Sea Change for Illinois Library Systems

It’s difficult for me to write this, but in response to the budget deficit in Illinois, the Alliance Library System will be eliminating all services with the exception of delivery and resource sharing. In addition, MITBC services will be suspended until funding is re-established. The consultants are wrapping up projects for the next 2 weeks and notifying our members. Overall, 22 ALS and MITBC staff members will be laid off as of Friday, May 28th, and there will no longer be a consulting and continuing education department.

This is a sea change for libraries throughout Illinois—North Suburban Library System made the first announcement about service reductions on May 11th. Unfortunately, the other systems will be making similar reductions as their reserves become exhausted. Kitty Pope, ALS Executive Director, wrote in her announcement RE: Change in ALS Core Services,

“Thank you for participating in our campaigns, contacting legislators and supporting our cooperative efforts. Unfortunately, we have run out of options; the storm is upon us, and we are in survival mode. Other Illinois library systems are on different time lines as to when they will run out of money, but they are all in trouble. There is no safe harbor from this storm.”

My time at ALS has been short, but I’ve loved every minute of it (well, except for this last part.) I’ve enjoyed learning about all our library types. From publics, I’ve learned that I can understand the budget cycle, read a budget and appropriate ordinance, and calculate a levy. From schools, I’ve learned that information literacy is a high priority, and that school librarians are working to stay relevant and indispensable in these tough economic times. From specials, I’ve learned that we have a diverse community of medical, historical, prison, and corporate libraries with needs that are as diverse as they are. And from academics, I’ve learned the value of tailoring networking and CE opportunities.

It’s been all libraries, all of the time—for that I am truly grateful.

Postscript: There's been an updated memo on May 20th detailing the most recent developments.

CARLI’s Copyright Workshop

I attended CARLI’s copyright workshop presented by Dwayne K. Buttler last week. Professor Buttler serves as the first Evelyn J. Schneider Endowed Chair for Scholarly Communications at the University of Louisville and holds a faculty appointment as a Professor in University Libraries. His program on Copyright and Digital Libraries, focused mostly on copyright basics with a little about the TEACH ACT and streaming media thrown in.

Even though he focused on many of the basics, this copyright workshop was different than any I’ve attended before. My first hint was his list of what “copyright probably oughta” be. With the proliferation of electronic resources, the importance and value of “cumulative development of enduring knowledge” should not be discounted, and without a sea change, copyright law creates “a nation of scofflaws, law breakers, ne’er-do-wells, and pirates”. This backs up Buttler’s stated goal “to teach good faith and reasonable practices” in regard to fair use.

Whoa—this deviated from every other single day copyright sessions I’ve attended. (Maybe I haven’t been attending the right ones!) Most of them reviewed copyright but made me feel like the complexity of copyright law necessitated that I steer faculty toward copyright free materials. Buttler discussed the ambiguity of copyright law and urged the use of risk analysis. He also talked a lot about transformative vs. derivative when considering Fair Use. Of course, the four factors are still relevant and every instant needs to be analyzed on a case-by-case basis, but transformative vs. derivative is a key element. I think this article, Fair use and transformativeness: It may shake your world, by Joyce Valenza in School Library Journal covers a lot of the same issues Buttler discussed.

Buttler also cited the recent YouTube controversy regarding a series of parodies using film clips from the movie, Downfall. Constantin Film, the movie’s copyright holder, sent takedown notices to YouTube regarding the parodies. YouTube removed the videos and only reinstated them after the video makers filed claim disputes. The controversy is very well addressed on the Center for Social Media’s Hitler Hates Fair Use – Downfall Meme Comes Full Circle. In the meantime, Brad Templeton made a video using a Downfall clip to chide Constantin Film and YouTube over this incident. If you haven’t seen Hitler, as “Downfall producer” orders a DMCA takedown, I would recommend it.

Information Literacy Summit - Problem Solving in our Communities

I attended the Information Literacy Summit at Illinois State University on April 20th. This year’s theme was “Problem Solving in our Communities: Everyday Information Experiences.” It was my 6th summit (there have been 9), and I my perception is that information literacy is evolving in Illinois. The earlier summits focused on IL basics—definitions, developing plans, locating resources and then morphed into best practices/applications. Now the direction seems to be shifting again—this time toward integrating IL into Gen Ed requirements and developing an awareness of IL as lifelong critical thinking skills.

There were two questions in the first session I attended on Critical Inquiry that really clicked for me. How can librarians help students create an identity as a researcher, and secondly, how do we become part of students learning communities? I’ve been thinking a lot about the second question lately, but had never fully articulated the first. (Thanks Jennifer and Joyce, presenters of the session, for solidifying it for me!) I think these are two of the core questions that all librarians will be considering as the profession continues to be influenced by technology trends.

More information about the summits and presentation is available through their Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/infolitsummit.

