Just reading the CLA Bulletin and it sounds like they'll post speaker's presentations as they receive them (althought that's currently a non-existent link so who knows?) But anyhow, if something shows up there, one of my complaints will have been unfounded (though I'd still love to see full video streams of all the sessions - how cool would that be?)
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Thursday, June 29
Monday, June 26
CLA Session Notes - "Systemic Barriers to Library Use: Libraries Engage the Socially Excluded"
by
Jason
on Mon 26 Jun 2006 05:24 PM EDT
These are my notes from probably the best session I attended at CLA (okay, it tied with Michael Geist's session on copyright but those were two totally different things. Or were they?)
To put it in perspective, I wrote maybe a page in my notebook at most sessions I attended. I took six pages at this one. This session featured: Annette DeFavri, Coordinator of the Working Together: Connecting Libraries to Communities Project, Vancouver Public Library, BC John Pateman, Head of Libraries, Lincoln County Council, Lincoln, England Brian Campbell, Director of Systems and Special Projects, Vancouver Public Library, Vancouver, BC Background on the Project from OLA Website (CLA didn't have this much info in their conference blurb and I couldn't find a web site specifically for the Working Together project): "Working Together" is a demonstration project funded by Human Resources and Skills Development Canada (HRSDC), Office of Learning Technologies Community Learning Network Initiatives (OLT), that is intended to run for a period of three years, with annual funding approval. There are four library systems participating across Canada: Vancouver Public Library, Regina Public Library, Toronto Public Library and Halifax Public Library. Within the three years, the four libraries will develop and test models of working with marginalized or economically disadvantaged communities in order to identify what these communities expect from libraries and to determine approaches of what and how services may be best delivered; as well as demonstrate ways that libraries can transform how they work with these communities by providing experience, models, tools and a philosophy which encourages working with these communities as an important part of library service. In Toronto, the project is being carried out in the Flemingdon Park and Thorncliffe Park communities where a high percentage of families live below the low income cutoff measure and where many new immigrants settle to begin to look for employment, education and English language skills. The poster session will share the experiences of the first year of the "Working Together" project: community asset mapping, meeting the target communities, developing programs and partnerships, planning for the next phase Here are the notes I took from each speaker's presentation: Annette DeFavri - Why is this project needed? Socially excluded people tell them that libraries are for people: who read, who are smart, who can use computers. When they do come to the library, they don't want to interrupt staff who always look busy, they feel that there's a "high school or secret club vibe" that they're not a part of, they have anger towards institutions, and that they often don't feel welcome because they're not welcome. (I'm man enough to admit that I teared up as she went through the responses of people as to why they don't use the library. This would be the first of many times during the presentation that this happened.) - a lot of these barriers are rooted in librarian's professional culture - fines are a huge barrier - libraries should look at ways to eliminate or forgive them - even bigger than the fines issue is that people simply don't feel comfortable discussing fines or coming in to talk about them. - librarians need to assess "library context" for what they do but also the "community context" - librarians don't have a culture of change, we don't listen to community, patrons - unequal relationship between staff and patrons. Often staff don't wear name tags so we know their name but they don't know ours. - food and drink policies can be an issue for people who carry their food with them. - library culture is currently "collect and protect" but should be "community information providers" - we need to remember that without people, there are no libraries - instead of arguing about whether to call them "customers" or "patrons", we should call the people who come into our libraries what they are - "neighbours" (was this a point from the Stephen Lewis speech that she reiterated? My notes aren't clear.) - librarians need to take risks everyday - Annette is starting a new CLA interest group on "community access" (may