Aaron the Librarian

It takes a leader to face the reality of change; especially to face it, embrace it, and look for fresh views from people who might have some insights on how things could or should be - instead of being focused on how things are and why they should stay the same.

A week or two ago, Jim Rettig — you know, the incoming ALA President — asked two sets of questions on NMRT-L.

Here’re the Questions:

Set 1:
What have your best, most rewarding experiences in ALA been?
What made them the best?
How can ALA offer opportunities for such experiences to all of its members?

Set 2:
If ALA didn’t exist today and we wanted to create a library association that would work on behalf of all types of libraries, all library users, and all library workers, what would it look like and how would it operate?

I responded once to set 1 and twice to set 2.
(I’d forgotten I’d responded to set 2 & got pumped up by some of the ideas expressed in the other responses)

Full Q&A after the fold…
See the pdf Q&A
(more…)

From the description: The Valley Project details life in two American communities, one Northern and one Southern, from John Brown’s Raid through Reconstruction.  Conatins 1000s of original letters, diaries, newspapers, speeches, and census and church records from Franklin County, Pennsylvania and Augusta County, Virginia.  The Valley Project tells forgotten stories of life during the Civil War.

http://valley.vcdh.virginia.edu/

The text-based pieces in the collection have both images of the original and transcripts.  There are also maps, images, official records, battle maps, soldiers’ records, and reference materials.  Pretty handy compilation of primary and secondary source materials for two views on life during the Civil War.

With a hat tip to Larry T. Nix on the ALA Library History Round Table [LHRT Membership Listserv].

Book Circulation Per U.S. Public Library User Since 1856
Douglas A. Galbi, Senior Economist Federal Communications Commission

Galbi neatly summarizes ~150 years of varying public library circulation statistics in 11 tables which cover overlapping years of slightly differently calculated statistics. The differing calculations include “circulations per user per year,” “percent of juvenile users,” “circulation per person served,” “library circulation per capita,” and “median book circulation per registered user.” While Galbi does provide some speculations on the “stability” of user borrowing, there are interesting trends or patterns in the data. Note that each table uses a different measurement algorithm, so the absolute numbers in the tables do not necessarily match exactly.

Table 1 data show that from 1908 through 1946 library (where “library” is large public libraries in various cities of >200K population) “circulation per user” swelled from ~15 in 1908 to a high of ~23 in the early and middle of the Great Depression and then declined to ~16 in 1946 (Table 1).

Table 2 data show that from 1939 to 1983 “circulation per person served” (where “person served” was calculated as a percent of the then total U.S. population) declined from 5.3 (33% of which was juvenile circulations) in 1939 to a low of ~3.4 in the late 1940s-early1950s (but with a swelling into the 40%s of juvenile circulation), rising back to ~5 through the early 1960s (with juvenile circulation reaching 50% in these years), “book circulations per user” continue to rise to almost 6 in 1967 and starts a slow slide to ~5.5 in the mid-1970s (as juvenile circulation plummets from 50% in 1967 to 34% in 1975), by 1983 “book circulation per user” slides to 4.8 (as juvenile circulations hold around 33% of total circulation). Another interesting data point is the “percent of U.S. Population served;” in 1939 ~60% of the U.S. population was served by a public library, swelling to ~75% in 1950, before declining to ~70% in 1956, and then steadily climbing to ~96% by 1983.

Table 3 highlights Colorado circulation per state population from 1920 to 2000 (mostly steady growth except small slide in the 70’s) ~2 in 1920 to ~9 in 2000.  You go, Colorado!
Table 4 highlights the median circulation per user in sets of U.S. cities growing from ~14 in 1890 to ~18 in 1920, then a decline to ~16 at the next data point in 1970.

Table 5 data and the related graph show no strong trend lines, according to Galbi; however, I see a very macro trend of declining library uses from 1856 through 2004.  Since the 1868 “high” point of ~19 books per user per year circulated, the trend line decreases with surges during the Great Depression and the late 60’s recession.  In 2004 the number of circulations per user per year is ~half (9) of the 1868 high (19). The trend may possibly have cyclical elements, inversely tracking a few years behind the perceived economic health of the U.S, but over all seems to be significantly lower over time.
The last 6 tables are used to explain certain assumptions and estimates made in the data of the above referenced tables, and the explanations make sense to me on my superficial gloss over them.
“But what does that mean?” says I. Here’s what I think is important to take away:

