Look for my thoughts in a new spot…
Posted by carl_grant in Libraries - General on May 2, 2009
Readers of my blog will know that I rejoined Ex Libris North America last year and it’s been a very busy transition ever since. However, I have managed to squeeze in a few blog posts here and about, mainly on the FederatedSearchBlog. Well, now the next step in the transition back to Ex Libris, as they’ve asked that I move my commentary and thoughts over to a new corporate blog site. It’ll be the same type of content, primarily my thoughts and comments on library automation, libraries and all things related. So, for those that have stayed with me throughout my blog posting time, please now join me here or head over to the company website and you’ll find a link to my blog and others as well.
The rules have changed for all of us.…
Posted by carl_grant in Libraries - General on February 8, 2009
It is fairly commonplace in today’s economy and workplaces to complain about workloads, positions eliminated, the lack of raises and a host of other real or perceived concerns. It is easy to understand these feelings and even these perspectives of people in the workforce.
The workplace situation, particularly in North America, has changed. Dealing with these changes can be painful both at a personal and professional level. As we all adjust to this new environment, there are other things to be considered than those previously mentioned and examining these might place things in perspective. We’re now playing by a new set of rules and the failure to recognize that is only going to make the transition to this reality longer and more painful.
First, let’s consider some information: (Source: www.newroadmap.org )
- Americans represent 5% of the world population, yet:
- We use 30% of the world’s resources.
- We use 25% of the fossil fuels consumed.
- Americans were happiest in 1957 when they had considerably less material possessions than today yet their reported state of happiness has been in steady decline every since.
- On average Americans work 1777 hours per year. Despite popular opinion, that’s not the highest in the world. ( Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_time )
- “The Human Development Index (HDI) is an index combining normalized measures of life expectancy, literacy, educational attainment, and GDP per capita for countries worldwide and is recognized as the standard means of measuring human development.“ (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Development_Index ) According to this HDI, American citizens rank in the middle of the top 30 nations. So, while most American citizens’ lives are certainly not shabby, there is plenty of room for improvement.
All of this is shows there are many strong indicators that we’ve needed to change some things for a long time. External forces, excessive consumer spending and use of credit as well as weak politicians who failed to act in our best interests and yes, even we ourselves have put us in a financial situation which now forces us to change the way we think about things we have become accustomed to having but don’t necessarily need or that make us happy. Furthermore, we are ALL going to have to contribute, take some responsibility and contribute to the solution. This includes understanding that it is going to take a long time (i.e., a very long and sustained effort) to recover from this situation.
It also pays to remember that there is a reason good managers view their staff as a “team”. They need a team effort, aiming at the same goals and with everyone willing to put every ounce of his or her energy and intelligence into it to reach the objectives that make the company successful and, in turn, provides jobs for employees. Here are a few ways team members, in any organization, can help reach those goals.
- Manage and reduce expenses. Managers need your help here. Your managers are not being cheap in asking you to do this; they’re trying to stretch every dollar so that they can meet the challenges in front of all of us. So please think about the expenses you incur while traveling and what you can do to minimize them. For instance, while they’ve always asked you to book your travel ahead to get the best airline ticket prices, understand that in today’s environment now it is even more important. Question your expenses yourself. Could you save money? Will you do so without your manager pressuring you? If you do, you’re clearly already a team member.