not be the exact title.) If you're interested in joining, e-mail me and I'll pass along her e-mail address. John Bateman - heads and hearts are the barrier, we don't think and we don't feel - self-criticism of our profession is hard - libraries are used most by people who don't need them and least by people who need them the most - it's a fundamental shift in how we operate but we should move to a "needs based" library service, not equal to all because that never works. (Someone asked in the Q&A how we can maintain our neutrality by being activists like this and Brian Campbell responded that there is no such thing as neutrality and that by saying you're neutral, you're admitting that you're part of the status quo that causes these problems.) - "needs based" means we treat people differently based on their needs - "needs based" policies can work in any library anywhere - we need to actively engage local community. - improving things for excluded people will improve things for all patrons - 20% of patrons are active, core users who want more of the same thus the status quo. Of this 20%, 47% want free books, 26% want space savings, 20% want trusted source/help - 30% are passive/lapsed users who use library infrequently or who used it once but no longer do. To reach this group, there was a "Love Libraries" campaign in the UK which showed this group wanted better selection, facilities, author events (although the study was sponsored by publishers so maybe it had a bias?) - 50% are irregular or non-users, don't read beyond library needs, we need to do more with outreach services (schools, bookmobiles, sales or giveaways) which are all traditional services, just taken to people - need to differentiate: "community outreach" works in the community, "community development" works with the community - overall, librarians need to shake-up our culture of comfort and see world thru eyes of disenfranchised Brian Campbell - Brian starts with a moment to acknowledge the street person who was murdered a couple nights ago just as the conference was getting underway. Who was he? Did he have a family? Did he use the library or was he turned away? (cue more tears, not just me but probably most of the audience. We'd seen the gathering of other street people to leave flowers and console each other when we'd gone on the pub crawl. Did he have a family? Obviously. Did the library turn him away? Who knows - some definitely would have.) - how can we become relevant to people like this young man? - there's a corporate invasion that's changing the language of libraries - libraries serve middle class traditionally even though they are the people who can afford books, they can afford to pay for commercial information services (ie. home internet access) - poor are afraid of us because of our rules, culture, environment - lack of pictographic signs in libraries is a major issue that a literate person rarely considers - we need to give understanding of how libraries work to people who don't come to them. Think how foreign would it be to enter a library for the first time? What is that desk for? Can you take any book you want or only some? Do you need a key to use the washroom? - libraries get lumped with schools, prisons and other unfriendly institutions - think what institution we most resemble when you walk in the door? At least at his library, the one it most resembles is a prison. What's the first thing you see when you go through the electronic gates at the front? A guard. - our economic system demands poor people, it's not through their individual choice or character that they are poor - we need to think how they see us, not how we see them - we also need to realise that this process is ongoing and can't have an end point - we need a human element, not just focus on numbers - we need to lose our fear of different/other people - library schools need a Community Development course - "Working Together" - December 2005 Feliciter article has more information and background about the project If anybody who was at the session has more information or can think of anything I've missed, feel free to e-mail me and I'll add it. Sessions like this are exactly why I think the CLA should have transcripts of every session available after the conference. There were no less than three other sessions I wanted to go to at the same time as this one and it was literally a random pick that made me choose this one. Many of my colleagues who wanted to attend this session didn't make that same choice. Sunday, June 25
CLA Conference - Holly's Take
by
Jason
on Sun 25 Jun 2006 12:42 PM EDT
[2008-03-21 - Holly is a classmate who I think posted her impressions on our class's private Yahoo! group and who gave me permission to reprint them here.]