• During “Major War Years” (WWI, WWII) library circulation (and, possibly, use?) declines
• Possibly people ran out of time for the luxury of leisure reading?
• During times of hardship (Depression, late 60’s - late 70’s recession) library circulation increases
• Possibly people had much more free time for the luxury of leisure reading and possibly took advantage of the escapism provided by books?
• The Baby Boomers seem to be a generation of heavy readers
• Which they learned in childhood, checking out up to half of all books circulated at the time?
• The late Boomers and children of Boomers do not seem to be such heavy readers
• Did the Boomers not take their kids to the library?
• The advent of television in the 50’s may have sucked away the adult reading population
• The heavy juvenile percentages of this period may indicate this?
• The advent of television targeting juveniles in the late 60’s / early 70’s may have sucked away the juvenile reading population
• Rapid rate of decline of juvenile percentages of this period may indicate this?
• Juvenile collections are very important to the future of public libraries
• Habits and patterns learned in childhood often remain throughout life

I find Galbi’s study interesting, especially when juxtaposing it with the 2006 Public Libraries and the Internet study I mentioned in a few posts.

What do you think about the data and my conclusions from it?  Am I in the ballpark?  Have I wandered off into the swamps and jungles of conflation and bad logic?  What say you?

As alluded to in previous posts, the ALA Office for Information Technology Policy has released a magnum opus, the Public Library Connectivity Project: Findings and Recommendations, (153 pages long, 57 pages of report and 96 pages of appendicies) which was commissioned by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (I hope this will help guide their future library funding efforts). The report builds upon the findings of the Public Libraries & the Internet Reports (PLIP) and numerous site visits, interviews, and questionnaires conducted over the course of this project.

Grab a beverage, this summary/teaser is long enough to warrant it.  If you plan on digging through the full report, you may want to order in some sustenance, too!
Spoiler alert!
Highlights from the Public Library Connectivity Project: Findings and Recommendations below the fold… (more…)

Came across a link to a post on SaveTheInternet.com which links to a report that debunks Telco-created myths about why U.S. Telcos cannot and should not be encouraged [forced if necessary, imho] to keep the U.S. Internet connections as fast as the very top countries of the world.  The U.S. has slipped in connectivity speed, from 4th in 2001 to 12th in 2006 to 15th in July 2007.  (insert telco whines: U.S. consumer-base too geographically dispersed, etc)In case you didn’t already know, policymakers (with encouragement of telco shills) tend to ignore the research and challenge the methodologies used to collect data or interpret research findings.  Having personally seen this in action (TNDF flashback, see background below) at the state-level, I can attest that though many times the accounts of lobbyists and their questionable practices seem shrill or unbelievable, they do happen pretty much as described.

We, the people, need to get on our elected representatives, appointed functionaries, and faceless bureaucrats respective cases and push for what is currently called “Net Neutrality” to avoid enabling the current duopoly (Telecommunications and Cable Companies) to charge for preferential internet-traffic delivery.  Legislation was afoot which would affect how U.S. consumers and service providers were charged for timely and speedy connections to Internet content and/or infrastructure.

SaveTheInternet is a coalition with occasionally strange bedfellows - just about every political stripe is represented in their full membership list.  If TNDF were still active today, we would likely be a part of the coalition.

[Background info referred to above]
One of the reasons I got involved with ALA’s Office for Information Technology Policy (via the OITP Advisory Committee) was my prior experience with Telcos trying to put one over on consumers.  I am a co-founder of the Tennessee Digital Freedom Network (TNDF.net) which was active from April 2003 through late 2004.  TNDF, which sadly saw a significant decline in member activity after our success during the 2003 legislative session, was instrumental in derailing the S-DMCA attempt in Tennessee in 2003 and worked with several large partners in 2004, altering the language of the bill to be less intrusive and restrictive on the end-user.

OITP coordinated the grant (funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation) for the Public Libraries and the Internet study, which is performed by the FSU Information Institute.   The study revealed that >98% of Public Libraries are now connected to the internet in some fashion; however, as this project has evolved, the questions this year turned more to the “quality” of the connection (i.e. how phat are libraries’ pipes) and how well do these pipes provide adequate access to libraries’ patrons/customers/users.  Long story short, many public libraries which are part of state-wide consortia or take advantage of E-Rate funding have okay-to-good connections, but many others have generic cable out-of-the-box connections (768kps - 1.5 MBps “Broadband”) and there are still libraries which can only get dialup access (<768kps).

Hey all us Voyager Libraries out there, our friends at Villanova’s Falvey Library just GPL’d their code for their PILOT replacement, VuFind.  This looks great to me, though I don’t have access to the required tools and applications from the documentation on any university servers.

• Apache HTTP Server 2.2 or later
• PHP 5.1.0 or later
• MySQL 4.1 or later
• Java J2SE JDK 1.4 or later
• YAZ 3.0 or later

Anyone in KLN-land have access to all that, some extra disk space, and a hankering to try a consolidated catalog search with facetted browse functionality?  Anyone with a different ILS want to help extend VuFind to your vendor?  The project is looking for help in this area.

