Articles & Nifty Links

I’m downloading version 4.2 of DiMeMa’s contentDM Acquisition Station to match our update of the online database to the same version.  It’s a sizable download and it’s taking a while.  But in the mean time I notice that I got a quote in to Andy’s website.  My quote is here–a story from my days as a software retailer– and the story I responded to ("The Hertz Lady") is here.

From George Ure over at the Independence Journal:

"Experts say this is the worst day of the whole year –
a sort of cosmic bummer when all the bills come in from the holidays
and more.

 

But not to fret – In the event you’re bummed, let me share this
short bit of poetry/advice from Poet of the Yukon,
Robert
Service – long one of my favorites – because it can really help:

 

The Quitter

When you’re lost in the Wild, and
you’re scared as a child,

And Death looks you bang in the
eye,

And you’re sore as a boil, it’s
according to Hoyle

To cock your revolver and . . .
die.

But the Code of a Man says:
"Fight all you can,"

And self-dissolution is barred.

In hunger and woe, oh, it’s easy
to blow . . .

It’s the
hell-served-for-breakfast that’s hard.

"You’re sick of the game!" Well,
now, that’s a shame.

You’re young and you’re brave and
you’re bright.

"You’ve had a raw deal!" I know
— but don’t squeal,

Buck up, do your damnedest, and
fight.

It’s the plugging away that will
win you the day,

So don’t be a piker, old pard!

Just draw on your grit; it’s so
easy to quit:

It’s the keeping-your-chin-up
that’s hard.

It’s easy to cry that you’re
beaten — and die;

It’s easy to crawfish and crawl;

But to fight and to fight when
hope’s out of sight —

Why, that’s the best game of them
all!

And though you come out of each
gruelling bout,

All broken and beaten and
scarred,

Just have one more try — it’s
dead easy to die,

It’s the keeping-on-living that’s
hard.

Source:
Gutenberg eText of
Service’s "Rhymes of a Rolling Stone"  And, if you don’t know about all
the fine works at the Project Gutenberg site, and you haven’t flashed them into
your head with a Vortex Reader from the
www.HalfPastHuman.com  folks (see the bottom of the page), you’re
missing a fine opportunity for self improvement."

Two articles that are making the rounds this morning are from the NY Times ("Lock the Library! Rowdy Students are Taking Over") and the Wall Street Journal ("The Changing Role of Librarians".)

I’ve put the Journal article behind the cut.  I think it’s worth reading if only because it validates something I’ve observed in the years since I got my MLS: librarians are leaving the public sector for the private sector.  That makes sense to me.  In the private sector the money is better, the work might be better tailored to an individual’s interests, and talent and exprience generally find rewards.  That’s not always true in the public or non-profit sector.  But the article doesn’t say much about the 60+work weeks private enterprise sometimes demands of its employees, nor what kinds of benefits those fancy higher-tech jobs have to offer prospects.  (In a few cases, only the truly ambitious or masochistic need apply.)   Still, the WSJ is still an 800-pound gorilla in the business world, and maybe library directors will read it and think of ways to lure and keep talented librarians on staff.

I’m less sure of what to think of the Times article.

It’s easy to see it as a rant about how the nasty librarians can’t control the kids in the library–or, if you’re a librarian, as a rant about how the nasty kids won’t just shut the f&%k up in the library–but if you dig down a couple of layers, the writer does point out (near the end) that this happening in a well-to-do suburb and these kids have literally nothing else to do in their area except hanging out at the library. Are there no parents in suburbia? Youth centers? Anything? Hello?
Maybe growing up in the city spoiled me as a kid (I don’t know) but library visits were a big deal in my family. We were taught to revere the places–heck, libraries were much holier than Shabbat services at the synagogue. Raising your voice was something we just did not do. Ditto talking back to librarians, running around, etc. Clearly I’m part of an older generation. Maybe we were too polite for our own good. We had good libraries, though. And parents who taught us to care about them.
Well, what do I know? Read the article. Let me know.

