professional organizations
By - Monday, July 18, 2011 - 9:16am
Last year during the Westlaw iPod debacle, someone made a comment on a blog to the effect that it was high time librarians started acting as consumer advocates. I was really surprised by this…I never thought of myself or my actions in the consumer advocacy vein. For me it was about pedagogy; I thought it was weird to be recommending a particular electronic research service to a student while sipping out of a coffee mug with that same electronic research service’s name splashed on it, so I didn’t accept vendor swag.
Flash forward a year. I’ve educated myself more on the ins and outs of the business of information dispersal (although am still by no means an expert) and really see the need for more consumer advocacy. Furthermore, I think that librarians are a perfect group of people to be doing this. It’s why I joined and support the efforts of the proposed consumer advocacy caucus forming in AALL, do what I can to support groups like Library Renewal and otherwise make a pest of myself on this blog and elsewhere.
Through it all, I’ve been really wanting for AALL, SLA and other library organizations to step up and be a organizing force and leader in these efforts. However, it seems like there’s been a reluctance on their parts to really get active and even make declarative statements one way or another. I must say, I am not unsympathetic to their needs – large organizations have duties to protect their assets and have to be cautious. When words like “anti-trust violations” start to get thrown around, the people organizations hire to be risk adverse get risk adverse and choose not to take action.
Well, I got my wish, in a way, and AALL has made a declarative statement on consumer advocacy. I have to say, though, I am dismayed at the proposed AALL Antitrust Policy. For links to the policy and an explanation from Consumer Advocacy Caucus, please see Consumer Advocacy Caucus Blog. In particular, I want to draw your attention to the list of examples on page five (5) of the document. It reads:
The followlng topics are some examples of the subjects which should not be discussed at
Association meetings, either virtual or live:
1. Do not discuss current or future prices (be very careful of discussions of past prices).
2. Do not discuss what is a fair profit level.
3. Do not discuss standardizing or stabilizing prices or pricing procedures.
4. Do not discuss cash discounts or credit terms.
5. Do not discuss controlling sales or production or allocating markets or customers. (This
applies to services as well as products.)
6. Do not complain to a competitor that its prices constitute unfair trade practices and do not
refuse to dealwith a company or individual because of pricing or distribution practices.
7. Do not discuss anticipated wage rates.
I mean, maybe I’m just a terrible dinner date, but this is pretty much the only thing I like to talk about during breaks at AALL meetings! (And the policy specifically mentions that these should not occur at formal or informal gathering of members, so I don’t think I’m over-reading it. If I am, perhaps the language should be tightened up so that people aren’t unnecessarily worried about violating the policy.) If this proposed policy passes, I know I for one am going to have to seriously consider whether or not I can continue as an AALL member. It’s not even a matter of opinions and what AALL should be doing…I am seriously not sure I can physically comply with it.
It’s not too late and this policy has not been enacted yet. If you have an opinion on this – one way or another (you can’t complain if you don’t vote!)- , I urge you to contact the AALL Executive Board and let them know.
(I am also not an anti-trust expert, but this article sheds more light on economic boycotts.)
Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/9619972@N08/
By - Thursday, April 14, 2011 - 11:41am
I have this recurring nightmare that one of these days I’m going to hit submit on a blog post and a tweet that says, “Congratulations, Sarah! You have unlocked the RABBLE ROUSER achievement badge on Legal Information Bonanza!” will be auto generated.
I don’t think of myself as a rabble rouser. Or a revolutionary. Or a force of nature. Or a hero. Or a rockstar. Or an obnoxious bitch. Or a petty amateur. Or unprofessional. Or hysterical. Or any of the other labels or names that people have applied to me in the past year or so.
I’m really not angry or confrontational. People always seem surprised when they meet me in person. “YOU’RE Sarah Glassmeyer?” I’ve mostly gotten over my initial inclination to apologize, but I can’t help but feel that people are somewhat disappointed at my countenance and demeanor. Maybe they expect me to whip a WestlawNext t-shirt out of my bag and light it on fire?