- Offer and/or accept handling more responsibilities than before. Yes, you’re right, it doesn’t seem fair. But what frustrates managers to no end is how those of us in North America seem not to realize that we are competing on a global scale. Look at those stats at the top of this post. Understand that you’re not just competing with your peers in this city, state or even country. You’re competing with people around the world. Many of our global competitors work for less money to do the same job and just as well. Guess what? They’ll take your job because that is one way companies compete. Who can do the job, at the same level of quality and output, for the lowest price? Is that you? If not, then understand that complaining about it is NOT a solution. You have a couple of choices; 1) do the job for a competitive rate, or better, 2) elevate your value-add (i.e. your skills) to make it difficult for your employer to hire someone with your skill set in another country. Do you really think your company managers have been offering tuition reimbursement and courses on your desktop just so they could have a deduction on the company tax return? They were offering those courses to help facilitate your elevating your skill-set so that you could make yourself more valuable to the company. If you didn’t avail yourself of that opportunity, please be sure to look in the mirror when you’re ready to start assessing blame for a situation you somehow think you didn’t help create. If you’ve availed yourself of the training, then what you can do to help all of us deal with that new workload is to help your organization figure out how you can do that increased amount of work for the same, or better yet, less effort. Yes, it is easier to ignore this need and leave it to your manager to solve. But think about whose job your manager is going to work the hardest to protect. Most likely it will be the person that walked into their office and said, “I have an idea about how we can do this job better and with fewer resources”
- Maintain a positive attitude. No one likes change. That’s a given. Human beings are creatures of habit. Understood. But as we also know, change is inevitable. Sometimes for the better, sometimes not. Attitude is often the tipping factor, that which can take a bad situation and make it bearable. This is especially important if you’re in a position of management. You have others looking to you for guidance and direction. Helping convey at attitude of “we can do this” is critically important. Demonstrate it, live it, breathe it. It will make you stand out in very positive ways in your work environment.
- Think about something bigger than yourself. We saw the U.S. adopt this major new attitude in a national election late last year. However, it isn’t yet apparent that this attitude has filtered down to individuals yet when it comes to their jobs. The crisis has, but not the attitude. We’re still seeing instances of people who want to place themselves before their co-workers and the company where they work. Being a team member is about more than just winning the game; it’s about helping to take care of each other. It’s about each other, at home, at work and around the globe. “Me” is being replaced by “We”. Join in and demonstrate it. You’ll feel better.
We all hope this economic crisis will end sooner than later. To get from where we are to that point is going to require real teamwork, some real hard work and some real understanding that the rules have changed — for all of us. Don’t complain, refrain. Be more efficient, not less. Learn new skills and apply them. Work harder, because we must. Ensure that your focus is “we” not “me”.
We can get through this and we will.
“A View From The Top”?? That is exactly what IS missing…
Posted by carl_grant in Libraries - General, Library Automation Companies, Preservation and archiving on February 1, 2009
I was invited by Rob McGee to participate again this year in his “View From The Top” seminar at ALA Midwinter in Denver. Over the years, I’ve been on this panel and always find some aspects of it interesting. If you want to read a pretty accurate account of the session, see Leonard Kniffel’s blog post. If you do, you’ll see that I took major exceptions to what was being said on a couple of issues. I expand on what I said about the first issue in this post, which was the idea of pointing to individual and unique efforts at innovation as either the way or means of reinventing library automation systems and/or the library automation industry. As I indicated on the panel at ALA, this is not how library automation systems, or the industry will be reinvented.
Library automation exists to support a larger agenda; librarianship. That is what needs to be reinvented. What I found most distressing about this whole conference was that libraries and librarianship, once again, seem like a rudderless profession. We’re being buffeted by the hurricane force winds of economic chaos, we’re headed for the rocks, totally adrift and we seem unable to find anyone or any organization to captain the boat, grab the wheel and lead us to safety. Rob’s session gave me a chance to voice my frustration about this and I did.
While sitting on stage, I flipped through the ALA Conference Program and could find no theme expressed. The program’s session list is the usual array of thousands of descriptions of things done (largely in the past), all without any real connection or support to a larger agenda or program (beyond the vague description of “librarianship”). The vendors, who believe they have developed products and services that offer solutions for some of the problems the librarian profession faces are, of course, there to offer these products for sale but are also available for a dialogue on what other problems need to be addressed. Once again, some conference attendees avoided the vendors because they were “turned off” by the selling aspect but this limits them from exploring all the available solutions and being knowledgeable about what may be coming soon not to mention asking the vendors to solve problems not yet addressed. Where was the leadership to guide us to that level, to challenge the membership to use the show floor to address the larger goals of librarianship? So, at best this just completed ALA Mid-Winter was a missed opportunity because once again, there was no real leadership in evidence.