[Read more…] about The Changing Role of Librarians

E.P.A. Library Closures Could Threaten Public Health

By Leslie Burger, AlterNet
Posted on December 14, 2006, Printed on December 14, 2006

http://www.alternet.org/story/45494/

This piece originally ran in the New York Times.

If you
needed to find out how much pollution an industrial plant in your
neighborhood was spewing, or what toxic chemicals were in a local
river, where would you go? Until recently, you could discover the
answer at one of the Environmental Protection Agency’s 29 libraries.
But now the E.P.A. has obstructed the American public — as well as its
own scientists and staff — by starting to dismantle its crown jewel,
the national system of regional E.P.A. libraries.

Until now, any
citizen could consult these resources, which include information on
things like siting incinerators, storing toxic waste and uncovering
links between asthma and car exhaust. E.P.A. staff members and other
scientists have counted on the libraries to support their work. First
responders and other state and local government officials have used
E.P.A. information to protect communities. In the age of terrorism,
when the safety of our food and water supply, the uninterrupted flow of
energy and, indeed, so much about our environment has become a matter
of national security, it seems particularly dangerous to take steps
that would hinder our emergency preparedness.

Although lawmakers
haven’t yet agreed to President Bush’s proposed 2007 budget, which
includes $2 million in cuts to the agency’s library system, the head of
the E.P.A. has already instituted cuts. The agency’s main library in
Washington has been closed to the public, and regional E.P.A. libraries
in Chicago, Dallas and Kansas City, Mo., have been closed altogether.
At the Boston, New York, San Francisco and Seattle branches, hours and
public access have been reduced.

Anyone who needs to understand
the environmental impact of, say, living downwind or downstream from a
new nuclear power plant, or the long-term public health impact of
Hurricane Katrina, cannot afford to find the doors barred to
potentially lifesaving information. But neither can the rest of us,
whose daily lives and choices will be affected by global warming. We
all have a right to be able to get access to information about our air,
water and soil.

"Libraries and their professionals are integral
to the work of E.P.A. toxicologists," says an agency toxicologist,
Suzanne Wuerthele. "Without access to their expertise and extensive
collections, it will be difficult to explain to the public, to state
agencies, industry and to the courts how and why E.P.A. is protecting
the environment over time."

Some members of Congress have begun
to bring these cuts to light. The Senate minority whip, Richard Durbin,
urged the president to reopen the libraries and rethink his budget
request. Eighteen senators sent a letter to the Senate Appropriations
Committee asking it to make the E.P.A. keep the libraries open.
Representatives John Dingell, Bart Gordon and Henry Waxman recently had
the Government Accountability Office start an inquiry into the closings
and requested that the E.P.A. administrator, Stephen Johnson, cease the
destruction of library materials immediately.

The E.P.A. cannot
hide behind the fig leaf of fiscal responsibility. While the agency
says the closings are all part of a commitment to modernize and
digitize, we are not assured that its public plan is adequate or its
skills sufficient. Users within the E.P.A. and the American public need
information specialists, like librarians, to manage paper collections
and to help them get access to digital material and organize online
information.

Fortunately, there’s still time to reverse this
dangerous threat to a healthy future. The administration could
immediately reopen the closed libraries. Congress could conduct
oversight hearings to reverse these decisions and prevent any more
E.P.A. libraries — all of them containing invaluable information about
our environment, all of them paid for by our tax dollars — from
closing. The American public deserves no less.

Leslie Burger is President of the American Library Association.

Don’t forget to check out this article from Mark Clayton or this one by Kelpie Wilson on the same subject.  They’re all well worth reading.

Closure of 6 federal libraries angers
scientists

Cost-cutting moves at the EPA and elsewhere deny researchers and
the public access to vital data, critics say.

