“it’s not clear”

Wired weighs in on U Mich’s renegotiation with the Google Books library project, and the title pretty well sums up their interpretation “UMich gets Better Deal in Google’s Library of the Future Project.” (Is that what’s called now? Cripes. All your book are belong to us.)

What cracks me up is the final, puzzled line.

Google will sell full-text access to all the books in its index to libraries and institutions, but critics say the price of that will be set very high . . .

That’s why giving UM (and possibly the other scanning libraries) some method to contest the price matters. But it’s not clear why UM would protest the pricing of such institutional subscriptions, because the changes also mean Google will subsidize the entire cost of UM’s institutional subscriptions.

Man, these guys truly do not get libraries!

why information literacy is a hard sell

As they are wont to do, a bunch of random ideas have just caromed off each other. This is your brain. This is your brain on a billiard table.

First, I was mulling over a funny thing that happened on a writers’ list. Someone asked a question about a medication. Another member, a librarian, pointed out a couple of wonderful resources where you can get answers to questions like hers. A third member said “here’s the answer. I’m a doctor.” And the chorus of replies was “Thank you so much! I always turn to experts! If I do my own research, I have to read too much and it’s confusing and some of it may be wrong.” Basically – “damn you, librarians, and your your tools of ambiguity; your solution requires judgment, and I don’t trust mine. Also, it’s work. Bah!”

So here’s the trouble with this thing we librarians believe in so passionately and have named so badly – information literacy. “I don’t want to think for myself, because its hard work and I might get it wrong; I just want an answer. Libraries are useless because they have far too many.”

That particular doctor was no doubt trustworthy. But what about those times when he’s not there, or it’s not his specialty? On this list you ask and hope someone who sounds credible pipes in with an answer.”Here’s a good place to look it up” is not a welcome suggestion.

What this collided with was in my billiard-table brain was some campaign folderol in the past twenty-four hours. McCain made a speech blasting Obama for only now going to Afghanistan. How could anyone possibly hold any informed opinion about a country in conflict if he hadn’t climbed off a plane and stood on its soil surrounded by cameras and heavily-armed security?

My immediate thought was “well, Obama does know how to read.”

I’m not saying expertise or first-hand experience is unimportant. But we have to make judgments all the time about things that we don’t know first hand and haven’t made our profession. We have to read and we have to winnow and yes, it’s work. But doing that work is the only way we can be free human beings. Weighing evidence is a skill everyone needs. You can defer to the experts, but sometimes they’re wrong or they’re biased or they’re lying, something Karl Rove turned into a science.

Sometimes, you have to think for yourself.

How do you learn to do that? That’s the hard part, but it should be what education is all about.

photo courtesy of jpstanley

Library as a Cask of Amontillado

Nice profile of Jim Huang at the Indianapolis Star. He is not only the owner of the legendary Mystery Company in Carmel, he is a publisher and a wonderfully thoughtful philosopher on the importance of books and reading and the independent local bookstore as a catalyst for literacy. Though I have to give some thought to this comment . . .

Books are like breathing; it’s part of your life. There are many customers, folks who’ve walked in the door, who love books and feel about them as I do, and yet I still feel that books are under-represented in this community. We build these absolutely beautiful libraries, but I sometimes think we wall up books in institutions like that. I love the library here; I’ve done a lot to support them and they’ve done a lot for me, but you sometimes want to just get books out there.

On my route to a signing at the Mystery Company, I visited two stunning libraries, the main library in Indianapolis and the lovely, spacious, elegant library in Carmel. (I’ll try to post some photos here soon.) They’re vibrant, gorgeous places, but do they wall their books up?  Do glorious settings stifle the urge to leave the place with your arms full of books?

Hmmm…..

what if you ran your library like a corporation?

Well, now you can! Fire those librarians, lock the doors, starve your communities of books and information – then hire a for-profit company to run it. That’s what Jackson County, Oregon is doing.

