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Counterpoise Post Conference: "Beyond ALA"

Orlando, Florida. 29 June -- 1 July 2004

The Counterpoise Advisory Board and the Counterpoise Collective are organizing a small post-conference immediately following ALA's 2004 Annual Conference in Orlando. Librarians, publishers, and users are invited to discuss aspects of library service that are under-or over-emphasized, misrepresented, or ignored by mainstream libraries and library organizations. Some sessions may be recorded for publication in Counterpoise.

There is no consensus about a framework for the conference. Some participants may take ALA as a benchmark, considering areas that it avoids or insufficiently addresses. Others may posit the opposite of ALA -- global instead of national vision, library workers and users instead of institutions, democracy instead of administrative hierarchies. Others may ignore ALA altogether and develop independent approaches to issues of acquiring, organizing, storing, and disseminating information and knowledge for use. The conference will be relaxed and informal, with panel discussions and individual presentations that encourage audience participation.

TOPICS:

Specific topics to be addressed are described in the schedule below. Discussion periods may go farther afield. Some members of the Counterpoise Advisory Board and the Counterpoise Collective want to focus on topics close to Counterpoise itself, such as (1) incorporating alternative materials in order to strengthen and diversify collections, and/or to create "fair and balanced" collections, and/or to give shelf space to the underrepresented; (2) providing access to alternative review sources, selection tools, and methods; (3) obtaining collection development assistance from small and independent presses and publishers; (4) supporting progressive agendas with your library collection; (5) evaluating your library's collection for its strengths/weaknesses, and how to use new technologies (like blogs) to aid in expanding avenues of collection development; (6) making library collections more diverse and how Counterpoise can be used to help achieve that goal.

Other members, on the other hand, are interested in more general themes, including ALA itself. One wrote, "Issues such as the nature, content, and diversity of libraries and library collections are related to the ALA. If difficulties exist in getting libraries themselves to provide more shelf space to underrepresented news and views, then what kinds of biases exist within ALA against these publications? Shouldn't constructive criticism of libraries and their collections also include constructive criticism of the major organization to which these institutions belong? To those 'outside' the library world, libraries are bastions of impartiality and neutrality. The biases that exist in television, radio, and print are thought by most to be absent from libraries. For those of us that are somewhat more familiar with libraries, we know this not to be the case. Addressing these kinds of issues and concerns are certainly things we should be talking about at the post-conference."

Other proposed topics include:

* Accountability issues in electronic publishing
* Sweatshop scanning
* Alternative media representation in mainstream databases
* Integrity of electronic media (i.e. revising electronic publications to re-write history)
* Are librarians responsible for collecting alternative materials from the radical right?
* Building and maintaining alternative libraries and infoshops
* Using Counterpoise as a teaching tool in library schools

LOCATION:

The conference will take place in a pleasant, medium-sized hotel two miles north of Convention Center West in Orlando. Participants can either reserve rooms in the conference hotel Tuesday and Wednesday nights or for the entire conference. (For hotel reservations, see below.) The hotel has an AAA 3-diamond rating and is near another hotel served by the ALA conference free bus service. These busses stop running on Tuesday, however. The hotel is located on the "I-Ride Trolley" bus line, which serves the entire area (several miles long) from the Convention Center to the Wet 'n' Wild theme park.. Trolleys run every 20 minutes from 8 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. daily, according to its brochure "(Hours subject to change)." The fare is 75 cents one-way (exact change required); Seniors (Library of Congress take notice: the brochure specifies "seniors," not "aged") 25 cents (over 65); $2.00 for a one-day pass; or $3:00 for a three-day pass.

CONFERENCE ROOM:

The conference room in the hotel (ca. 1000 sq. ft.) accommodates up to 100 people. Seating can be either rounds of tables or classroom style modified into a semi-circle or circle.

SCHEDULE:

Each presentation should be no longer than 15 minutes, in order to allow time for discussion. Subsequent publication in Counterpoise is planned.

Tuesday evening, 29 June 2004

6:00 - 7:30: Registration and refreshments
7:30 - 7:45: Welcome and introductions
7:30 - 9:00: Panel: Sandy Berman, Ken Kister, and Charles
Willett ("The Three Geezers") ruminate about librarianship past and present, followed by discussion.

Wednesday, 30 June

7:00 - 9:00: Continental breakfast at the hotel (registered guests only)
9:00 - 9:45: Tara Overzat presents a comparative study on urban/low-income youth and their library usage, versus that of suburban/higher-income youth.
10:00 - 10:45: Sherry DuPree presents "A Road Map to African-American Resources," covering all subjects.
11:00 - 12:30 Panel: (1) Roberta Y. Rand presents "How to support aggressive agendas with a small budget;" (2) (Speaker to be announced) Civic Media Center & Library, Gainesville, Florida, : "Funding and operating an independent alternative library."
12:30 - 1:00: Lunch break.
1:00 - 2:30: Howard Besser, Chuck "Chuck0" Munson, and possibly another speaker discuss aspects of anarchism and library service.
2:45 - 3:30: Jenna Freedman will give a report back on the Allied Media Conference (18 - 20 June in Bowling Green, OH), including the Symposium on Media Literacy in Education and the Zine Librarians Caucus.
3:45 - 5:00: Open period for discussion and recommendations (consensus process). Has this conference been worthwhile? How could it be improved? Do we want to do it again a year from now or at Midwinter in Boston?
5:00 - 6:00: Break
6:00 - 8:00: Dinner -- Siam Orchid restaurant, 7575 Universal Boulevard, Orlando, FL 32819

Thursday, 1 July

7:00 - 9:00: Continental breakfast at the hotel (registered guests only)

PRESENTERS:

Sandy Berman has recently been elected to honorary membership in the American Library Association -- ALA's highest honor, conferred in recognition of outstanding contributions of lasting importance to libraries and librarianship. He was nominated "for his accomplishments as a cataloging theorist and practitioner and for his commitment to making catalog records accessible to library users. Using subject headings as a tool for social awareness, Berman has had a profound influence on the way librarians think and work."