By Tim Reiterman
Times Staff Writer

December 8, 2006
The NASA library in
Greenbelt, Md., was part of John C. Mather’s daily routine for years leading up
to the astrophysicist’s sharing of the 2006 Nobel Prize for shedding new light
on the big bang theory of creation. He researched existing space hardware and
instrumentation there while designing a satellite that collected data for his
prize-winning discovery.

So when he learned that
federal officials were planning to close the library, Mather was stunned.

"It is completely
absurd," he said. "The library is a national treasure. It is probably
the single strongest library for space science and engineering in the
universe."

Mather is one of thousands of people who critics say could lose access to
research materials as the government closes and downsizes libraries that house
collections vital to scientific investigation and the enforcement of
environmental laws.

Across the country, half a dozen federal libraries are closed or closing.
Others have reduced staffing, hours of operation, public access or
subscriptions.

In Washington, books are boxed at an Environmental Protection
Agency library that helped toxicologists assess health effects of pesticides
and chemicals. The General Services Administration headquarters library where
patrons conducted research on real estate, telecommunications and government
finance was shuttered this year, as was the Department of Energy headquarters
library that collected literature for government scientists and contractors.

 
Officials say the cutbacks
have been driven by tight budgets, declining patronage and rising demand for
online services. And they say leaner operations will improve efficiency while
maintaining essential functions. "We are trying to improve access and … do
more with a little less money," said Linda Travers, acting assistant administrator
for the EPA’s office of environmental information.

Although hundreds of federal libraries remain open, critics say the downsizing,
especially at the EPA, demonstrates the Bush administration’s indifference to
transparent government and to scientific solutions to many pressing problems.

"Crucial information generated with taxpayer dollars is now not available
to the public and the scientists who need it," said Emily Sheketoff, head
of the American Library Assn.’s Washington office. "This is the beginning of the
elimination of all these government libraries. I think you have an
administration that does not have a commitment to access to information."

Opponents of the EPA’s reductions say they are likely to slow the work of
regulators and scientists who depend on librarians and reference materials that
are not online.

They fear that some publications will never be digitized because of copyright
restrictions or cost. They worry that important material will be dispersed,
discarded or lost. And they contend that many people will lose access to
collections because they cannot navigate online services.

In addition to shutting its headquarters library and a chemical library in the
nation’s capital, the EPA has closed regional libraries in Chicago, Kansas City and Dallas that have helped federal investigators track sources of fish kills and
identify companies responsible for pollution.

The plans prompted the EPA’s own compliance office to express concern that cuts
could weaken efforts to enforce environmental laws. EPA employee unions decried
the severity of a proposed $2.5-million cut in a library budget that was $7
million last fiscal year. And, at the request of three House committees, the
Government Accountability Office now is examining the reductions.

"Congress should not allow EPA to gut its library system, which plays a
critical role in supporting the agency’s mission to protect the environment and
public health," 18 U.S. senators, nearly all Democrats, said last month in
a letter seeking restoration of library services until the issue can be
reviewed.

The
EPA said the president’s proposed budget had accelerated efforts to modernize
the system, and they said that library visits were declining.

"I think we are living in a world of digitized information," said
Travers of the EPA. "In the end there will be better access."

Travers said all EPA-generated documents from the closed libraries would be
online by January and the rest of the agency’s 51,000 reports would be
digitized within two years. The EPA, she said, would not digitize books,
scientific journals and non-EPA studies but would keep one copy of each
available for inter-library loans.

The Library of Congress has digitized more than 11 million items in its
collection of 132 million, and it retains the originals. But Deanna Marcum,
associate librarian for library services there, said maintaining library space
with staff provides important benefits, especially at specialized libraries.

"The librarians are so accustomed to doing searches and know the sources
so well, and it would be difficult for scientists to have the same level of
comfort," she said. "So, will they take the information they get and
use it rather than being exhaustive in their searches?"

An EPA study in 2004 concluded that the libraries saved millions of dollars a
year by performing time-consuming research for agency staff members. The
general public also uses EPA’s libraries.