The good: Sessions - “Is one stop shopping all we dreamed it would be? The Single search interface in action” This was great, it was a LAC librarian and two librarians from Memorial University who are doing research on the usability of the single search interface in their online catalogues. The LAC research was done via survey on their website, and the Memorial one is with their search technology that they’ve tested with a small group of undergrads, grad students, and profs. The university used a capture program so they could actually record and analyze how information was searched and what threw people off track or was inconvenient, so it was very interesting to see which aspects of design were a problem. Also, they noted that undergrads would just go crazy and click on every result to see what they could find; profs and grad students would take their time and read through everything. The government info track sessions were good; learned some helpful reference tips from a U of T prof in the first session, learned about various efforts to save digital government information in the second and about the future of gov docs in the third. Also went to a cultural-type session on the library of Alexandria – the ancient and the new one- which talked about how countries from around the world contributed to re-build a library in Alexandria. It was a nice break to hear about more positive things in the library world. The not so good: I agree 100% with Paul and Kelly re: the food and the random trade show “entertainment”. At an early morning session I went to, the speaker brought Timbits for everyone b/c she felt bad about us being up so early and obviously we weren’t going to have anything beyond water available. Also, first timers breakfast was poorly organized. The food wasn’t served on time and the speeches started after we all had food, so it was running behind, once you finished your plate you couldn’t have anything else and the waiters were taking away plates during the speeches, which was a distraction. Not worth the money, for an $18 for breakfast in a hotel, it was disappointing. I was impressed that early on, Barbara Clubb made the rounds and made an effort to speak briefly with everyone at the table. Re: the tradeshow, I found the government booths to be informative and “student-friendly”; corporate ones, not so much (not that that was a surprise). It’s nice to do a tour around and talk to exhibitors on the first day, and then on the second day vendors were trying to get rid of as much stuff as possible so they didn’t have to take it home, so it was a good time to stock up on free stuff. Also, for those of you who remember Trish (from U of A) from the pub crawl, here’s the site where her shirt’s from: http://www.librariangear.com/ It’s a site with library related t-shirts, etc. Thursday, June 22
Captain Copyright Saves The Day at CLA
by
Jason
on Thu 22 Jun 2006 08:46 PM EDT
Access Copyright's "Captain Copyright" campaign raised some hackles at CLA and had a few of us subverting the promotional materials that Access Copyright had at their booth by modifying the stickers they were giving out...
 For anyone who doesn't know, Captain Copyright is a character created by Access Copyright to promote copyright to students and teachers. Unfortunately, it presents a very biased view of copyright without many (any?) mention of fair use provisions and containing various other misrepresentations on the site. Michael Geist, the Canada Research Chair of Internet and E-commerce Law at the University of Ottawa, sums up the problems with this campaign way better than I ever could. His post also has some good discussion about the issue by his site visitors. The CLA membership (who weren't consulted about this campaign before it was launched although they apparently should've been) passed a resolution at their AGM (PDF - scroll to page four) that was brought by their Copyright Working Group and the Information Commons Interest Group for the organization to write a letter of condemnation to Access Copyright about this program and to monitor future developments. There are two ironies with this whole thing - the Captain Copyright web site explicitly restricts anyone's ability to use materials on the site or even link to the site. (My use of the modified graphic above would be a violation in their opinion. I'm claiming the non-legal but commonly understood "anything on the Net is free for the taking" precedent as my defense.  )The other irony is that Captain Copryight himself is apparently comprised of a number of potential copyright infractions including one image that evokes the infamous "goatse" (which I think Access Copyright should be ashamed of exposing children to!) Boing Boing has a post which summarizes the possible copyright infringements in the character. Wednesday, June 21
Some CLA-related Blog Posts On Other Sites
by
Jason
on Thu 22 Jun 2006 12:51 AM EDT
Bloglines Search Result for "Canadian Library Association"
A couple favourites from the above list of results... Summary of Stephen and Avi Lewis Opening Keynote Presentation (via the Green Kangaroo) Dumb Things I Have Done So Far at CLA (via Inspyration) Why The CLA Should Have Their 2010 Conference in Whitehorse (via Laurie the Librarian) ...and the CLA conference in Calgary apparently had both a blog and a wiki in 2005. The Wiki has the potential to be particularly useful including a list of "Tips for Newbies" and "Conference Bloggers" although neither was utilized very much. Did CLA offer these things in 2006? I couldn't find anything... [2006-08-24 - the new "Feliciter" listed the blog of Jeremiah Saunders who was UBC's "Student to CLA" representative. He has a blog with some of his thoughts and experiences. Blogger doesn't allow tagging as far as I know but if you scan through his June 2006 entries, you'll hit most of his CLA conference-related content.)
Twelve Ways To Improve The CLA Conference
by
Jason
on Wed 21 Jun 2006 09:04 PM EDT
Am I ever going to do a post where I'm happy about something instead of suggesting how to change and improve it? (Probably not...)
