Free Your Content, and the Rest Will Follow
My brand new bag and I just took the laptop to Panera, where their free wireless reminds me of some recent discussion on the WSS-L e-mail list. Some member-created bibliographies, webliographies, and other content are currently behind the ALA member paywall, which spurred talk about whether content — especially member-created content — on the ALA site should be freely available.
The list consensus is that it should, that member-only content on our own association’s site is somewhat antithetical to the principles of librarianship, and that no one really seems likely to join ALA or its sections just to access this sort of online content. (The exception being member information itself, due to privacy conerns.)
Makes sense to me. But I think this merits wider discussion, since this is our association, after all. How much information is hidden online in various nooks and crannies of the ALA site? What impression does it give potential librarians and the general public when attempts to access content lead to a prompt for a member number? Has anyone joined up just to get access? (And, am I the only one who can never find her member card and just gives up in disgust??)
Kay:
I have. I needed an article from the ACRL website for one of my classes a semester ago, so I decided to join (which I had been thinking of doing for a while beforehand), paid my student membership fee and gained access to the article.
Turned out that the article didn’t serve my needs at all! It would’ve been a lot more helpful if a better description of the article had been made available, because I would’ve postponed my membership to a date when I had more money in my account (being a student and all).
6 June 2006, 4:44 pmAngel, librarian and educator:
I don’t really use the ALA website. I know, vaguely, that I can access articles to the journals in the divisions/sections I am enrolled in, but it is not something I use since the site overall is cumbersome to use. I do have bookmarked parts of the Instruction Section, given it falls in my line of work, but again, not something I use regularly. COntent made by the members probably should be freely available. Then again, maybe just finding other places to post it and make it available, like the various LIS related wikis, may be better in the long run. I am more likely to go seek out such information in other places. To be perfectly honest, I would just take a lot of the stuff in the ALA crannies and put it elsewhere. Anywhere but the ALA site would be better.
And no, you are not the only one with the issue about finding your number. They really should allow you to set up some easy to remember username and password once you register the first time.
Best, and keep on blogging.
6 June 2006, 5:30 pmJessamyn:
You can change your login to be your name instead of your number, I’ve done it (somehow) and that works for me.
However this doesn’t address the real problems inherent in the website which include the pay/member wall, terribly findability and bad architecture. ALA took short cuts, got a site designed on the cheap and figured they’d use volunteers to transition content. This was a bad set of choices for a lot of reasons and it’s created a lot of bad will for the association and turned off (in my opinion) a lot of members and potential members. The site was created by people who don’t use, and seemingly don’t understand, the web.
The login option doesn’t even work right. It has no stability over time, there is no “remember me” option and it won’t return you to the page you were trying to access. I’d like to have more of a discussion about what to do with member-created content, even in just a copyright way, I’m not sure whose ear is the best way to go about starting this discussion.
6 June 2006, 7:05 pmMegan:
One of the things that I find so odd about the whole “keeping things behind a wall” attitude at ACRL is that many of the things that are pointed to in the ACRL member area (specifically, the index to section resources) are FREELY available on the web!
The WSS products? All available from the website at http://libr.org/wss/ – mostly in the publications and resources area.
I’m speaking, of course, for myself here and not for WSS. Thanks for bringing the topic up in a wider forum.
6 June 2006, 7:11 pmDavid:
“You can change your login to be your name instead of your number, I’ve done it (somehow) and that works for me.”
This is by far the 100% greatest thing I have ever read on a library blog!! I can’t count the hours I’ve lost trying to find my #.
No comment on how much I hate trying to find anything on the ALA site. The whole thing is just bizarre!
6 June 2006, 9:29 pm