When a sanitary district proposed a sludge incinerator along Lake Michigan in Waukegan, Ill., a few years ago, activist Verena Owen went to the EPA
library in Chicago, and with help from a librarian researched how much
mercury comes from incinerators and its toxicity. Owen said her findings helped
a successful campaign to relocate the plant.

 

When she recently heard the library had gone dark, Owen was outraged: "If
I had known about it, I would have chained myself to the bookcase."
 

The EPA’s chemical library in

Washington assisted scientists who developed drinking water standards
and studied the effects of pesticides. "It allowed scientists to check on
what they were being told by companies registering new chemicals," said
Linda Miller Poore, a longtime contract librarian there.
 

In May, after learning the library would close, Poore took a job at NASA’s Goddard
Space Flight Center library in

Greenbelt,

Md., a facility that supports space exploration and global warming
research.
 

But Poore said she was notified recently that the Goddard library would be
closed Jan. 1, leaving its collection available only online. She said she was
fired Nov. 17 after telling patrons about the plans. The company that employed
her declined to comment.
 

Mather, the Nobel-winning astrophysicist, said the library’s paper collection
is indispensable. "If we ended up moving into an age where paper did not
exist, we would need the equivalent to reach all the texts and handbooks, and
until the great library is digitized, I think we need the paper," he said.
 

In the wake of complaints from scientists and engineers, the center’s operations
director, Tom Paprocki, said the library was being funded through March and
that officials were exploring whether to preserve part of it.
 

The discovery of discarded scientific journals last year in a dumpster at
NASA’s

Ames Research Center in

Silicon
Valley prompted a union
grievance.
 

Plans to slash library space later were scaled back, said union president and
scientist Paul K. Davis. "If not for our efforts, about three-quarters of
the library materials would have been gone," he said.
 

At the Energy Department’s headquarters, people researched radiation exposure
of family members who worked with atomic energy or weaponry. And the library
staff helped DOE employees and contractors.
 

This summer the library closed, except the law section, and became an online
service. "By taking our headquarters library and making it virtual, more
people can access it than just being in

Washington," said Energy Department spokeswoman Megan Barnett,
adding that the department’s labs often have their own libraries.

---

tim.reiterman@latimes.com

There’s a great deal to be thankful for this year. Too much to write about here, really.  So let’s talk about copyright instead:

NEW YORK – Cell phone owners can now break locks to use their handsets
with competing carriers, while film professors have the right to copy
snippets from DVDs for educational compilations, the U.S. Copyright
Office said Wednesday.

Other rights declared in the government’s triennial review of the 1998

Digital Millennium Copyright Act
seek to improve access for the blind and to obsolete works and let
security researchers try to break copy-protection technologies embedded
in CDs

All told, Librarian of Congress James H. Billington approved six
exemptions, the most his Copyright Office has ever granted. For the
first time, the office gave an exemption to a group of users.
Previously, Billington took an all-or-nothing approach, making them
difficult to justify.

"I am very encouraged by the fact that the Copyright Office is
willing to recognize exemptions for archivists, cell phone recyclers
and computer security experts," said Fred von Lohmann, an attorney with
the civil-liberties group Electronic Frontier Foundation. "Frankly, I’m
surprised and pleased they were granted."

But he said he was disappointed the Copyright Office rejected a
number of exemptions that could have benefited consumers, including one
that would let owners of DVDs legally copy movies for use on Apple
Computer Inc.’s iPod and other music players.

I, too, am glad to hear of the exemptions the government is willing to make, but am unclear on what it actually means. Time will tell . . .

Happy turkey!

Disclaimer: I am posting this more to hear back from other folks who can point me
to actual library journal articles on this subject than to suggest that
we’re screwed, although I suppose I can do both. That said . . .