Long story short, there’s nothing really extraordinary about me. I just speak my mind. Granted, I have my own website to do it on, but it’s the 21st Century….anyone can have a blog. I guess my question is: why is the mere act of stating one’s opinion about vendors, professional organizations and the profession considered so radical? Why are so many librarians hesitant to speak their mind? It’s not just me wondering it. I spent the first part of this week in Chicago talking to vendors and legal info types and I was asked that very question on more than one occasion.
Sarah Houghton-Jan briefly mentioned some reasons why librarians may not do it. I agree with those reasons, especially the fear of vendors and the disinclination to hurt peoples feelings. Why do I do it? In my more self-deprecating moments I say, “well, I’m almost six feet tall, built like a brick shithouse and I have red hair. Blending quietly into the background was never in the cards for me.” But honestly, why NOT do it?
I reject the idea that dissent automatically equals disrespect. If you are coming from a place of honest belief and have done the due diligence to back your beliefs up with facts, why not state your opinion? Giving and receiving constructive criticism is a baseline professional skill. There’s a poster (often seen in librarian offices!) that says “Your poor planning is not my emergency.” Well, similarly, I think there should be one that says, “Your over-sensitive nature is not my personality problem.” Alternatively, I refer you to LibPunk Mentorship Rule 5.
On the other side of that, being polite doesn’t mean that you are a pushover. We can (and should!) have frank, unemotional and polite conversations amongst ourselves and between the various stops on the information distribution chain (content creators, vendors, publishers, librarians, etc.) about the biz. Because it is a business. And maybe – just maybe – also treat them as colleagues instead of considering them to be enemies. Guess what? I had lunch with a vendor on Monday. And had drinks with another on Monday night. MASS PANDEMONIUM. DOGS AND CATS. LIVING TOGETHER.
I also don’t want to diminish people’s fears about the perceived threat of retaliation from vendors, but can someone (either privately or in a comment here) actually remember an instance of it happening? What form of retaliation is expected? Higher prices? Personal attacks? I had a co-worker who always wanted proof of everything you said. So if you casually mentioned, “Oh, I heard that people are suing Nintendo because they keep throwing their wii controller through their TVs.” He’d say, “Prove it. What’s the case name?” Which was annoying, because I don’t source & cite my casual conversations. But he did sort of have a point that people tend to just accept what they hear without giving it too much careful thought and maybe change behavior when they don’t have to. So I would just like some evidence that vendors do retaliate against librarians that speak out. Otherwise, we might as well be telling each other that if you go into a dark bathroom and chant “Jenny Westlaw” three times, she’ll appear in the mirror and kill you.
One of my favorite movies is the musical 1776. As one might guess from the title, it’s about the writing of the Declaration of Independence. One of the big plot twists is if Congress will even debate the issue of declaring independence from Great Britain. Not actually do it, just talk about it. Stephen Hopkins, the crusty representative from Rhode Island says, “Well, in all my years I ain’t never heard, seen nor smelled an issue that was so dangerous it couldn’t be talked about. Hell yeah! I’m for debating anything.” And that’s sort of how I feel.
Photo credit:http://www.flickr.com/photos/wemeantdemocracy/
By - Tuesday, April 12, 2011 - 6:28am
From the announcement:
“We are a diverse group of law librarians and legal publishers who favor fair, and competitive, business practices among vendors of legal information services (LIS). We will soon apply to become an AALL caucus, and we will meet informally during the 2011 AALL Annual Meeting. (We will announce the time and place here.) We ask you to join us as we reinvigorate our profession’s commitment to consumer advocacy. …
Statement of Purpose of New AALL Caucus on Consumer Advocacy
Business practices of legal information vendors (LIVs) warrant more vigorous consumer advocacy than our profession has pursued. Our caucus may: (1) recommend or implement improved disclosures of LIV practices that harm consumers or weaken LIV competition; (2) determine if law librarians and their supporters should renew efforts to investigate unfair, or anti-competitive, business practices by LIVs; (3) recommend further investigation to AALL, interested parties (such as library and attorney associations), or government agencies; (4) examine whether voluntary guidelines have provided adequate remedies to unfair, or anticompetitive, business practices by LIVs; (5) propose legal remedies to AALL, interested parties, or government agencies; (6) encourage law librarians to discuss or pursue these options among themselves and attorneys; and (7) partner with all parties seeking stronger consumer protections from unfair, or anti-competitive, business practices of information vendors. Our caucus may also take other actions to advance the strongest consumer advocacy allowed by law. ”
I encourage you to read the entire thing which lists some very compelling reasons for this caucus to be formed.