Rob brought together a panel of talented and creative librarians and then asked us vendors to respond to the individual librarian presentations. I responded by pointing out that while these were excellent examples of innovation, we, as a profession were missing the point; that we’re aiming too low; that ALA and our other national association/organizations are failing us by not seizing the opportunity before us. That opportunity has been massively underscored by a crashing economy. My point then and now is that no one is articulating a clear definition of what librarianship should look like in 5, 10 and certainly not in 20 or more years. So while we had some interesting presentations in front of us, there was no cohesiveness in how all these efforts would come together to fill the gap left by the overall lack of a definition of librarianship today and in the near future.
Leonard Kniffel, of American Libraries, took the microphone and asked me to clarify: what do I think it is that librarianship will become? In the interest of time and my co-panelists, I responded with my brief description of what I believe librarians offer, which is Triple-A information. That is, libraries offer information that is: 1) Authenticated, 2) Appropriate and 3) Authoritative and that is what distinguishes us from that which you can get in Google or any of a variety of other search tools. I could expand on this point, but it really is a separate post all by itself. For an example of what I’m talking about, see a post I did on the FederatedSearchBlog here. Until we fully convey that very specific value-add across the Web, we fail to differentiate our profession in ways that can be translated into a monetary amount and justified to those who write checks that allow libraries and librarians to exist.
Let me expand on that. My feeling is that our previous financial scenario, while certainly not one of untold wealth for libraries, was one that permitted us to serve wildly divergent interests, often on a very local level (campus/community) and frequently in the interest and support of seeking local funding. It was not a long-term approach. It was simply the model that existed and worked at the time. The real downside of that model is that we only infrequently sought to actually cooperate in meaningful ways and most certainly our ability to serve a national agenda was largely and totally compromised by the funding model. (See also Andrew Pace’s excellent post about vendors catering to the “unique approach in this environment).
I heard on the Today show this morning (February 1st, 2009), that the new administration’s stimulus bill includes funding for 10,000 new libraries. That’s wonderful, but if all it does is provide for more of what we’ve been doing, it will again result in another missed opportunity. I want to see us adopt and use a more cohesive, more widely supported and certainly a far more visionary role for librarianship in the years ahead.
Here are a few points about what I’d like to see.
1. A forward looking, modern definition and set of criteria by which to measure, good library service. The leading thinkers in our profession; Cliff Lynch, Lorcan Dempsey, Don Waters, James Neal, Brewster Kahle and yes, let’s include the Google guys (and others of similar caliber) should form this definition. It should underscore the value of librarianship (I go back to my “Triple-A” rated information) and place emphasis on us, as a nation, competing on a global basis and support out need to produce a more highly educated and literate workforce and population. It needs to recognize that librarianship in the information environment we find ourselves today is a radically different set of skills and behaviors than it was in the past. As a result, it should measure not only the results of academic libraries, but certainly national, public and school libraries. It should put an emphasis on cooperative efforts, national branding and collaboration in goal achievement. It will need to be accompanied by clear and concise objectives that provide a definition of how success can be measured to ensure that we’ve reached it. Those criteria must measure results on a nationwide basis and against other countries around the globe.
2. We should then approach the new administration, through the DOE, IMLS, key political representatives and/or whatever other agencies are seen as appropriate and ask that we work in partnership to create and define how the new (and for that matter, the old) funding will be allocated to support the achievements of those objectives. Disbursement of the funds to any library must be contingent on achievement against goals and below an 80% achievement level, should not be disbursed at all.
3. All national library/academic and information associations and organizations should be requested, indeed charged with (and possibly provided financial incentive) to support the achievement of the national definition of library service for all citizens. Conferences (ALA, are you listening??), educational programs and training that supports the achievement of the goals of the national definition of library service, should be spotlighted, supported by federal money and used as examples for others to follow. Training programs, degree achievement and other instructional programs in librarianship should also be similarly measured, reviewed and funded.