I admit it: I’ve jumped on the peak oil bandwagon. Which is probably not a great decision for my psyche, concidering that I’ve been fighting a running gunbattle with depression since my early 20’s, and this is a class A-1 depressing subject, but more on that in a moment.  Part of my interest is the fact that I happen to be a sucker for a good disaster story, and the more popular thinkers on the topic seem to live up to their subject matter in a way that’s just plain fun. (If you’re not sure what I mean by that, read this article by Aaron Naparstek called "Peak Freaks" to get a better idea.) The end of the world is a compelling tale and we as a species seem to like stories about the end of the world. We just like them better when they’re abstractions.  Nobody local enjoyed evacuating New Orleans last year, for example, or worse, having to stay for whatever reason.  On the other hand, the Katrina saga did wonders for ratings for all manner of mass media outlets.

[Read more…] about Peak Oil and Libraries

First, read Bill Moyers.  By now you know that I think it’s worth the time to listen to Moyers read a lunch menu out loud, but  read him anyway.  Read him again over the weekend.  Then vote on Tuesday.

First, wish MEDLINE a happy 35th birthday.

Now for some political resources, lifted in part from Resourceshelf.org (where would any of us be without these guys?):

Resources of the Week: Election 2006
By Shirl Kennedy, Senior Editor

"An election is a moral horror, as bad as a battle except for the
blood; a mud bath for every soul concerned in it."
-- George Bernard Shaw 

Be that as it may, the Tuesday after the first Monday in November is
coming up fast, and election-related information is a hot commodity.
Earlier this week, we highlighted one absolutely indispensable
political site, Project Vote Smart.

This amazing resource offers so much information that browsing here
can be like drinking from the proverbial firehose, but if you know
what you're looking for, it will save you a lot of time hopping around
the Web from site to site. Databases available here include:

* Biographical Information -- "Project Vote Smart compiles
  biographical details and contact information for over 40,000
  candidates and elected officials. We make every effort to provide
  these details for everyone who runs for President, Congress,
  Governor, and State Legislature in every state."

* Campaign Finances -- "Project Vote Smart provides detailed
  breakdowns of campaign finance contributions for your elected
  officials at the state and federal levels."

* Issue Positions (NPAT) -- "The National Political Awareness Test
  (NPAT) is a key component of Project Vote Smart's Voter Self-Defense
  system. Major leaders of the media, major parties and Project Vote
  Smart repetitiously ask candidates one central question: ''Are you
  willing to tell citizens your positions on the issues you will most
  likely face on their behalf?' The NPAT is administered to all
  candidates for presidential, congressional, gubernatorial, and state
  legislative offices."
 
* Interest Group Ratings -- "Despite their bias, special interest
  group ratings can help indicate where an incumbent has stood on a
  particular set of issues in the past few years. They can be
  especially useful when ratings by groups on all sides of an issue
  are compared. Web site links, if available, and descriptions of the
  organizations offering ratings are accessible by clicking on the
  name of the group."

* Voting Records -- "Project Vote Smart provides easy access to
  Congressional and State voting records and maintains a collection of
  key votes grouped by issue. Key votes typically include the initial
  passage of legislation and final conference report vote versions
  (the compromised versions of bills passed in separate House and
  Senate version)."

* Public Statements -- "Ratings. Our researchers collect public
  statements for the President, Vice President, Governors, all Members
  of Congress, and position papers for current candidates, who submit
  them along with their responses to the NPAT. Congressional floor
  statements, press releases, editorials, letters, columns, and
  television show and committee hearing transcripts are added daily."

The rest of the article is here.   (And while you’re into election resources, take a look at Andy’s columns from today and yesterday.)

After publishing yesterday’s post about tattooed/pierced librarians and other white collar workers, I went to the libraries community on livejournal.com and ran a very informal poll. (Very informal.)  Just to see how many librarians were into body art, you understand.