If you read that, you’ll see that I am the designated contact person for this caucus. However, I in no way can take any credit for the work and energy that has gone into the formation of this caucus. The true workhorses behind this caucus must remain anonymous at this time. (As an academic, I have more freedom to speak out than my private sector brothers and sisters. And I intend to use it.) I hope one day they can get the credit they deserve.
Photo credit: Library of Congress http://www.flickr.com/photos/library_of_congress/
By - Wednesday, March 2, 2011 - 3:01pm
As I was telling one of my correspondents yesterday, it feels like a weird coincidence somehow that the AALL Vendor Colloquium, The Harvard/Berkman Center Digital Library Project planning meeting, and the Harper Collins Boycott debate all happened at the same time. Each one is touching on just a segment of the larger issue, to wit, dependence of libraries on vendors in the digital age. And each one shows that we’re not entirely sure what to do next.
Right now the main reaction I’m seeing to these events is anger. Anger at professional associations. Anger at vendors. Anger at each other.
Anger is easy. The human brain is a marvel of evolution, but it maintains characteristics of that creature that first crawled out of the primordial goo. After all this time and change, humans still only have three main reactions to stimuli – the Three Fs: Flee, Fight or…..Ffffffornicate. (You thought I was going to say the other F word, didn’t you???Well, after my post on #hcod earlier this week, I have a lot of new eyes on this blog and I don’t want to scare people off just yet.) Everything that humans feel and do is just a nuanced version of these.
Anger and outrage (and most publicity and protest movements, really) owe more to the Flee feeling than Fight one. It manifests itself as outrage. Or pearl clutching. Or disgust. Or annoyance. Or impatience. Anger diffuses fear and makes one feel as if they’ve accomplished something, even if what they’ve done is no more productive than hiding one’s head in the sand.
I find it maddening. Perhaps ironically for a blogger, I’m tired of listening to people talk about things without any follow through or change. It’s why I ignore most library blogs and discussions and try to concentrate my energies on my day job and other things where I can actually make concrete changes. I’m reminded of Howard Beale’s famous speech in Network
I don’t have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It’s a depression. Everybody’s out of work or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel’s worth, banks are going bust, shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter. Punks are running wild in the street and there’s nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do, and there’s no end to it. We know the air is unfit to breathe and our food is unfit to eat, and we sit watching our TV’s while some local newscaster tells us that today we had fifteen homicides and sixty-three violent crimes, as if that’s the way it’s supposed to be. We know things are bad – worse than bad. They’re crazy. It’s like everything everywhere is going crazy, so we don’t go out anymore. We sit in the house, and slowly the world we are living in is getting smaller, and all we say is, ‘Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel-belted radials and I won’t say anything. Just leave us alone.’ Well, I’m not gonna leave you alone. I want you to get mad! I don’t want you to protest. I don’t want you to riot – I don’t want you to write to your congressman because I wouldn’t know what to tell you to write. I don’t know what to do about the depression and the inflation and the Russians and the crime in the street. All I know is that first you’ve got to get mad. You’ve got to say, ‘I’m a HUMAN BEING, Goddamnit! My life has VALUE!’ So I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window. Open it, and stick your head out, and yell ‘I’M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I’M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!’ I want you to get up right now, sit up, go to your windows, open them and stick your head out and yell – ‘I’m as mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore!’ Things have got to change. But first, you’ve gotta get mad!… You’ve got to say, ‘I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!’ Then we’ll figure out what to do about the depression and the inflation and the oil crisis. But first get up out of your chairs, open the window, stick your head out, and yell, and say it: “I’M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I’M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!”