I’m sure there are a million details, problems and obstacles in trying to achieve what I’m describing. But, we’re a nation and profession in crisis. On a global basis, we’re in peril of seeing our leadership further eroding on numerous fronts. Most worrisome is that of education, literacy and thoughtful analysis - even as other countries continue their marches towards goals established in light of the new global and competitive environment. The new President, Barak Obama, said it well to the world on inauguration day when he said, “We’re ready to lead, once more.” I hope he is right. But I wonder about librarianship. Are we ready to lead? Because with that comes a need for us to focus, to sacrifice and to work together towards goals set on a national rather than local basis. Of course, that absolutely requires a change in our funding models as well, something else that will require our work and joint efforts. But I think we have that opportunity in front of us if we ask the leaders in our profession to create a real “View from the Top” and then to seek the government funding to support it with everything we’ve got at our disposal. Including library automation.
Uninformed? Uneducated?
Posted by carl_grant in Libraries - General on January 28, 2009
I’ve been at the ALA Conference in Denver. I was more than a bit surprised when I heard reported that the OCLC administrative description of those opposed to the new record use policy was that they were “uninformed and uneducated”. This new policy was proposed by OCLC and is currently being reviewed by the membership. It hardly seemed like good sales technique to make that kind of comment to the very people whose approval of the policy is being sought.
On the other hand, there might be a point in that description. Although I think it applies in the opposite way than intended. I say this because libraries are the storage center, the central site servers if you will, of human experience and knowledge. Theoretically we do this for the benefit of mankind. I know this because I am a librarian. I’ve worked in libraries where I found myself surrounded by the corpus of knowledge of mankind. I’ve also found that proximity means you absorb more of it than those who aren’t as fortunate to have the benefit of that close proximity. I’ve also learned that librarians are highly intelligent people; it’s one of the rewards of working with them and I still very much treasure it. So what might be applicable about this comment is that as a group we (librarians) seem so willing to ignore the history and lessons embedded in that corpus of knowledge we gather, index, protect and offer to others. In particular I’m referring to the last eight years of history in the United States. I list below the lessons that have been seared into my brain in the last eight years. I’ve been trying hard to apply these in life and business, and I would hope other librarians are as well:
- Membership in any group, association, organization or democracy carries with it, not only the benefits and rights of membership, but also the obligation to pay attention, to question, to participate, to argue and to be convinced of a decision or direction. If one disagrees, then one must speak up. It’s simply an obligation of membership.
- You may disagree and find yourself in the company of a majority of members that feel the same way. If the people you’ve put in charge of your organization, group, association or country aren’t listening to you and the others, then you must actively pursue change through whatever other vehicles that exist.
- Decisions made for the wrong reasons typically end up being wrong decisions. Pay close attention to the justifications provided for decisions – earlier rather than later. If they’re based on faulty information the results could be disastrous for you and others.
- You can’t protect the ways of past through brute force (particularly if those ways are simply no longer viable). All you’ll do is upset a lot of people, make a lot of enemies and probably make the situation a whole lot worse than it was before.
- Large or blank checks to do something should come with accountability. Those you give the right to cut deals on your behalf, must remain accountable to you and your fellow members in how and why they’ve chosen the pathways taken.
- What is said and what is done and/or legislated may bear little resemblance to each other. Therefore, pay attention to what is written/legislated, because that is far more likely to be what happens and it is certainly what counts.
When you look at what has happened so far with this OCLC draft record usage policy, and apply the list of lessons above, there are certainly causes for concern. We’ve seen how this turned out for the United States. I really hope librarians can find some applicable lessons in that episode of history and make sure, as they decide on this policy, they show they are very educated and very informed.
I encourage members of OCLC to take advantage of the newly announced delay in implementation of the record use policy to get involved and express their views. The future of libraries may be shaped by it.
An important conversation for libraries is happening out there…
Posted by carl_grant in Libraries - General on January 11, 2009
Every librarian, especially those who are OCLC members should be paying close attention to the conversation that is happening out there about the new OCLC record use policy. There are a lot of dimensions and sides to this issue. Tim Spalding has done an excellent post on the subject, which raises real issues that OCLC needs to address substantively and openly. I know there are those who will say Tim has a biased point of view, but in reality, I find that hard to buy. He is asking very important questions that all librarians should be asking. Read it. Get engaged. If you agree, sign the petition. It’s a very important conversation.
