I went to a great brownbag talk today by Professor Katherine Porter (visiting HLS this year from the University of Iowa) on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Because I know this is a topic of interest to many--and because I was already a supporter of CFPB and learned details that made me even more in favor of its success--I'm liberating my notes from their Evernote prison to share here. I'm not cleaning them up much, so be warned they are bullet point-y and there are guaranteed to be typos, mistakes, simplifications, and distortions.

--
Unlike some areas of law, consumer protection affects everyone, because we're all consumers.

CFPB is not about belt and suspenders-style redundant regulating (Colbert) - it's about America having no pants (Elizabeth Warren) (See 5:40 in this clip.)

FTC is a cautionary tale - it too started off with high hopes

Some state regulators wanted to do something about problems they saw - federal regulators said there were no problems, so they couldn't

Banks shop for their regulators - the ones that will make things easiest for them

"Safety and soundness" mission for banks means profit for shareholders rather than good practices/fairness

Purpose of CFPB--though some claim it is a mystery--is right in the statute - focus on markets and access to them (so it's not some socialist thing!), and that those markets are fair, transparent, and competitive

6 Functions of CFPB
1. Financial education - timing (more at point of need), innovation, new appointee coming from Consumer Union
2. Consumer complaints - routing system, tracking disposition of complaints, improved govt responsiveness. Will be expensive, but change to govt being there for ppl instead of in the way
3. Researching market functions - getting, sharing, making data public
4. Supervising compliance -
5. Issuing rules - authority to. Bankers are terrified of abusive aspect added to existing UDAP (Unfair and Deceptive Practices Acts) statutes. They claim it is undefined when it is--but of the terms, deceptive is the one that is undefined! Abusive is defined in statute as materially interfering with consumer understanding or taking unreasonable advantage of consumer lack of understanding, inability to protect their interests, etc. (will prob be similar to 60s-70s unconscionability litigation)
6. "other duties as assigned"

Enforcement authority
CFPB will be able to subpoena/issue c&d letters/conduct hearings/ and sue, selecting fed or state jurisdiction as appropriate. There will be respect for role of state law, but right now no decision on whether to have state/regional offices of CFPB. May work a lot with local attorneys general.

Limitations on power
CFPB will follow normal APA/notice and comment rule making

Exemptions: real estate brokers, home retailers, lawyers practicing law (rather than say debt collecting), those regulated by insurance or fed/state securities regulators, auto dealers. Funny thing: the FTC can still regulate auto dealers and now has all its energy focused on them bc it has lots of free time due to losing power to CFPB

2/3 vote of Financial Stability Oversight Council can set aside a CFPB rule if it puts safety/soundness/stability at risk

In charge of fed consumer law - EFTA, ECOA, FDIC, HOEPA, Truth in Lending/Saving, lots more. Enforcement of consumer protection aspects of these is fragmented under many agencies and will now fall to CFPB. Non-CP provisions of those laws will remain with the other agencies

Draft CFPB Org Chart - