power is so artificial yet potent, and we could be doing so well so easily.

The time for advocacy is now, I think everyone agrees. And I think a grass-roots type effort on the part of individual libraries, as well as a unified goal on the part of ALA to help libraries succeed on their terms, would be a progressive and successful plan.

So I’m here at the Sheraton Lobby Bar, hangin’ with some bloggers and other cool ALA attendees, and some nice gals at the table behind me see me with my laptop, and ask if they can use my wireless connection to look at the wedding dress pictures of one of the gal’s daughters. Apparently, we looked that hip as a crowd, and they felt like they could ask us for help.

Being the consumate reference librarian, I helped them out.

Not only did I help them get to the pictures in the woman’s webmail (since I didn’t know these people, as nice as they were, I required that I “drive”), I used my knowledge of sewing and clothing design (yes, librarians sometimes have the most random skills at hand) to help describe what the dress would actually look like on her daughter, as opposed to hanging on a hanger in the photos.

Radical reference on the spot rocks.