Orlando temperatures were sweltering during the American Library Association annual conference last week. Further heat arose from discussions prompted by a showing of Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11; a keynote speech by former White House terrorism czar and Against All Enemies author Richard Clarke; budget cuts; and the USA Patriot Act. Clarke's speech drew several standing ovations from a crowd of nearly 600. "We did exactly what al-Qaeda said we would do—invade and occupy an oil-rich Arab country that wasn't threatening us in any way. The hatred that has been engendered by this invasion will last for generations," he said. Clarke told librarians that the provisions in the Patriot Act that allow investigation of records of which books people have checked out are unnecessary for security reasons and, further, have a chilling effect on the use of libraries. He also said that librarians play a critical role in winning the war "in the right way, by engaging a battle of ideas."
Attendance was in the 20,000 range, recovering from the falloff at last year's Toronto show due to a SARS scare. Some exhibitors were disappointed by traffic, while others felt it was the quality of the contacts that mattered, not the quantity. John Nelson, president of BWI, a distributor to public libraries, put it succinctly: "Every lake has its fish. You just need to know how to attract them." Ingram's head of library services, Larry Price, said attendance was better than he had anticipated. Given the decline in library funding and distractions of DisneyWorld, "I am very pleased with the turnout," he said.
Price attested that the last three years have been difficult for library budgets. But he felt that "the worst free-fall is behind us. We're not in a robust recovery, but 2005—2006 looks better." Not only have budgets been cut in some localities, but libraries now have multiple formats to buy. Audio, for instance, is available on cassette and CD, with MP3 coming along.
Library budget constraints affect not only materials budgets, but also staffing. As a result, libraries are looking for more efficiency. Ingram is experiencing growth from libraries signing on for services such as cataloguing and processing, collection development and standing orders.
Other vendors were also offering more and better systems for freeing staff time. Self-service patron checkout is available from 3-M, among others. Radio Frequency ID debuted from several vendors as a system to not only protect materials from theft but also to make inventory control more efficient. Vendors demoed an entire shelf being inventoried by simply sweeping a wand over it. Smart library cards allow patrons to easily pay for fines as well as make copies and print out information from databases. The cards also allow parents to designate which Web sites their children can view on library computers. Innovative Interfaces was showing a PDA that wirelessly connects to the library's online catalogue, allowing librarians to check the catalogue while they are in the stacks, allowing them to better serve users and more easily do collection development .
New systems are linking a library distributor's inventory to a library's catalogue, allowing librarians to quickly assess whether a particular title is already in the collection or on order. BWI debuted PACheck at the conference, available free on the Web. Baker & Taylor has a similar system and Ingram says its is in development.
School Libraries
Michael Eisenberg, associate publisher of children's books at Farrar, Straus & Giroux, said that the children's librarians he spoke with were concerned that school librarians are being replaced by parent helpers. "While the [volunteers] are better than nothing," he said, "one of the most important things a librarian can do is connect the right book with the right child." Eisenberg also wondered how schools can do adequate collection development without guidance from librarians.
HarperCollins's Rick Stark, who sells to the library market, said that wholesalers are taking up much of the slack in those cases. He mentioned as one example Follett's TidalWave software, which offers a detailed analysis of a library's collection (with charts and graphs) to suggest next steps for a school district looking to fill in the gaps. Stark echoed Eisenberg's concerns about the dwindling number of librarians and the growing number of parent volunteers: "When a volunteer is buying the books, they'll pick a paperback every time."
For Louise Barrett, the school liaison in the Skokie Public Libraries in Illinois, budget cuts are not the problem, but rather the fallout from the Patriot Act. She said that her library system, under the leadership of Carolyn Anthony, has taken steps to ensure the privacy of all its patrons, young and old. "You used to need a search warrant [to scrutinize the books that a patron has checked out]," she said. That is no longer the case, under the Patriot Act. Anthony's solution is to purge the checkout records daily.
Barrett also mentioned that the requirements laid out in No Child Left Behind have complicated hiring practices. She cited a teacher who was studying to get her library degree, whom the school wanted to hire as a media specialist, but under the terms of No Child Left Behind, the teacher was not eligible. Instead, the school hired a temporary substitute with no library experience.
Author Sightings
Barrett had this year's Newbery winner, The Tale of Despereaux (Candlewick), autographed by its author, Kate DiCamillo, who also won Skokie's very first Voice of Youth Award (2001—2002) for her first novel, Because of Winn-Dixie. Children from third to eighth grades are eligible to vote for their favorites as long as they've read at least three of the books on the list.
DiCamillo, along with author-artist Mordicai Gerstein (whose picture book The Man Who Walked Between the Towers won this year's Caldecott Medal), attracted a capacity crowd at the Newbery/ Caldecott dinner, the highlight of the conference for all children's librarians.
The Midwinter conference will be held in Boston, Mass, January 14—19, 2005; and ALA's next annual conference will be held in the association's home town, Chicago, June 23—29, 2005.