That makes for a great scene in a movie, but nothing changed as a result of this. Actually, if memory serves correctly, the speaker was eventually killed. Not because of his radical ideas, but because his schtick got old and his ratings dropped.
I’m worried that the #hcod, #AALLVC and #ebookrights momentum will be lost to words and no action will ever result. Publishers will still only offer untenable licensing rights for libraries. Professional organizations will still do things the old ways and not embrace transparency initiatives. Demands for rights will be ignored.
(Someone yesterday said that “we don’t need an eBook Bill of Rights. We need a Declaration of Independence.” The history geek in me must note that the Declaration of Independence was only written and signed a year after the actual American Revolutionary War started and was only effective because it had an army (with an assist from allies such as the French) that actually did the fighting and won the war.)
Change will only occur through the fight response. Fighting doesn’t necessarily have to be violent, but does require engaging The Other. That’s hard. Which is why very few people actually choose to take that step.
And here’s where I get stuck and where I have been stuck. I don’t know what form that engagement should take. As I said, I don’t think an economic boycott will work. And I’m not sure that boycotts really are engagement. They may just another form of fleeing. (And as one of my social media shy correspondents shared with me, Harper Collins may choose to play legal hard ball over it and prevent it from starting before it even happens. I’m not saying that HC has a good merit claim..I’m just saying that most people are adverse to being served with legal papers.) I think rallying and educating our patrons and other allies (such as authors) to our cause is a good idea, but libraries are defenders and servants of the defenseless, so our patron allies may have less of a voice than even us. But again, that’s not really engaging the people we need to be engaging – the vendors.
I asked this question not that long ago and got very little response. If you’ve been able to ignore everything up until a few weeks ago, then surely this can be your wake up call. We need a plan B. Something to do after the outrage ends or to do in lieu of outrage.
By - Thursday, February 17, 2011 - 11:34pm
A few weeks ago, I was minding my own business and spending a lovely Winter Saturday antiquing in the Indiana countryside. The owner of one of the shops I like to visit keeps a small dog with her and the person ahead of me in line struck up a conversation about the animal. This then led to them recounting seemingly every dog that either of them had ever owned.
They began listing names and progeny in a manner worthy of a Nordic epic. I soon became bored with my eavesdropping – as any sane person would – and decided to pass the time by checking in on Twitter. Now, I generally try to avoid social media on the weekends, but this was a dire circumstance. It’s sort of good that I did happen to check in because…
SWEET FANCY MOSES, ALL HELL WAS BREAKING LOOSE ON TWITTER.
I mean, not the kind of Hell breaking loose that we saw on election night. Or in the recent Egyptian crisis. Or during the World Cup. Or even when Michael Jackson died. No, I speak of the special kind of Hell that happens when you have a bunch of librarians upset at an organization or vendor. The tweets and retweets fly fast and furious, the messages get lost in the medium and soon you have the virtual version of this (1).
So. Anyway. As it turns out, this particular breaking loose of the Hell was because of an incident that happened at ALA Midwinter. Some livestreaming of a meeting was attempted and the recorder was asked to stop. Cue drama. This was also the day that the shooting in Arizona occurred, so I stopped paying attention. For a more detailed explanation, Meredith Farkas has a summary of the situation and reactions here.
I’m not an ALA member. They don’t collect dues from me and so at the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter to me what ALA does. However, I think it’s interesting that ALA is now starting public discussions about streaming at meetings, what does “open meetings” mean, etc. A portion of the membership have indicated that transparency and openess in meetings are important to them, the organization responded yesterday (2), and now the members are responding to this response.
We in AALL are having a bit of a transparency issue ourselves at the present moment. On Tuesday, I read via the Law Librarian Blog that AALL was holding a Vendor Colloquium meeting in few weeks. I got official word of it today via the February e-newsletter/president’s thing. Here are the things that I do not have a problem with w/r/t this upcoming meeting:
- The venue – Sure, it’s a little fancy. And yes, we are in a time of economic crisis. But what are the other options? A Motel 6 by the airport? I personally don’t mind if AALL wants to spend a little money on a nice venue when they host events so that we don’t look like a bunch of rank amateurs. Hopefully (and this is a point that will also come up later) AALL will release the financials so we can all see how much of our money was spent on it.
