The Liminal Librarian

I'm sure someone at ALA will clean this up soon, so hurry if you'd like to see what can happen when an unmonitored wiki meets a disgruntled poster.

Labels: ala, recruitment, wikis

So, my best of getting-things-done intentions went awry... of all the stupid things, I've ended up with a paronychia on my little finger, and typing is somewhat impaired. Mine wasn't as bad as this pic, but was well on its way, and I've been futzing with it for a week until finally giving in and going to the dr. today.

Maybe this will help stop me from e-mailing people and forgetting they're probably at ALA -- it's just so far off my radar at the moment that I was feeling ignored and unloved until figuring that one out.

(And, this is the last gross thing I'll blog about for a while!)

Labels: ala, cuticle, paronychia

So, have you all nominated me for Honorary ALA Membership yet? No? Come on, I deserve it at least as much as Oprah or Bill Gates... You have to admit, this is kind of an interesting and eclectic little list.

Labels: ala, membership

So I just finished reading February's American Libraries (I'm a little behind) and noticed that in their job ads section they talked up the newish ALA JobLIST site, but only as an add-on option for institutions placing print ads. I thought that sounded odd, so headed over to JobLIST to check out their rates. While they do have online-only pricing, check this out:

Member rate*: $65 plus $0.65 per word

Nonmember rate: $75 plus $0.75 per word

Logo surcharge: $30 to upload a GIF or JPG of an institution's logo that will appear in the online ad

I'm kind of baffled by the whole concept of per-word charges in an online environment, where one of the advantages is the ability to break out of the little per-word or per-line boxes of print advertising. Are they afraid of taking up an extra few K of server space for the additional text? Nah, that's probably not it...

If you want to post your library-related job ad online, do feel free to hop over to LISjobs.com/Library Job Postings on the Internet, where posting is currently free. Enough said...

Labels: ads, ala, joblist, libraryjobs, lisjobs, rates

When I recently renewed my ALA membership, I decided to finally bite the bullet and join LAMA, partially because I think LA&M has been one of the consistently strongest ALA-related publications. My joining pretty much coincided with LAMA's decision to cease print publication of the journal, and they just posted their first electronic-only issue.

This is a little frustrating, but OK, I understand the reasoning and can deal. I dig out my ALA login and password -- and, by the way, why can't the site remember me from day-to-day? -- to find that each article is one large pdf file, the first of which locks up my PC. Reboot, grumble, wish for a web-based or plain text alternative, try again, cruising along... and then I get to the "Editor's Keyboard" column, which talks about the move to an electronic format:

At the same time, I also realize that not all of you will regard this as a singularly propitious event. Trust me: I feel your pain. On the shelves behind me in my office, I have every print LA&M back to 1990. It does distress me to know that I’ll never add another issue to this collection. I know that many of you colleagues feel the same melancholy. Still, I beseech you at this time to turn the page (pun intended) and, how can I put it politely...?
Get over it!
....To the naysayers, all of you have spoken to me at conferences and other venues, about the creature comforts of print publishing—of being able to read LA&M on buses, of curling up with it and a cup of cocoa (or scotch) at night, and even of taking it into the bathroom on Sunday mornings (yes, I’ve heard this said), I can only respond...have you never heard of the "print" button?

All right. I'm a fan of electronic publication. I write an electronic-only column; I publish an electronic-only newsletter. But, this gets even my hackles up. "Get over it!" seems a less-than-productive approach. We try to avoid talking to our patrons this way when we move to online catalogs or cancel print publications; we should extend the same courtesy to one another and recognize that there are better ways to get folks on board.

I still appreciate LA&M's content, but I'll need more than "get over it" as a reason to re-up next year.

Labels: ala, electronic, lam, lama, pdf