Obviously these suggestions come heavily from the perspective of a student and a first-time CLA attendee. Twelve Ways To Improve The CLA Conference 1. Don't charge students to attend 2. Don't have an $18 per person first-timer's breakfast. Maybe an $8 one at a nearby restaurant with a private room would work better and have more people out? 3. Have free wireless internet available at the conference site 4. Make video (preferably - or audio or text) streams of all presentations (as well as any powerpoint slides and handouts) available on the CLA web site. Ideally, this information would be made available to anyone but if you had to limit it, a simple password system for registered conference participants (or all CLA members) would suffice. 5. Have a first-timers-only mixer early in the week so students get a chance to meet people from across Canada in the same situation as themselves. Let people in for free instead of charging $18 to attend. Don't have it in a venue (like a high-end hotel) that's going to charge $7 for a beer and $4 for cranberry juice either (that's one's for Michelle Lake.) 6. Send out a first-timer's package that pulls all the most relevant information from the conference program along with tips and tricks about negotiating a conference like this. A lot of my fellow attendees expressed disappointment with their experience and I think this is partly due to the overwhelming nature of a conference like this. I know I missed a lot in the conference program and I'm sure many other people did as well. 7. Include a list of registered conference participants in each person's registration package (may have privacy implications but I've seen it done and always appreciated it if I met someone and wanted to contact them at a later date.) 8. This is something we tried to do at the WGA and SPG with our conferences. Why not partner with local tourist attractions to host some of the events? Instead of having the opening keynote at the hotel, imagine how memorable it would have been to have it at the Museum of Civilization or even on Parliament Hill? 9. Fairly minor but listing not only the start point but the end point for the pub crawl in the program would have been helpful for those wishing to join the revellers later. (The retired children's librarian I had a drink with the first night wanted to join the pub crawl after the awards ceremony but didn't know where we'd be for instance.) 10. My classmate, Paul hit the nail on the head. No Elvis. No Marilyn. No clowns. If you need to waste money on wandering entertainment (I mean, they weren't even performing), why not have some literary characters or famous librarians depicted? 11. Spend more money on the lunches and have a WAY better selection than two kinds of crappy wraps as the only choices (seriously, no salad, no pasta, no dessert, no juice.) 12. Make sure I win a door prize next time!  Tuesday, June 20
CLA Conference - Paul & Kelly's Take
by
Jason
on Tue 20 Jun 2006 08:50 AM EDT
Here's the report that a couple classmates sent to our class listserv with their take on the CLA conference...
--- The good: The 2 best presentations we saw were on Thursday, one on recruitment in Academic Libraries, and the other was a debate on whether we as librarians have made ourselves obsolete over the past decade. The Academic libraries presentation was useful in that it gave tips on applying, to make your cover letter stand out, the interview process (a whole day, often), our generation's job prospects (not bad, but there aren't as many retiring as we predicted - things should be good between 2009-2014). They also raised a commonly-heard complaint at FIMS, ie library schools' lack of adequately preparing its students for jobs, especially the lack of technological skills....505, anyone? anyway, it was probably the most informative seminar I saw. The "debate", apparently a tradition at the conference, was on "It may not be a paper-less society, but it could be a librarian-less society". I'm sorry to say, but the side arguing that it will be a librarian-less society had the better arguments - in a nutshell, we've made it so easy for the user, that they don't need us, and the fact that we've gotten into bed with all the vendors. Soon, every library (academic, especially) will be as similar as one Chapters to another, if we've all bought the same package(s) from the same vendors. Another good point, was that as a profession, we're too hung up on getting "respect" from the outside, we have an inferiority complex, etc, and this is why we've let big business slowly creep in to libraries. Kinda like a lively 501 class. But, good stuff to hear for us who are entering the profession; maybe we'll put up more of a fight than the people w ho've been there all their lives, and who don't really care anymore.... The Bad: For $90, the "lunch" provided was pretty pitiful, a wrap, either with chicken, or "cup of noodles" thrown into a wrap, and called vegetarian. And pop (2 kinds, 7up and Pepsi, guess we made a deal with only one vendor). And, there were some fairly boring presentations, but you never know til you go. And nobody knows how to use powerpoint effectively. Really, the worst I can say about the conference is this (apart from below). The Ugly: And, I'm not sure how much CLA paid to have Elvis , a middle-aged Marilyn Monroe, and an annoying clown wander around, but this money could've been better spent on food, at the very least... Anyhoo, time's running out here on the internet access, but overall, it was definitley worth going to. Maybe didn't shmooze as much as we should've, but others may have had luck in this department. And someday, we predict that Jason will be the CLA president :) Paul and Kelly Classmate of the Day: Emilie McLachlan for her Dell-inspired weekly summary for Management class today (and I'm not referring to the Dell laptop she brings to class). Monday, June 19
A Few CLA Photos...
