I did not renew my membership with ALA this year. Last year I signed up as a student while at SIRLS. I graduated from SIRLS in December with an ALA accredited M.A. in Information Resources and Library Science (and how that is different from an MLS I can’t tell you, I sign emails with ‘MLS’).

Here are the reasons why I did not renew:

1. It’s very expensive and what benefit do I get from it? It’s really nothing more than an expensive magazine subscription.
2. That whole ‘blog people‘ debacle.
3. The demise of the Public Library. The Tucson Pima Public Library Director Nancy Ledeboer has been a guest speaker at two of my classes and she has said in both that the focus of the public library system will be on becoming a community resource. She says that the reality is that people do not come to the Public Library anymore to get information, they use Google. So basically they’re going to turn them into a YMCA. Lot’s of meeting rooms, board games, maybe they’ll get an air hockey table, who knows what direction that’s going in. You know what I see here is not adaptation, I see this as surrender. A “Library” is about a collection of information. Look how it is used in other contexts: ‘JavaScript library’, ‘personal library’, etc. I don’t think you think of a personal library as where you meet your friends, it’s where you keep your books. I don’t see why they need to even keep individuals with an MLS on staff given the direction public libraries are going. I didn’t learn about setting up a community center, I learned about information ethics, reference services, digital librarianship, metadata, and the like. If people are not going to the library for information, then the library should either downsize or it should find a way to provide information services in a way people want, it shouldn’t turn into a circus and redefine librarianship into a non-profession. And what is the ALA doing about this?

Okay, rant is done. If anyone has an idea of why the ALA really matters, I’d certainly like to know. Right now it appears to be nothing more than a bastion of traditionalists unable and unwilling to heed the tides of change. Information matters as much as ever, and you’re not going to convince me that will change. Maybe the edifice, the physical structure that is the library will go away, but information professionals will be needed more than ever.

That’s right. You must all call me master now. But really, I wont make you. Yes, however, I did finish my graduate education, at least for now. Today I was awarded a Masters of Arts in Information Resources and Library Science from the University of Arizona! It was a great experience, SIRLS is a fantastic department, and I have learned a tremendous amount. Does that mean I am a librarian? What does someone do with this degree? I have no idea. I don’t really have the experience necessary to work in a librarian position. Most people have some experience, and most positions require some, at least to be competitive. I have never worked in a library. I suppose the M.A. will make me more marketable, but my problem has always been experience and interest. I have no experience in anything, and my interests are really diverse and none of them seem to include working on a job. I am employed right now. I work at the famous Canyon Ranch in marketing. Is marketing something I want to do for the rest of my life? I don’t know. We’ll see what I end up doing.

House Republicans are proposing a new bill that will block social networking sites from schools and libraries. I recommend reading the entire proposal (in PDF format). First librarians have had to succumb and install filters on the computers within our library walls, and now this. This an egregious assault on the freedom of speech. Give an inch and they will want to bite off your entire arm. Will ‘blog people’ hating ALA elites care about this? Will newly graduated library school students understand the implications? Surprisingly, there is little to be seen on this issue in library news journals.

Here is the killer:

…prohibits access to a commercial social networking website or chat rooms…
COMMERCIAL SOCIAL NETWORKING WEBSITES.�The working term �commercial social net website� means a commercially operated Internet website that�
��(i) allows users to create web pages or profiles that provide information about themselves and are available to other users; and ��(ii) offers a mechanism for communication with other users, such as a forum, chat room, email, or instant messenger.

What will be affected: blogs, sites like digg, friendster, myspace.com, the potential for harm has no bounds.

Groklaw has a great article about how DRM is changing libraries in the US and in the UK. It is a lengthy deconstruction of usage requirements of the NY Public Library and (mostly) the British Library’s digital services. Libraries once were an active force preserving equitable access for all people regardless of their economic status but things are changing. Even I have noticed in library school an all too eager adoption of DRM technologies by vendors of subscription services with restrictive licensing obligations. The Groklaw article points out some bizarre requirements in order to use library services such as requiring users to install anti-virus software on their personal computers (What about Linux users? what if you don’t want this software?) and the new habit of charging fees to users so copyright owners can collect royalty payments. The author predicts:

…the death of public libraries as we have known them, and the world’s knowledge will be available only DRM’d and for a price.

I am not so sure about any ‘death’, but I do see a lot of ignorance when it comes to DRM and libraries in library school. As a library student, I am most concerned about other students that do not know the difference between a browser and an operating system, who will graduate without knowing this and become librarians. I am not joking. I have taught HTML to library students, and I was surprised to find out the extent of their ignorance. How are they going to be guardians of information when they can not understand the basic technology that is changing information content, distribution, and access?

Some of my professors have explained to me that librarians and the profession are well informed on DRM issues when I challenged them on it. It does not appear to me that way, however, and in fact it seems that librarians are all too eager to sign whatever dotted line vendors require them to whenever they adopt a new database or other form of digital service. Groklaw is right, libraries are changing for the worse, and I believe that the reasons for this stem from deeply rooted ignorance of the technology, of the basics, of the jargon, and how much technology is out there that is in opposition to fundamental library values. My library school, SIRLS, doesn’t do enough to ensure admitted library students have an understanding of basic information technology. It does not do enough to educate them on it through out the program. Information technology and DRM ought to be a required component of the curriculum, and the ALA accreditation should include it as a fundamental requisite. The library profession sometimes seems excessively compulsive about its self-image, and frightened to death of Internet search. Yet neither of these factors seem to serve as jarring enough wake-up call to change the nature of librarianship at a pace fast enough to catch up with what is happening in the outside world.

The NYPL’s Digital Gallery is quite amazing. It has hundreds of thousands of images available:

NYPL Digital Gallery provides access to over 450,000 images digitized from primary sources and printed rarities in the collections of The New York Public Library, including illuminated manuscripts, historical maps, vintage posters, rare prints and photographs, illustrated books, printed ephemera, and more.

I particularly liked this collection of images from Mandalay taken in the 1880’s. It would have been nice to display one of the images, but the licensing doesn’t allow it without permission and I couldn’t bother to wait to post about this. Still, you’re allowed to download the pictures to your computer for personal use, and they’re very impressive even if you’re just browsing out of boredom.

Here is some information about the Digital Gallery.

Have you seen the British Library’s website? It’s only the world’s information freely available. It’s amazing.

It’s the UK’s national library and publishers have a legal obligation to provide at least one copy of their works.

Here’s what you can do on the site, and here are some stats about the library.

I love their gallery.

They have learning tools.

They have everything. Go there right now and become smarter than you ever thought you could be.

EDIT: The National Library of Australia is also pretty nice. And there’s always the LOC.