More about IACRL: Year of the Librarian

I wanted to highlight one more presentation I attended at the recent IACRL conference. I’ve already mentioned the Google Wave session from IACRL preconference in the March 29th post, and the Copyright Program in the April 8th post.

R. David Lankes, one of the keynote speakers, has put up his presentation “Year of the Librarian: the Future is Ours for the Taking” on his blog at http://quartz.syr.edu/rdlankes/blog/?p=986. Not only are the slides there, but his recorded presentation is also included.

His stated “mission of librarians” is to “improve society through facilitating knowledge creation in their communities.” He sees opportunity for librarians to identify the gaps of knowledge, provide their navigational skills to bridge these gaps, and weave relationships within communities.

To me, this sounds a whole like what we’ve been calling knowledge based consulting here at ALS. Our consultants are building relationships and making connections that result in “a new fabric of understanding”.

Some of the tools that we’ve created since starting knowledge based consulting include our Library Toolkit, Technology Training Wheels, and our continuing education series like: Going Green, Personal Management, and Tough Times. In fact, this blog was a direct result of a need expressed by our librarians to keep up with current and emerging trends with academic and special libraries.

What else is going on at ALS this week:
Information Literacy Summit at ISU is tomorrow, April 20.
Thursday, April 22, is the Special Librarians Luncheon at Caterpillar Business Resource Center Library in Peoria.

Copyright Program at IACRL

I wanted to highlight a few of the programs I attended at the recent IACRL conference. I’ve already mentioned the Google Wave session from IACRL preconference in the March 29th post, but here’s another.

I attended “Copyright on Campus: Coordinating the Confusion” by Christine Ross, Director of Collection and Research Services and Scholarly Communications Officer - University of Illinois at Springfield. It was the first program of the conference—there were some issues with the room—but Christine did a great job discussing the efforts of UIS to coordinate copyright issues on campus and beyond.

UIS does a lot of distant education, and confusion about rights and accessibility has increased as more resources move online. Conversations on copyright issues lead the Provost to create a campus-wide copyright committee. This committee has taken steps to address copyright confusion, and there are some resources available on the UIS pages including:
· The Copyright and Fair Use policy
· The Guidelines and Procedure for Copyright Compliance in the Use of Library Materials
· Video from their Copyright Compliance Coordination Committee (C4) entitled Copyright on Campus
· LibGuide for C4 resources

I hope to develop a module in Technology Training Wheels focusing on copyright issues related to Web 2.0 such as Creative Commons, the TEACH Act, and streaming video. Hopefully it will be developed by early summer. Watch http://technologytrainingwheels.pbworks.com/ for more details!

Learn More about Mobile Library Apps from Boopsie

Public and academic libraries are invited to attend an informational webinar and demo from Boopsie. Boopsie creates custom mobile applications ("There’s an app for that!"). You can mobilize your library for on-the-go patrons seeking easy access. Powerful catalog search, real-time integration, reading lists, your blogs and tweets, and much more. http://boopsie.com/home/

This webinar will be held on two more occasions to allow all interested parties an opportunity to attend.

Thursday,April 1, at 2 pm

Wednesday,April 7, at 10 am

For more information and to register, login to Library Learning (L2).

Google Wave session from IACRL preconference

At IACRL last week, I attended a preconference session on Google Wave presented by Ray Schroeder from the Center for Online Learning, Research and Service (COLRS) at University of Illinois Springfield. Ray and his team have been using Wave in online learning since the preview version was launched late last year. I’m still not completely sold on Wave, but I see the potential. I secured a Wave invitation in November 2009, but have been unhappy with the instability of the platform. After taking to Ray and his team, I found out that a lot of my connectivity issues stem from my use of Internet Explorer—Chrome is recommended as the browser of choice and is a significantly more stable platform for Wave. I also learned that:

Since Google Wave is in real time, if you are typing a “blip” (post) anything you type will be visible to others looking at the wave. If you are editing your blip, others can see what you are typing as you do it.

Wave has some problems with embedding certain links. For example, Ning and Blackboard will break your Wave and you will be unable to continue adding to it. It also difficult to recreate a Wave once it’s broken.

Waves can be posted to a website. This is a neat feature that allows publication of a Wave even as the Wave continues.

Ray and his team have created some great resources too. In the Ning network, they have Get Your Head in the Clouds which has a Wave section and Wave Collaboration in Learning . They also have a blog at http://uisgooglewave.blogspot.com/ which has terminology and additional resources.

I will continue to monitor Wave but I’ve begun to explore other Wave-like experiences as well. I’ve used wiggio.com to some success and can see the benefits of a single copy application. Ray feels that the multimedia aspects and the Google name will make Wave big by the end of 2010, but I must admit that I have my doubts. I think the amount of information presented in Wave can be overwhelming. It’s kind of like being in a room of relatives who are all talking really loudly and having many different conversations. I also don’t think Wave is very intuitive—the learning curve is very steep and this will make it difficult to implement. Only time will tell if Google Wave is the trend of the future, so we’ll have to wait and see…