- The attendees – I wasn’t invited. That’s okay. The format looks to be a lot more interactive than I would feel comfortable doing. However, (and this is a point that will also come up later) that doesn’t mean I’m not interested in what’s happening at the meeting. And, sure, I can think of a couple of people that I think would make interesting contributions to the event that didn’t make the list, but everyone on the list seems to be well qualified to be there and I’m sure that they will all make valuable contributions.
- The format – As I said above, not a way I would want to spend a day, but as I think my participation in unconferences show, I believe there is a lot to be said for getting a bunch of people in a room and seeing what kind of ideas shake out when they are allowed to have free form discussions. Having a professional facilitator is a good idea.
- The timing – Yes, it could be tacked onto the beginning or the end of the Annual Meeting and save some travel money and allow for more open attendance, but perhaps there is a reason for doing it this early – for example, perhaps they are hoping for a document to be created as a result of this to be presented at the meeting. Also, the Annual Meeting is crazy enough – for librarians and vendors – so maybe they thought to give participants the opportunity to direct their full attention to the colloquium.
So, what’s my problem?
Just one, really. But it’s a big one.
I see no reason why I (and all other AALL members) are being shut out of a meeting paid for with our dues monies and done for our benefit. It’s not like I’m asking to actually attend or have my opinions stated in the discussion. As a practical matter, it would be impossible for the thousands of AALL members to physically attend and I am confident that the selected librarian representatives can adequately represent me. I must admit, however, that it would be nice to have been polled as to what sorts of things I would like the librarian avatars to tell vendors – it’s entirely possible that this has happened and I missed the email or it’s forthcoming. (ETA: I have been informed that messages did go out over SIS listservs in November and I missed them. So everyone did get the opportunity to participate that way.)
All I’m asking to know what happens at the colloquium. Exactly what happens. Not a second hand summary live blogged or a later recollection written by a participant. I want a straight, unfiltered accounting of what happened. And I say this will all due respect to Mark Estes who will be providing the official blog of the proceedings. I’m sure he will provide the best blog possible. But it (and later accountings) will still all be filtered through the author’s experience of the event. Nuances can be missed, comments misheard…all humans are fallible and it can’t be a perfect recreation of the event.
Considering AALL has advocated repeatedly for authentic information sources in other areas, it’s pretty weird that they’d be okay with an imperfect record of such an important event, isn’t it?
So what do I respectfully request of AALL? In a perfect world, I would like the entire event to be livestreamed and recorded for posterity. However, I do understand that some people may be uncomfortable with that and it could inhibit frank discussion during the “dialogue” portions of the day. But why can’t the opening remarks from Roberta Shaffer and the portions of the agenda labeled “presentation” be streamed/recorded? I think those are all pretty straight forward events and recording them wouldn’t change the material presented.
If that’s not possible, I would like a transcript of the presentations and copies of any presentation materials posted on AALLnet for the entirety of the membership to peruse. Again, this may be in the planning, but if it is, it hasn’t been announced. If nothing else, perhaps – as is happening with ALA – this will start a dialogue between the membership of AALL and the people that we have entrusted to operate it for us about the openness we would like to see in future events.
I’ve planned events before and I know it’s pretty much a thankless task. I do want to take the opportunity to thank the planning committee for the work they did planning this Vendor Colloquium. It looks like it’s going to be a great event. I’m just saying it could be better and that more people should be able to experience it.
(1) Just to nip a possible misinterpretation in the bud here, I don’t think there’s anything wrong generally speaking with publicly complaining about or trying to engage an organization or vendor on Twitter or some other public venue. HOWEVER sometimes things do get out of control and/or some situations may be better handled privately. Do what feels right to you.
(2) Rating the quality of this response is not for me to say.
