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Tag Archives: American Library Association

Midwinter Meeting Schedule (Plus News of a Free Midwinter Airport Shuttle)

Attending ALA Midwinter in Boston. The year is coming to a close, so that must mean that the midwinter meeting of the American Library Association is right around the corner. Yep, there it is — just two and a half weeks away in Boston. A conference in Boston in January — the rates have got to be cheap. 1 Given the fast approaching meeting, it is definitely time to strategize about how to tap into the pulse of library-land. Here is my plan so far. If you would like to get together in the spaces between meetings, or at the meetings themselves, let me know!

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2009 12 28 Comments (2)

Comments on Google Book Search Settlement Coming to a Head (Again)

Ah, it is the beginning of September when thoughts turn to going back to school, the days turn a little colder (in the northern hemisphere) and the smell of lawsuit briefs is in the air. Well, okay — the latter might not be what you expect, but this is a special September, after all. Postponed from May, the deadline for filing comments in the Google Book Search settlement is coming up. And everyone is weighing in (“again” for some) on the details of the settlement. A couple of highlights.

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2009 09 03 Comments (1)

Summary of Recent Google Book Search Settlement Activities

Today was to be the deadline for objecting to, opting out of, and/or filing briefs with the court on the Google Book Search Settlement. That was the plan, at least, when the preliminary approval statement from the court was issued last year. That deadline changed, and that is part of a recent flurry of activity surrounding the proposed Settlement. This post provides a summary of recent news and an index of documents that you might want to read for more information.

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2009 05 05 Comments (5)

Library Associations File Amicus Brief for Google Book Search Settlement

The American Library Association (through the Association’s Washington Office and the Association of College and Research Libraries Division) and the Association of Research Libraries filed a brief [PDF] with the court in support of the Google Book Search Settlement while asking the judge to “exercise vigorous oversight” over details the settlement. In the 22-page amicus1 brief, the library associations say they do not oppose the settlement, but they do request that the courts provide strict oversight of the activities of Google and the Book Rights Registry. From page 2 of the brief:

The Settlement, therefore, will likely have a significant and lasting impact on libraries and the public, including authors and publishers. But in the absence of competition for the services enabled by the Settlement, this impact may not be entirely positive. The Settlement could compromise fundamental library values such as equity of access to information, patron privacy, and intellectual freedom. In order to mitigate the possible negative effects the Settlement may have on libraries and the public at large, the Library Associations request that this Court vigorously exercise its jurisdiction over the interpretation and implementation of the Settlement.

The brief then describes “concerns with the Settlement, and how the Court’s oversight can ameliorate those concerns.”

Footnotes

  1. Latin: “friend”, informal form of amicus curiae of “friend of the court” — Wiktionary [↩]
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2009 05 04 Comments (6)

ALCTS Forum on Creating and Sustaining Communities Around Shared Library Data

Community-shared metadata has certainly been a hot topic of late. It is timely, then that ALCTS is sponsoring a panel discussion about sharing library-created data inside and outside the library community at the upcoming ALA Midwinter meeting in Denver. From the panel description:
Panelists will share a variety of perspectives on community norms, policies, and best practices for accessing, using, and sharing the data that supports the discovery and delivery of library collections. What can libraries and the organizations that serve them learn from the open data movement and sites like Wikipedia? What principles and practices for shared data creation and maintenance will most help and strengthen libraries in the future? Panelists will also be addressing the changes in the OCLC Record Use Policy, particularly in light of the recent announcement from OCLC on the establishment of the Review Board of Shared Data Creation and Stewardship.

The panel is called the ALCTS Forum: Creating and Sustaining Communities Around Shared Library Data, and it will be on January 26th from 8:00am to 10:00am at the Colorado Convention Center, Korbel Ballroom 3C. Yours truly has been asked to speak on shared catalog data from the perspective of a library membership organization (OhioLINK) that provides consortial access to a large union catalog, licensed content, dissertations, and digital media. Also on the panel are:

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2009 01 16 Comments (1)

LITA Announces an Unconference for May 2009

Earlier this week, LITA announced its unconference event: LITACamp. The meeting is scheduled for May 7-8, 2009 at the OCLC Conference Center in Dublin, Ohio.

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2008 12 05 Comments (1)

Downloading the ALA Annual Meeting Planner to Your Mac iCal

First, kudos to the vendor that runs the ALA Meeting Planner website. They listened to suggestions and now include a way to download your event planner information to your desktop/handheld device using the iCalendar standard. It is available from the “Downloads and Printing” page of your meeting planner homepage. (You’ll need to sign in using the e-mail address listed on your ALA Annual Registration form plus the password “ala”.) Jump down to the end and select the “iCAL” button next to “Personal Itinerary” to download the iCalendar file.

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2008 05 27 Comments (0)

Google Map of ALA Midwinter Hotels

Here is a map of official conference hotels and a link to download the KML file into Google Earth.

ALA Midwinter 2008 Hotel KML Location file

I’m somewhat disappointed by the display of the KML file through the Google Maps API. The KML file contains <address> tags, which in the Google Earth desktop application appears to enable the “Directions From” and “Directions To” options. It is entirely possible that I’m missing something in the KML file — it was created by exporting a folder of placemarks from the Google Earth application. The raw KML file, suitable for importing into Google Earth, can be downloaded from the link under the map.

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2008 01 07 Comments (2)

Advocates of the Balance Between the Rights of Intellectual Property Owners and the Rights of Information Users

The American Library Association Committee on Professional Ethics is proposing changes to the Code of Ethics.1 Other than two minor changes (adding commas where there were none previously — see the proposed changes page for details), the big change is in article 4, which now reads:

We recognize and respect intellectual property rights.

The recommended version reads:

We recognize and advocate balance between the rights of intellectual property owners and the rights of information users.

This is a good change. It puts the librarian profession at the crux of publisher’s rights and user’s rights — a position that is increasingly non-existent in what seems like an increasingly polarized world.

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2007 12 13 Comments (0)

Survey on Library Professional Perceptions

Jenny Emanuel, Electronic Services Librarian at University of Central Missouri, posted an invitation to complete a survey on how library professionals think of themselves to several mailing lists. As part of the ALA Emerging Leaders 2007 program, she is part of a team look for options on rebranding the librarian profession in the digital world. This looks like it will have interesting results; if you consider yourself a “library professional” take the survey yourself: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=371423757475.

Out of all of the questions, number 10 struck me as the heart of the matter:

10. How strongly do you agree with the following statements?

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2007 04 30 Comments (3)
From the Disruptive Library Technology Jester (http://dltj.org/), printed on Thursday the 2nd of September 2010 at 8:03:03 PM UTC (+0000). The URL to this page is http://dltj.org/tag/ala/

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