Some thoughts about metasearch (and organizations) in 2009
Posted by carl_grant in Libraries - General on January 8, 2009
Readers of this blog will likely think it has been orphaned, but in reality it’s just been a victim of holidays and a general lack of time on my part. Not that I haven’t been writing posts for others! As with my previous post here, I’ve written another post for the Federated Search Blog where I talk about the metasearch business and what we might see in the year ahead. Much of what I say can be applied at a more general level across many sectors and organizations. You can find it here. I promise to start posting full posts on this blog again shortly (might be after the ALA convention in Denver at the end of January!). Please bear with me…
The need for metasearch tools in libraries
Posted by carl_grant in Libraries - General on November 1, 2008
I’ve posted a new entry on the Federated Search Blog. It’s about the need for metasearch and my concerns that librarians aren’t listening to their users about their needs and how metasearch technologies can address those needs. I invite you to read it and to comment.
Redouble or Retrench? Librarians respond to the financial crisis.
Posted by carl_grant in Libraries - General on September 27, 2008
Given the current financial crisis, it’s no surprise that librarians are alarmed, reactive and rapidly retrenching on nearly all-new initiatives, particularly anything that involves the outlay of money. I wonder if that’s the right thing to do?
I’m on the mailing list of the North Suburban Library System, run by a friend and colleague of mine whom I greatly respect, Sarah Long, and I noted on the NSLS website that they are reporting increasing circulation over last year. This is due in no small part to the declining economic situation. It is not an uncommon trend. Most libraries will see increased usage and circulation in bad economic times.
In my work, I recently met with the entire sales team of the company. They all mentioned that that the librarians they’re working with are dealing with budget cuts and were therefore scaling back plans for new products and services. Many are reducing current services and therefore the utilization of existing and installed products. I’m dismayed. As librarians, at the very time that we’re about to see a renewed opportunity to re-establish in the minds of our users the value of our profession, we’re retrenching?!?!? No, no, NO!
This is very time we need to grab the opportunity and exploit it to no end. It is unfortunate that this opportunity is arriving on the backs of so much pain for so many people. But let’s grab it folks. Let’s use it to:
1. Focus. In good economic times it is easy to try a large number of new ideas and initiatives and, as a result, to get pulled in a lot of different directions. Now it’s time to get back to the basics. That doesn’t mean basic services it means basic values. Each organization will have its own values, but there is a common set of those values shared by librarianship. In my mind, it is offering authoritative, appropriate, authenticated information that meets the specific needs of your users.
2. Cooperate and share. Again, in good economic times, it’s easier to do specifically what you want to do, rather than compromise and cooperate. Now that this is no longer the case, we need to get back to working together to achieve greater, collective good for all concerned. Look to your neighboring institutions and purchase collectively. Share what you purchase and make sure that you’re extracting the maximum return by offering unique services you have through your neighboring organization’s branches/outlets.
3. Put up the new search interface. Sure, they’ve all been using Google and will continue to do so, but very likely, they’re going to be turning to your organization for the first time in a long time. It’s time to greet them with a new, better working, better service. It’s the front door of your organization, make sure it isn’t a shabby one.
4. Ensure the new search interface’s functionality conveys and confirms the value-add of librarianship. I recently wrote a post about this on the Federated Search Blog. The main point of the post was that as Librarians we need to clearly remember what our mission and objectives are and make sure that in this online environment, we need to convey the value of those objectives through the automated tools we offer.
Finally, let’s remember the old quote that “Information is the currency of Democracy”. We, as librarians are outlets for quality information. The need for our services will never be greater than in the days ahead. Let’s do it well, let’s do it better. It is not time to retrench; it is time to redouble our efforts.
Footnote:
We might even want to start with our own library organization. While researching data for this article, I encountered this at the ALA website <sigh>:
So, I went to Google, which showed:
Great, there is exactly what I’m looking for! But, our fine organization has implemented a new website without maintaining the persistence of their URL’s, so when you click on the link that looks like exactly what you were hoping to find on the ALA website you get <double-sigh>:
What can I say??