Howard Besser is a professor at New York University, where he is director of a new master's degree program in Moving Image Archiving and Preservation. Previously he was a professor of information studies at UCLA, where he taught and did research on multimedia, image databases, digital libraries, metadata standards, digital longevity, web design, information literacy, distance learning, intellectual property, and the social and cultural impact of new information technologies. Besser has authored dozens of articles on automation of cultural materials, and he consults widely with libraries, museums, and archives over a wide range of issues, including metadata, digital preservation, and intellectual property."

Sherry DuPree is a professor at Santa Fe Community College in Gainesville and formerly a librarian at SFCC and at the University of Florida.

Jenna Freedman is a reference librarian at Barnard College, New York City. She collects zines and writes one herself.

Kenneth Kister is an authority on reference and information sources and the publishing industry. As a professor of library science at Simmons College in the late 1960s he taught "Intellectual Freedom and Censorship," the first course dedicated to the concept of intellectual freedom in the one-hundred year history of North American library education. He is the author of Eric Moon: the life and times (McFarland, 2002), a history of librarianship in the second half of the 20th century, seen through the life of a man who helped lead the movement to democratize the American Library Association and to reinvent library journalism and publishing.

Chuck "Chuck0" Munson is a radical librarian and infoshop organizer. His websites get millions of hits. See Infoshop and Mutualaid and a new one North American Anarchist. He also edits or co-edits lots of publications.

Tara Overzat is a University of Florida college senior and a two-year Counterpoise intern

Roberta Y. Rand is director at the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science Library, University of Miami.

Charles Willett worked in acquisitions and collection development for 17 years at Harvard, SUNY/Buffalo, and the University of Florida, and served on several ALA committees. For seven years he represented an American academic bookseller, visiting libraries throughout the US, western and central Europe, and South Africa. In 1993 he co-founded the Civic Media Center and Library, Inc., an alternative library in Gainesville, Florida. He is the founding editor of Counterpoise, an alternative review journal, and Librarians at Liberty, a small magazine. He is a past president and currently a state board member of the ACLU of Florida. In previous lives he was a combat rifleman in the Korean War and a diplomat in the US Foreign Service.

HOTEL ACCOMMODATIONS:

We have reserved a small block of rooms for Tuesday and Wednesday nights. Other rooms are available direct from the hotel. Because its rates are much cheaper than the ALA hotels, we are identifying the hotel only to conference participants. It is possible to reserve rooms for the entire period of the ALA conference, or for just Tuesday and/or Wednesday nights. If you would like to stay at the conference hotel, please register as soon as possible. A few rooms (each with two double beds) have been reserved for Tuesday and Wednesday nights at a special advance rate of $53.10 per night (plus 11.5% tax = ca. $60.00/night). The rate includes continental breakfast each morning. When registering for the conference, please specify if you want a room and if you would like to share it with someone else at half-price. When we receive your conference registration check, we will send you information about the hotel. We will assign you one of the reserved rooms, if you wish, or you can contact the hotel directly to make your own reservations (Note: the cheap rate may no longer apply.)

CONFERENCE REGISTRATION FEE:

$35, payable in advance or at registration. The fee includes access to all sessions, and light refreshments Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning and afternoon (Lunch and dinner on Wednesday are extra). Make checks payable to "Counterpoise" and mail them to Counterpoise Post-Conference, 1716 SW Williston Road, Gainesville, FL 32608-4049. For further information phone 352/335-2200 or write to or .

Charles Willett, MLS
Founding Editor, Counterpoise
Founding Editor, Librarians at Liberty
www.counterpoise.info
Co-founder, Civic Media Center and Library, Inc., Gainesville
Exhibitor of alternative press materials at ALA conferences,
representing Counterpoise and the Independent Press Association

"Organizing and acting and educating and building little seeds of things here and there -- like the Civic Media Center, for example -- when you do that, over decades, you can create the basis for a functioning democracy. But we've got a long way to go, a long way to go."
-- Noam Chomsky, speaking to 6,000 people at the University of Florida at an event celebrating the tenth anniversary of the founding of the CMC, 21 October 2003

APPLICATION FORM:

NAME
POSITION / ORGANIZATION
STREET ADDRESS
CITY, STATE, ZIP
PHONE, E-MAIL, WEBSITE
DO YOU NEED A ROOM IN THE CONFERENCE HOTEL?
YES_____ NO_____
WHICH NIGHTS?
DO YOU WANT TO SHARE A ROOM?
CONFERENCE REGISTRATION FEE ENCLOSED: $35.00
SIGNATURE, DATE