From reading Radar O’Reilly today:

Since 1995 the trend in academic libraries for reference queries per FTE and total circulation per FTE is steeply downward. Reference Queries per FTE average out to half of what they did in 1995 and total circulations average out to approximately two-thirds of 1995.
http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2007/07/if_libraries_ha.html

The reference queries to FTE may indicate a broader trend of “not wanting to ask for help;” stemming, I believe (with no data), from the often false assumptions of “I’m okay, I can do this” which are engendered in the current practice of reassurance that kids are okay and can do it during early schooling.

The circulation numbers seem to be from only traditional physical circulations? No mention of electronic resource usage is made. Experientially, I see lots more online accessing of stuff than I do physical items. But I’d love to see more data on this. How much of this kind of aggregated data do you or your library keep?

Since I’m thinking about joining the ranks for the PhD’s, maybe I should save up these questions…

While doing something else at work, came across a SOLINET Planning Committee discussion scenarios(.pdf) and report(.pdf).  As a former employee of a SOLINET library and curious about library management trends person, I clicked through to see what’s on the horizon at the consortia level.

Short-term forecast of what’s happening in libraryland:

• Service model Changing, refocusing on customer service rather than dead-tree repository
• Collection roles Changing to [ just in time / on demand ] instead of just in case
• Staff Transforming to active and service oriented from passive and reacting
• Building Re-purposing to [ multi-purpose / community use ] from dead-tree repository
• Assessment Increasing to better ’splain why the library is needed and what the ROI is for a given community
• Technology [ Control/Timeliness ] to improve services provided and educate community on technology and how to use it

Pages 3-6 of the report(.pdf) detail what the library community should be prepared to learn / know in the next 3-5 years.  The ideas and recommendations are presented with the weight and authority of a Library Consortium, which will hopefully get less-Cluetrained library managers to pay attention and start listening to patrons and staffers who want to move their libraries forward.

Very little of the specifics supplied by the LITA Showcase are listed, but general areas covered by those showcased technologies are mentioned in a broad sense.  The question, as always, is how to get entrenched library interests to accept and apply technologies their changing pieces of librarianship need to move forward and stay relevant to (potential and current) library users?

I was late to this, because I dropped “Girl Scout the younger” at GS day camp on the way to DC.
Thursday, June 21, 2007
9:00 - 4:00pm
Washington Convention Center, Room 147 A/B
Agenda

9:00-9:30 Welcome and introduction
Lynne Bradley, Director, ALA/OGR
Rick Weingarten, Director, ALA/OITP
Michael Dowling, Director, ALA Chapter Relations

9:30-12:00 Issues exploration
Christopher McLean, e-Copernicus
John Windhausen, Telepoly

—I arrived here—

Mark Lloyd, Center for American Progress

Mark was speaking about the necessity of urban library support for the rural libraries provisions in this year’s Farm Bill. Please say to your Senators and Representatives: “Please support the rural library provisions in this year’s Farm Bill.”
12:00-1:00 lunch and keynote
Gloria Tristani, Spiegel & McDiarmid (former FCC Commissioner)

Gloria spoke about the importance of sufficient bandwidth for public libraries, wherever they are. She spoke about ALA WO efforts to simplify the E-rate for libraries, modify “poverty calculations” to bring libraries into parity with school districts and respond to “Notices of Inquiry” from the FCC.

(I got to review three Telcom-related responses in my positions on the OITP Advisory Committee or the OITP/COL Telcom Subcommittee)

Though FCC comment periods may say they are “closed,” if you have a comment you should send it in anyway (up until a decision is made). Grassroots advocacy and grassroots comments count with the FCC when they come in significant numbers.

While we are all here in DC, we should take the opportunity to drop in on the FCC Commissioners — we are competing with many other players and a massive drop by of interested parties. Take the time to have a few relevant statistics about library connectivity to hand and encourage the FCC. Wisconsin specific data here for example.

1:00-2:30 Broadband deployment models that work

Bob Bocher Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction
Described development of BadgerNet and follow-on departments. Partners: between state gov’t, K-20, libraries, tribes, telcos. Funding: costs are “postalized” same cost anywhere — benefits rurals *big time* T-1=~$100/month, higher=~$250/month. Centralized purchase of access and divvied internally. Services: Video distance Ed, 24/7/365 Tech Support. Statewide VoIP soon, internet via WiSCnet, shared ILS in ~90% of WI libraries for resource sharing etc. Challenges: WAN circuts insufficient, State USF has had 6 years of no growth, Web 2.0 interactions loading network, working to improve funding, general sys admin stuff (security, spam, remote mgmt, etc) Success because: strong state network office, strong legislative and executive support, governor support, collaboraive environment (inclusive), state-wide funding of connections.

