30th Year Reflections/50: RBMS

“We must grasp fully who, or more correctly what, our performer is. We must eliminate from the word ‘performer’ any notion that he is one who merely reproduces what someone else or even he himself has composed…. Our singer of tales is a composer of tales. Singer, performer, composer, and poet are one under different aspects but at the same time. Singing, performing, composing are facets of the same act.” — Albert B. Lord, quoted by James P. Ascher in the vade mecum of the 54th Annual RBMS Preconference

Last week I soaked up one of my favorite annual events: the Rare Books and Manuscripts Section (RBMS) Preconference. RBMS, as the name implies, is a section of the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL), a division of the American Library Association (ALA). I was a member of the local arrangements committee and thoroughly enjoyed the experience (although it meant some early mornings and long days). If given the chance, I highly recommend participation in a local arrangements committee (or program committee) for a conference such as this. Our committee was led by two of my colleagues, Marguerite (Maggie) Ragnow and Arvid Nelsen. They did a splendid job; it was a joy to work with them and other members of the committee.

Perhaps the most backbreaking thing I did in conjunction with getting ready for the conference was stuffing the conference tote bags (and hauling the boxes out from the back room when more bags were needed at the registration desk). It took us about five hours to fill four hundred tote bags with all the information related to the conference, the book dealer’s catalogs, local information, etc. (Thanks to Rob Rulon-Miller for sponsoring this year’s bags and everything else he did for the conference.) Given my height, bending over the spread of tables to put each piece (or pile of pieces) into the bag took a small toll on my back, but such little pains come with the job. I’ve come to the conclusion that anyone working with archival materials will eventually come down with a bad back, unless they’re especially attentive to the proper way to lift.

But enough about boxes, bags, and backs. Naturally, I have a local bias, but I think we did the Twin Cities proud with this conference. Our welcoming reception at the Mill City Museum was spectacular, the final plenary at Pantages Theatre very fitting to the conference theme, our various tours to “bookish” places delightful and informative, and the concert by the Rose Ensemble memorable. In between all the receptions, tours, concert, and other pleasures was a full schedule of seminars, talks, and discussions. Because I was involved in local arrangements I did not get to sit in on all the programming, but what I did experience was insightful and inspiring. At a seminar on bibliography I experienced the bibliographic equivalent of a straight-line wind in the presentation by Stephen Tabor from the Huntington Library. His research over the past two decades blew me away. Likewise, I enjoyed a bit of heat and light in another seminar on curators and book dealers, as the discussion following presentations centered on the continued use and value of dealers’ printed catalogues. At an “unconference” with colleagues in Midwestern institutions we participated in a wide-ranging discussion on professional development, collaboration, internships, exhibits, and other topics. I think we may have stumbled upon a few ideas worth pursuing, e.g. developing information RBMS unconferences for those unable to attend the “main event” due to diminishing travel funds, or creating a regional discussion list for sharing questions and issues closer to home.

Conferences such as RBMS help us grow and develop professional awareness and skills. They help us network and make new connections. Hats off to James Ascher and other members of the RBMS program planning committee for a very thought-provoking and useful conference. I hope everyone who attended RBMS in Minneapolis enjoyed their stay and had a chance to experience a bit of what we get to enjoy every day.

30th Year Reflections/43: Context

“Simply put, our nation needs far more college-educated citizens than are now being produced.” — Jamie Merisotis, ACRL 2013 Annual Conference

As you might tell, I’m still chewing over some of the presentations from the ACRL annual conference. Later this month some of our staff who attended will offer a “Brown Bag” session over the lunch hour to recap their experiences and provide insights into sessions they attended. One of the invited presentations, by Jamie Merisotis (“The Attainment Goal and the Changing Higher Education Landscape”), caught my eye. I’ve re-read his talk a couple of times as I seek to understand this changing landscape in which I work.

Context is important. The context of my work is higher education, and specifically academic libraries within higher education. So what are Merisotis and others saying about my space? They’re saying that change is necessary and change is coming. Merisotis cites labor economist Tony Carnevale at the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce. Carnevale estimates (quoting from Merisotis) “that, by the end of this decade, nearly two-thirds of all jobs will require some postsecondary education and training. The simple fact is, jobs are becoming more complex and require higher-level skills than ever before … and that trend is sure to intensify in coming years.” Beyond the economy and job market Merisotis believes change is necessary in order to create societal benefits “including greater civic and social engagement, higher rates of voter participation and volunteerism, healthier lifestyles, less dependence on public assistance.…” Finally, Merisotis sees change in terms of societal need, “an equity imperative” to address the “massive gaps in educational achievement in this country linked to race and class.”