by
Jason
on Mon 19 Jun 2006 05:08 PM EDT
Shea had the camera while being a tourist (and we didn't think to take our old-fashioned film camera which still needs to have its current roll finished) so I didn't take as many shots at CLA as I normally would have. Here are some though...
A couple from the Thursday night pub crawl...   Three previous winners of the Spirit of Librarianship Award aka "Spirit of Drinkingship" Award
(me, Sabina and Guida da Silva)  The view from the President's Suite of Parliament Hill at the Saturday night reception (sorry it's a bit blurry - it looked like it was in focus when I took it! ) Sunday, June 18
Misadventures at CLA - Day Four (Saturday)
by
Jason
on Sun 18 Jun 2006 10:05 PM EDT
Just back from the CLA conference (it officially ended up Saturday but we stayed an extra day to do some sightseeing and so we'd have a full day to drive home instead of rushing on Saturday.) Turns out this was a wise decision as I'll explain later...
Saturday, I was again up very early and over to an 8am session by Toni Samek on Intellectual Freedom issues and their relevance in library schools. After that, I finally went to be a tourist with Shea, taking the van for a cruise around the city (tried to stop to say 'hi' to fellow Westerner Stephen Harper but he was apparently in Edmonton cheering on the Oilers) then went to the War Museum which was okay but not great. We had lunch in Byward Market (Chris Dixon sent me a great suggestion for a restaurant but it was closed for lunch on Saturdays!) then went back to The Westin in time for the AGM which, contrary to the popular opinion, was very interesting and yes, even exciting in parts! After years of non-profit AGM's which tend to be very informal with a lot of "uhm, do we vote now? No, I think we do discussion then the amendment then call the question. Er, or that but the other way", being at an AGM with a parlimentarian to guide the proceedings, a PowerPoint to follow as we moved through the agenda as well as to display a Word document with bylaws and resolutions so we could all see amendments as they were made - was pretty cool. Not sure whether I should be happy or embarrassed (probably the latter) that a few of my comments were paraphrased into the remarks of one of the speakers during the debate about a resolution to change the membership options slightly. The resolution on the floor was that members shouldn't just get to pick one free division as happens now (the five divisions being public, academic, special, school libraries as well as one for trustees) but that they should also get the option of one division (for more established librarians or new librarians who know what they're interested in) or two interest groups (which are perhaps of more relevance to newer librarians, students and established librarians who don't fit in any of the five divisions - information technology librarians or librarian technicians for example.) A compromise was proposed that it would be better to say "one division AND one special interest group free" rather than still making people choose. How Shea and I came into all of this was that there was a lot of debate about how much this change would cost the CLA ($6000-$30000 was their quickie-math prediction although I'm not sure I agree with how they arrived at these figures as they were using the "Every person who downloads a Britney Spears album for free would've otherwise bought it" technique so popular with the RIAA.) Someone I'd talked to at the pub crawl got up to say how important it was to make this change to support students - including some students who couldn't afford to pay the reduced conference fee let alone pay $15 for interest groups. She then went on to say that "some students including one who won the Spirit Award at UWO is here today but he couldn't even bring his wife to the opening keynote because of the cost of tickets for non-delegates on top of the costs he'd already incurred to attend the conference" (a slight exaggeration but the principle of the thing is definitely true. It's pretty outrageous to me that in an organization dedicated to removing barriers to access, students who often have $0 income, pay their own registration, meals, accommodation and travel costs while working librarians who are likely in a better position to afford the related costs to attend the conference (even though their registration fee is higher.) This is also assuming that their attendance isn't covered by their employer as it was for many of the librarians I spoke with. My classmate, Alex Homanchuk puts it a bit more succinctly in his blog post entitled "Fuck