Steven Hedges OPLIN

Discussed Ohio’s path to a working state-wide network INFOhio, OSCnet, OhioLink, MORE. OPLIN also provides “postalized” pricing, same anywhere. All 3 agencies are now working together as Libraries Connect Ohio.
Policy issues about funding of bandwidth for gaming may crop up if legislators ask about what kinds of trafic are being funded.

William Giddings MOREnet

MOREnet started in 1986, REAL started in 1994, now 131 libraries with 107 branches. Connection depends on tax revenues for service area — you get the connection speeds you need (smaller libraries pay ~$300/year, largest pays ~$12,000 per year) no questions asked. T-1 to 45 MBps. Partners: Governor, State library, Dept of Ed, Dept of Higher Ed, U Missouri One network to rule them all (wait, no, There can be only one) in Missouri. Funding: Dept of Higehr Ed, Sec of State via State Library, participant fees, E-rate reimbursements. Services: Network Svcs, Video, Securoty, Resources, Training, more Challenges: growing demand for bandwidth, term limits, site visits by MOREnet (to keep issues tied to local issues), Techies resistant to loosening local control Successful because: Shared Leadership, program manager, single state-wide network, level playing field, public procurement.

Andrew McNeill Connect Kentucky

Am having a hard time note-taking (handout being read out loud), will have to scan & post the handout (sorry)

2:30-4:00 You can do it! Concrete approaches to tackling the most important telecommunications issues at the state level

Find out what is important to the person to whom you’re speaking.
Find solid examples to support what you’re saying.
Find a compelling story to share.
“Fiber to the Library” will also benefit the local community, nearby businesses, students doing homework. This initiative (or it should be an initiative) may be a great way to get fiber to the home rolled out. I think the Rural Libraries provisions in this year’s Farm Bill may have more on funding this?
Aim to get something scalable without huge new capital outlay

See ALA WO / Public Libraries and the Internet 2006: Study Results and Findings handout for more suggestions.
Quotes:

• “We are what we share” (from Jessamyn on Twitter earlier today) seems very appropriate.
• Way to think about libraries and information technology: “Libraries: Universal Service Providers” (quote from Nancy Kranich)

It’s always fun to watch the fur fly, maybe that’s why this quote by Michael Gorman on the Britannica Blog made me grin:

[Gorman summarizes the history of intellectual property development and then says:] “There is today a concerted and multifront assault on copyright spurred by monied interests and the desire of consumers to use digital technology to get something for nothing. This assault has created a mindset that sees the notion of intellectual property as a barrier to progress rather than what it is—an affirmation of the singularity of the human intellect and personality.”

I see the “…assault on copyright … and the desire of consumers to use digital technology…” as a backlash against the ever-lengthening term (as lobbied for by commercial content producers) of copyright from the originally codified in US term of 14 + 14 years. Up to 28 years of virtual monopoly on the use of an expression of an idea was deemed plenty of time for exploitation of an expression/creation by its creator. At some point an individual’s “intellectual property” (which is used as a crass conflation of several distinct concepts: copyright, trademarks, and patents - among others) has been disseminated to the point where the individual’s right to the idea has diffused to the public domain.

The increasing length of copyright terms — from 14 years plus a 14 year extension in 1790, to 28 years plus a 14 year extension in 1831, to to life of the author plus 50 years or works for hire for 75 years with specific, codified fair-use provisions in 1976, to the Sonny Bono act in 1998 which extended copyright to life of the author plus 70 years — is a burden which the Public Domain cannot bear. I fail to see how life plus 70 years encourages a creator to produce new works; this term of “protection” seems to encourage resting in one’s laurels after producing a magnum opus or bestseller instead of encouraging continued creation of new works which could be better than the last.

As currently practiced under the law, intellectual property *is* a barrier to progress. Seemingly because Steamboat Willie was a smash hit in the roaring twenties. Copyright was originally enacted to encourage learning, prevent booksellers from monopolizing books and the sale of books, allow authors some control over their works, create a public domain for literature, and give the purchaser of a book control over what s/he could do with the purchased item. There was no overarching “affirmation of the singularity of the human intellect and personality” involved - no matter how good the rhetoric sounds.

Lastly, speaking to the accusation: “desire of consumers to use digital technology to get something for nothing,” I, and most digital technology consumers, are not out to get “something for nothing” while using our digital technology. We are out to make sure the items we purchased with our money are usable in whatever appliance we choose to use for our enjoyment. If I buy a standard $0.99 song from iTunes (not likely, as I generally only listen to whatever is on the radio) and want to listen to that song on a Linux-based computer, I would have to (illegally, in current practice) break the DRM in order to make use of an item I purchased and should be able to use on whatever device I prefer.

The consumer should be the ultimate decider of how to use their legally acquired products.