One of the head honchos of the LSSI Corp that got this contract once wrote a truly disturbing article for American Libraries. The title asked an interesting question – “What if You Ran Your Library Like a Bookstore?” I thought of some of the wonderful independent bookstores that could teach us a thing or two – like Once Upon a Crime or Uncle Edgar’s in Minneapolis. But no, turns out he meant “like B&N.” Have all the books selected by a head office somewhere else, get rid of reference assistance because it’s not popular enough, hire low-wage workers, sell expensive coffee. Well, he took his own advice. Now he’s running public libraries like a corporation.

Public libraries in the US have always had a local flavor and have been considered a public good – like public safety and education (not like trash collection and road maintenance, two often-outsourced government functions mentioned in the article). This just stinks.

out of the wilderness

I totally missed this charmer until I saw it posted at the BookBitchBlog.

None of the theatres or video rental shops in Waco wanted to carry a documentary about Dixie Chicks, Shut Up and Sing. Too controversial. Okay, you could buy a copy, or get it from Netflix. But what if you think it’s something your neighbors might want to see, too? Well, there’s one more phone call you could make . . .

DIY censorship

Do you want to get a book removed from your public library and find yourself thwarted by those annoying first amendment types and their tedious policies?

There’s a new do-it-yourself method that’s catching on! Check the book out and refuse to return it! Tell all your friends!

Seriously – I just saw this American Libraries story about a girl doing this in Georgia just hours after catching this similar Boston Globe story about a woman doing the same in Maine. We’ll probably see more attempts to improve our communities by theft.

Is this the new way to celebrate Banned Books Week?

more library porn

No, they don’t look especially user-friendly, and there don’t appear to be any small-group study rooms or coffee shops around. But still …

the bookmomule

Some of us have fond memories of bookmobiles, those lumbering trucks full of books on tilted shelves that pull up to a parking lot and magically become a library. BoingBoing calls our attention to biliomulas, sure-footed mules that bring books to remote villages in Venezuela. Visit Auntie Beeb to read all about it.

another reading crisis

Daniel Gioia, chair of the NEA, wants you to be afraid. Very afraid.

A couple of years ago reading was at risk, just as was the nation during the Reagan era when school reform was on the agenda. (Glad they fixed that.) Though when I read Gioia’s jeremiad introduction to the report, then looked a the data in the report, I thought perhaps numeracy was more at risk than literacy.

He’s made another discovery, and is alarmed. Kids read less in their teen years! Harry Potter hasn’t changed anything! It’s a national crisis! Brace yourselves for a barrage of code-red PR.

If it’s a crisis it has been around for generations. Pleasure reading always falls off in the teen years. Luckily a lot of people, including librarians, are coming up with bright ways to keep teens engaged with books. If anything, public libraries are more teen-friendly than ever.

If you want to know the real low-down on reading, take a look at Reading Matters, edited by Catherine Sheldrick Ross. Solid data, fascinating analysis, and (something I wish the NEA would adopt for a change) historical perspective. And it’s very well written, so a joy to read.

threaten the little children

Another sad commentary on intolerance.

A South Carolina library system has closed down its summer programs for young adults after receiving threats and allegations that it was trying to promote “witchcraft” and “drug use.”

The Pickens County Library System’s half-hour summer programs for middle and high school students were supposed to take a light-hearted look at the topics “Secrets and Spies: How to Keep a Secret by Writing in Code or Making Invisible Ink” and “What’s Your Sign?” Another program was to examine astrology, palmistry, and numerology; and others were to feature tarot cards, tie-dying t-shirts, how to make a Zen garden, and yoga.

Now the programs are cancelled in the wake of phone and e-mail threats from the community, believed to emanate from a single local Baptist church. The astrology program was labeled as “witchcraft” by callers, while the Zen garden and yoga programs were objected to as “promoting other religions.” The t-shirts workshop? “Promotes the hippie culture and drug use,” callers said.