The CLA!") I actually went to the conference with the intention of making a resolution that students shouldn't have to pay a conference registration fee (for the reasons I outlined above, for the fact that it's a gesture of goodwill to their newest members who will presumably soon be making $50 000-75 000/year and will be able to afford to attend the conference regularly, because the CLA web site misleadingly said "Complimentary" beside the student registration option.) But I let myself get a bit overwhelmed and intimidated at the conference and though I told a few friendly faces my idea (fellow students, sympathetic librarians and profs), I never took the initiative to find an Executive Member and find out how to get this resolution on the agenda. (I did bring the idea to the First Timers interest group on Thursday and they were very supportive but by this point, we'd missed the resolution approval meeting.) Next year I guess... The President, Barbara Clubb, ended the AGM by inviting everyone who'd lasted until the end of the meeting to join her for the traditional reception at the President's Suite in the host hotel which "has more square footage than my house" according to her. Walked back to the University and relaxed for awhile then went to the reception (Shea wasn't feeling well and stayed at the University residence unfortunately.) The reception was great and I got to meet the past-President, current President, President-elect, Executive Director as well as many other long-time members of CLA. Also got some great information for my Independent Study and a possible lead on a research project! The setting was amazing - 23rd floor of the hotel with a gigantic wrap-around balcony with views of Parliament Hill, the American Embassy and pretty much all of the major attractions of Ottawa that are in the area.) Finished the day by having a drink at a nearby pub with two librarians who both previously worked in the Saskatoon Public System and who were able to give me a lot of the insights you don't get from sitting at a conference with no beer in you. All of this is why I'm glad we stayed the extra night. I guess that's it for now. I'm debating whether to just spend the next week of entries posting about various aspects of the conference since there was so much that I took from it. I've blogged about how I always carry a notepad to jot down ideas, quotes, book titles and whatever else I might come across. I usually fill up a page every few days but this week, I filled an entire notebook in four days! Oh, I also wanted to give a long-neglected Classmate of the Day award to Paul and Kelly who sent their impressions of the conference to our cohort's listserv after a request from Kerry about how it was and tagged on the prediction that I will be President of CLA someday. I don't know about that - I've got to learn my Roberts Rules of Order a bit better first and be a lot less chicken about introducing resolutions - but thanks for the vote of confidence. Paul, if you're reading this, feel free to post your report in the comments! Friday, June 16
Misadventures at CLA - Day Three (Friday)
by
Jason
on Fri 16 Jun 2006 10:38 PM EDT
I'm actually going to post an entry on the day I'm writing about if you can believe it! Up early and over to hotel but the shuttle bus was full so I had to wait for the 9:20am one, missing half of the session I wanted to attend - "Public Library Statistics Across Canada" which was MUCH more interesting than the title would lead you to believe. Skipped out of the second session (I think I went to something but it was boring so left) and ended up talking to various people who were also doing the "networking" thing. Met one guy who convocated a couple years ago and who recognized me from my blog! I sometimes forget that I'm not just doing this little project for myself. Yikes! Went to the First Timers Interest Group (not the real name) meeting at noon and a couple of my suggestions - a mixer for students and recent grads only as an alternate to the pub crawl and also the idea of bringing forward a resolution that students should be allowed to attend the conference for free were well-received. Unfortunately, found out later that we were too late to get the resolution on the agenda. Perhaps we can make it happen for next year? Or maybe they don't even need a formal resolution and can just work towards it as an executive? Who knows - I have no idea how the politics of an organization this large work. I'm used to organizations of betwen 50-500 members with about 10 active members in each! |
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