The post isn’t 24 hours old yet and I’ve gotten over 50 comments.  (Wow!)  The comments keep on coming, too (if you have an LJ account and are so inclined, you can add your comment here.)  Not to mention the traffic on this website spiking mightily in the past few days, partly from this, partly from a link to the anti-library post from Lawrence, Kansas, that appeared on LISnews.com to push this blog to the brink of 7,000  visitors.

Wow! And thank you.  And please come again.

On your way out, take a look at this truly uplifting bit that appeared in ResourceShelf.com this morning.  I guarantee at least a couple of well-deserved  feel-good moments.

I found this news bit on Yahoo! News this morning.  The article wasn’t written with libraries (or librarians) in mind in the strictest sense, but it’s interesting to me that the writer does in fact focus on a librarian in Kentucky with some very nice tribal work.  Personally, I knew a long time ago that if I was going to stay even marginally marketable anywhere outside NYC, I was going to have to "self censor" the tattoos I got (you won’t see anything on me at work, but I don’t generally wear anything more revealing than a polo shirt and dress pants either).  For that matter, I can point to a coworker who has a tongue piercing and a major tattoo, but you wouldn’t know it from the way she shows up to work every day.  But as I said, in NYC you can get away with a lot more than you might be able in, say Ohio, where I think they still have the death penalty for speeding.

I do think it’d be an amazing experiment–not that I know how to go about conducting it–to have a day where everybody in the world of work would just show off their body art–tats, piercings, what have you–just to see who was int he club and who was not.  How many doctors, lawyers, politicians, and undertakers would there be?  There’d a a lot of librarians, at least if my local sample is any indication (see previous note about speeding in Ohio).  And they wouldn’t all be weekend bikers, either.  How about plumbers, electricians, and IT people?   Housewives? (Househusbands?)  Preachers?  Writers?  Actors?  Butchers, bakers and candlestick makers?  PR execs (one of them made it into the article I linked to, so you never know)?

Maybe that’s the point.  You never know.  And, as long as the customer services is consistently good, does it really matter?

First, read this from Bill Moyers.

Then, check out the October issue of the NYAM library newsletter.
And after that, you should checkout the lastest (September 2006) issue of TechKNOW.
That is all for the moment, but if I come across something else worth reading I’ll put it up before the end of the day.

This article by Mark Hirschey appeared in the Oct. 2, 2006 issue of the Lawrence Journal-World. The title "Libraries Are Limited, Obsolete" describes it pretty effectively, but I think  it’s worth reading, even if you don’t agree with it. Perhaps especially if you don’t agree with it, since I’m not convinced that Hirschey’s point of view is all that uncommon.

And, I’ll be honest, my first instinct is to dismiss this guy out of hand.  My second instinct is to get royally pissed off, and my third instinct tells me to take a deep breath, actually read what he wrote and consider it. Think about it.  Write about it.  So I did.  My response to Hirschey’s point of view is behind the edit.

Some librarians will read that last sentence and imagine that I’m selling out by lowering myself to his level to respond.  I don’t think that’s the case.  Like it or not, libraries are service organizations.  Some make money from more specialized activities than others and most are supported by at least some public and private funds.  If the day comes that we are unable to defend our livelihoods to those who write those checks, then those checks will cease to be written. If we cannot convince people to actually come in and use the resources we have available, then we’ll have failed to serve those potential patrons in any meaningful way.

So with that in mind, I’ll point out that while  Hirschey’s argument is far from iron-clad,  it’s not entirely uniformed.  He’s right to point out that huge portion of our patrons come in to use our electronic resources rather than the printed volumes.  And he’s also right to point out that $70 million–a number I pulled from the comments beneath the article–is an enormous amount of public money to be spent on any kind of project (if it’s correct).  And let’s face the ugly fact that at least some larger libraries might do well to occasionally rethink who they are serving and how.

At any rate, I think that dismissing Hirschey and those who believe as he does is a mistake.  Let’s try to convince them that we’re worth keeping around.

[Read more…] about Libraries: Limited & Obsolete?