A new but familiar direction…
Posted by carl_grant in Libraries - General on July 30, 2008
You might have seen the press release by now, the one announcing that I’ve been given the opportunity to resume a familiar role at a company that I deeply like and respect, one that is run and staffed by people I feel the same way about. Furthermore, it’s one that I played a role in establishing in North America in the early years of this decade. . That company is Ex Libris North America. It is a much larger company now and certainly poses some significant new challenges, but I’m looking forward to the opportunity.
Taking on this position was not an easy decision, and I realize many people have considered me an open-source “evangelist” and will wonder what my new role means, if anything, about open source.
First, I think it fair to point out that moving to Ex Libris is not a move to the “dark side,” as some will undoubtedly portray it, but is, in fact, a move to an enlightened side. Ex Libris has done a lot lately in opening up the company platforms. I watched and admired the announcements about the new openness of Primo, and the ALA announcement about moving toward “open platforms.” I felt that this was one company that understood that open source was making a change in the software marketplace, and clearly, Ex Libris was listening. You might also recall, if you’ve followed this blog from its humble beginnings, that I’ve always said that I believed that open source and proprietary solutions would exist side by side, that they would affect each other, and that sometimes they would be married together to meet the solution needs of the customer. I took a fair amount of heat over that approach from some segments of the open-source community, in particular with regard to OpenTranslators, but I believed it then and I believe it now. Thus, the Ex Libris open-platform strategy seemed like both a comfortable and good fit to me and one that Ex Libris felt I could make a contribution to by returning to the company. I was certainly flattered and appreciative. I will take what I’ve learned in the open-source community and apply it to the world of open platforms. I think it’ll be a positive for both existing customers and new customers of Ex Libris. As for the open-source community, I’ll stay involved. I still believe that open source has an important role to play and should be welcomed into the community for a lot of positive reasons. Is it for everyone? No, but that’s something else I’ve said from the beginning. If it fits, sure. But if it doesn’t, then there are solutions that offer some of the same benefits of open source, with their own distinct set of other benefits. The choice is yours, and ultimately, you’ll decide what is right for your organization.
So bottom line, rest easy. Open source is alive and well, and while I’m switching gears slightly, I’ll still be a strong believer. My decision is absolutely no reflection on the viability of open source, companies that back open source, or the role of open source in the library community. It does reflect the belief that for some organizations to get the benefits of openness, they need it paired with solutions that utilize the best of both proprietary and open-source solutions–a slight shift from where I was, but not a major one. The very fact that one leading company is moving in that direction makes me feel like open source has achieved something else of great benefit to libraries. I’m proud to be a part of it all.
Finally, I think it’s also important to mention that while my commitment to open source was a major first hurdle to clear in my decision process about taking the Ex Libris position, personal reasons also played heavily into this decision. The Ex Libris North American offices are in Chicago, the city where our son lives. Living in the southeastern part of the country, we don’t get to see him nearly as much as we’d like (although I understand that he might not share this opinion!), but this will make it more probable that we can close that gap. Chicago is also closer to where my aging parents live (St. Louis), making it much easier for us to get to their side when our assistance is needed. Finally, my wife travels weekly in her work, so being near one of the largest airports in the country put a smile on her face. So, that may be more info than you wanted to know, but jobs are filled by people and people have lives outside of work and so do I. So all these factors weighed into our decision. No, it wasn’t easy to leave behind the small but growing company we were building. But we’ve found other companies to take over the contracts and business we built, and those companies are run by very good people in the open-source community. So we feel comfortable knowing we’ve left our customers in good care 
Of course, we want to thank all of you who did business with CARE–your business was appreciated, and I’d love to do business with all of you again should your needs and the Ex Libris offerings match.
ALA needs to rethink the role of exhibitors at the conferences
Posted by carl_grant in Libraries - General on July 17, 2008
As we all know the ALA Annual Conference recently concluded in Anaheim, CA. There seems to be a fair amount of discussion about the success of these events in these “resort” type destinations. Library Journal has an interesting post on the subject. For many exhibitors, those that I spoke with at the conference and those after, it was a disappointing event, at least in terms of booth traffic.
