WiFi at Annual Conference

May 20, 2009

ALA Executive Director Keith Michael Fiels made two announcements to staff this morning regarding the availability of WiFi during the ALA Annual Conference here in Chicago, July 9-15. First the good news: Free WiFi will be available in meeting rooms throughout the convention center, and funds have been made available to prototype a recommendation of the electronic participation task force. Wireless access will also be provided for committee and board meeting rooms selected conference hotels and/or meeting rooms and the convention center, enabling members to utilize laptop computer applications to provide for remote participation by board and committee members not able to attend. Now the bad news: The cost of providing wireless in the meeting rooms at the four major conference hotels would be $270,000, which ALA simply cannot afford. Many ALA members have been pressing for WiFi to enable people who are unable to attend ALA conference to participate virtually, but Fiels said providing internet access at hotel prices "is not sustainable as a model." ALA will continue to investigate and negotiate for future conferences. Fiels clarifies (5/21): "Since our Midwinter Meeting, we have been actively working on getting wireless into all conference meeting rooms as part of our effort to move ahead on the recommendations of the Task Force on Electronic Member Participation approved by Council." There's more good news, he notes: "We have allocated $40,000 in Strategic Plan Initiative Funds, which will be used to provide wireless on a pilot basis to committees and boards that are interested in providing for e-participation for members that will not be at conference. Under this experimental arrangement, boards, committees and discussion groups could provide access via laptop and their choice of internet-based teleconferencing options." "More good news," says Fiels, "is that a group of LITALibrary2.0 members has organized an eParticipation Implementation Task Force that will be providing information and support for those groups seeking to involve members in governance and discussion group activities at the upcoming Annual Conference. A tool kit is available. Please note that this pilot does not include conference programs; we are already providing a 'virtual conference' option for those who want to participate virtually in conference programs but cannot come to conference. More information on the wireless pilot will be following shortly."

T. A. Barron interview

T.A. Barron, author of the Lost Years of Merlin books and the in-progress Merlin's Dragon trilogy, speaks to Booklist about the 32 rejection letters that helped convince him to quit his venture capital business and begin writing fantasy epics. (One of his business partners had a different suggestion: therapy.) Barron also gives his thoughts on finishing up the 12-book Merlin cycle and how to make fantasy feel "true."

Latest Library Links

2d

Genevieve Trainor writes: “The Guinness World Record holder for Most Prolific Book Thief is Ottumwa (Iowa’s) Stephen Blumberg. The 23,600 volumes he accumulated between the 1970s and his arrest in March of 1990 were all stashed in his 17-room home. Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska, got involved with Blumberg as part of the FBI’s efforts to return the stolen manuscripts and rare books to their museums and libraries. Referred to as the Omaha Project, the information science proving ground involved four weeks, 44 catalogers and reference librarians and 600 volunteer hours to determine who might be the rightful owners.”

Little Village (Dubuque, Iowa), Dec. 4
2d

Casey Newton writes: “At the moment, no one knows for sure whether the large language models that are now under development will achieve superintelligence and transform the world. And in that uncertainty, two primary camps of criticism have emerged. The first camp, which I associate with the external critics, holds that artificial intelligence (AI) is fake and sucks. The second camp, which I associate more with the internal critics, believes that AI is real and dangerous. Today I want to lay out why I believe AI is real and dangerous.”

Platformer, Dec. 5
3d

Latia Ward writes: “One way to keep current with what students think of the library and its services is through Student Library Advisory Committee meetings. These meetings are a way to gather feedback and reinforce the library as a welcoming place. How do librarians create a welcoming environment within Student Library Advisory Committee meetings? Librarians create a welcoming environment through community, purpose, and dedicated space.” Also see part 1 of this blog post.

RIPS Law Librarian Blog, Nov. 13, Dec. 5
3d

Eleanor Hecks writes: “Few things are as frustrating to a user as when a site won’t respond. Unfortunately, it’s also an all-too-common scenario. Graceful degradation is a design approach that ensures the basics of a website will still function even if specific individual parts of it stop working. The approach removes single points of failure: just because one thing stops working doesn’t mean the system as a whole fails. A site following this principle fails in pieces instead of all at once, so the most important features remain available when some components encounter an error.”

Smashing Magazine, Dec. 6
4d

Camruinn Morgan-Rumsey and Lexi Lepof write: “On December 3, Knox County (Tenn.) schools received a list from the district of books to be removed from school libraries under Tennessee’s Age-Appropriate Materials Act. Knox County’s board of education voted in July, passing a policy to remove ‘explicit’ books from everyday student access in response to the new law. Some of the books on the list of nearly 50 titles might surprise parents. Among those to be removed are Shel Silverstein’s A Light in the Attic and Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five.”

WVLT-TV (Knoxville, Tenn.), Dec. 4
4d

Joe Foley writes: “Copyright rules vary from country to country and have changed over time. In the US, works created between 1929 and 1963 that gave notice and renewed copyright have 95 years from their first publication date. That means that on January 1, 2025, a host of works from 1929 will enter the public domain. This means that copyright will expire on Buck Rogers, Captain Easy, Horace Horsecollar, Tintin, Hal Foster’s first Tarzan comic strips and, yes, Popeye.” Other notable works entering public domain in the United States include the Marx Brothers’ first film, The Cocoanuts, contralto Marian Anderson’s first record, and Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms.

Creative Bloq, Dec. 7; Everybody’s Libraries, Dec. 3, Dec. 7; Public Domain Review, Dec. 10
5d

Brittany Adams writes: “The digital landscape of libraries is expanding rapidly, with an increasing shift towards electronic resources and online services. As members of the library community, we’re witnessing a transformative era where physical collections are complemented—and sometimes replaced—by digital ones. This transition offers new opportunities for enhancing accessibility and engagement, but it also presents challenges, especially for young patrons and their families. It is essential to equip children and their caregivers with the tools and knowledge they need to navigate this evolving space confidently.”

ALSC Blog, Dec. 9

View more Latest Library Links

WiFi at Annual Conference

Share

Chicago Dining Guide

T. A. Barron interview