On other fronts philosophy professors from San Jose State University issued an open letter to Harvard professor Michael Sandel on why they will not use material from Sandel’s online course on justice. The brave new world of MOOCs (massive open online courses) has generated various reactions across higher education. The New York Times, in reporting on the San Jose letter, also noted this reaction: “Faculty backlash against online courses has spread in recent weeks, as the Amherst College faculty voted against joining edX, and the Duke faculty voted down participation in Semester Online, offered by a consortium of universities.” The Chronicle of Higher Education also covered the story, including the text of the open letter. In February my institution announced its partnership with Coursera, “a leading massive open online course (MOOC) platform,” to quote from the news release, “to develop free online courses as part of the university’s efforts to improve teaching and learning through technology.” Our Provost was quoted in the release: “We’re excited by the opportunity to explore innovative ways of using e-learning to extend the reach of University of Minnesota educational offerings across the state, nation and globe. This partnership will give people from around the world the opportunity to learn from the U’s world-class faculty at a time when we are working harder than ever to increase access to higher education, reach broader audiences and strengthen our land-grant mission.” In a conference last weekend, also reported by The Chronicle, scholars gathered in Milwaukee to discuss “The Dark Side of Digital.” MOOCs were part of the discussion. The Chronicle noted: “In a talk dubbed ‘Courseware.com,’ Rita Raley, an associate professor of English at the University of California at Santa Barbara, described how societal and technological changes had ‘reconditioned the idea of the university into that of an educational enterprise that delivers content through big platforms on demand.’”

It is not too hard to find differing opinions on the state of higher education in America. This little post has just scratched the surface. The trick for us, it seems, will come in navigating the currents flowing through this new landscape. Merisotis has a high view of our professional ability to handle change. “In my view libraries and librarians ― have always been in the redesign business … always on the cutting edge of change.” We’ll see if he’s right, knowing as we do that the cutting edge can sometimes be the bleeding edge. Finding our balance between the bright side and the dark side will be crucial.

30th Year Reflections/42: History

“To remain ignorant of things that happened before you were born is to remain a child.” — Cicero

A sinking feeling grows daily in my mind: my profession is becoming historically illiterate about itself. I am not speaking of general historical illiteracy (although that, too, is a problem), but of a lack of historically informed discourse that helps guide our profession into new arenas of theory and practice. One of the most recent and stronger manifestations of this sensibility came as I reviewed the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) preliminary program included with my January issue of College & Research Libraries News. The conference theme was “Imagine, Innovate, Inspire.” Alas, I was not inspired to attend the gathering in Indianapolis, so what follows is based on an examination of the preliminary printed program and the post-conference online version.

I’ll acknowledge up front that my critique is biased and may be unfair. I would be happy to hear from conference attendees to the contrary. But here is my initial “take” on what I saw proposed for a conference of “more than 300 carefully curated, thought-provoking sessions” (to quote from the program) that would help me “explore innovative methods for driving the transformation of libraries, learning, and research.” Of greatest interest to me are the keynote addresses (3), invited papers (4), and contributed papers (80). Unfortunately, ACRL does not provide a full-text version of the program that could be text-mined for keywords in session descriptions such as “history” or “historical.” (They do provide a pull-down menu for “Primary Program Tag,” but the tags are not useful to me for this kind of analysis.) Individual papers are now available on the conference proceedings web site. The complete proceedings are available from Amazon (for a not insignificant price). The three keynote addresses are not provided as part of the proceedings, nor are they available in any form on the ACRL site. The descriptions provided for the four invited papers give at least a small hint of historical awareness. Alison Head’s presentation on Project Information Literacy indicates that the project dates back to 2008 and is ongoing. Here my questions would be how this five-year-old study was informed, if at all, by earlier studies on college students’ information seeking behaviors. David Green’s presentation on the ERIAL Project (Ethnographic Research in Illinois Academic Libraries), a two-year effort by librarians and anthropologists, raises similar historical/contextual questions. Jamie Merisotis’s presentation, “The Attainment Goal and the Changing Higher Education Landscape” give a sense of some historical analysis (if one is looking at a changing landscape). No text is available from the ACRL site, but speculating that at least a few of these folks are good self-promoters, I found Jamie’s talk on the Lumina Foundation web site. I discovered Brian Mathews talk by following a few clicks from his blog to a depository at Virginia Tech.

I still need to wade through the eighty or so contributed papers. There may be a gem or two (or three) there. A quick scan through the online program gives me little hope for historical perspective. One session on copyright provided at least a ten-year perspective: “Over the past decade, the American library community has been confronted by a copyright axis of evil….” Another session on information as a weapon even used the word “historical” in its description: “This session will look at current and historical examples of information as weapon, and examine the role of libraries in developing good consumers of information.” A session on ethnic and racial diversity analyzed “diversity statistics from Association of Research Libraries (ARL) in order to provide a longitudinal view of demographic patterns in ARL academic libraries.” But I also found “beer cans in the stacks” and "mutant superheroes" among the contributed paper titles. Maybe I’ll spend my lunch hours sorting the wheat from the chaff. Kudos, at least, to ACRL for making materials available, especially to those of us who could not attend in person.