Were exhibitors surprised by that? No, not really. Most realized that when a conference is held in a resort destination, floor traffic will suffer. The attendees understandably tend to bring their families and when they aren’t attending programs, they go sight-seeing. This was certainly true in a town best known for Disneyland and nearby beaches.
Still it’s very frustrating for the vendors, who spend tens of thousands of dollars to be on that exhibit floor and to staff a booth for the duration of the show. ALA takes the exhibitor community more than just for granted, I’d submit that their treatment borders on near, if not outright, neglect. Is it malicious? Not really. I’d say it’s more likely a case of taking for granted a key part of their constituency. That’s an attitude however, that can carry with it the enormous potential for a backlash.
By both ALA and Library Journal’s reports, the attendance in Anaheim, was down some 5,000 people from those numbers we experienced a year ago in Washington DC. However, ALA counters, “those numbers were exactly what was predicted and expected for Anaheim.” Hmmm. OK, so we’re talking a conference of 20-25K and 5K less show up, i.e. a reduction of 15-20%. That kind of decline would cause most organizations to say; “Maybe we should re-evaluate what we’re doing here, i.e. maybe we should hold our meeting in a different place?” However, not ALA. They clearly feel the obligation to disperse the meetings across the country so that members can attend is far more important than delivering attendees to the exhibit floor. Well, maybe. Let’s just accept that premise for a moment. In doing so, I’d like some answers to these questions:
1. If we know the attendance is going to be less at a show, why isn’t the exhibitor’s booth space pricing factored down to reflect that? (In fact, we paid MORE for the booth space in Anaheim than in DC!!) Why should we pay this cost? Clearly we’re getting less for our money. Furthermore, if its going to be put into a resort town like Anaheim or Las Vegas, I’d argue that we should get a further reduction to further reflect the obvious resultant decline in attendance on the floor that we’re going to suffer.
2. If, as appears from the ALA financials and website, ALA conferences generate some 25% of ALA’s revenue (and exhibits generate 50% of that 25%), doesn’t that represent also represent a key part of the ALA constituency? Does it really make sense to upset that constituency? What if they get upset enough to act upon that feeling?
3. For instance, let’s say the exhibitors all got organized and agreed to take nothing larger than a 10×10 booth at one of these upcoming resort town shows. Would ALA still hold the conference? If so, what would ALA members have to pay to attend without the subsidy of the exhibitors on the floor? Would ALA cover the difference? How would the attendees feel about that? Would ALA then listen to the concerns of the exhibitors? Would the ALA membership? Would they at least understand that in accepting the exhibitor subsidy of their attendance, they should at least make a pass through the exhibit floor? Is that really too much to ask?
I was on a TALIS podcast recently and must admit to feeling some concern and frustrations as a result. There were comments like “I avoid the floor like the plague” and “I attended 80 programs” and “the profession is becoming more introspective and not as focused on integrating external, new technology.” Now, everyone is entitled to their opinion and certainly the right to voice them. Clearly these people weren’t alone in their thoughts. But as a exhibitor who had just spent a considerable sum to put forth an exhibit on that show floor, when I got off the call I sat down and asked myself the following questions:
Q. Am I getting a good return on the money spent to be at these shows?
A. No.
Q. Is there something I could do that would make my exhibit more attractive for the attendees?
A. Since we offered pure educational seminars, focused on solutions, had a comfortable booth, with comfortable chairs and interesting services to discuss, I’m at a loss to see what else I could do in that setting. If people avoid the whole floor, obviously nothing any single exhibitor is going to do is going to change this situation.
Q. Will I do this again?
A. No, I will not. It’s time to seek some alternatives.
Bottom line, I’m minimally recommending that the vendor/exhibitor community join me in re-thinking how we best work with ALA to address the needs of us as exhibitors as well as the attendees. We need to:
a. Convince them that exhibitors are frustrated and upset.
b. Show them that we ARE a part of their constituency and not to be taken for granted. We do have a voice and WILL exercise it if needed.
c. Help us find a more meaningful way to integrate the exhibitors into the body of the programs and schedule so that it is meaningful for both the attendees AND the exhibitors!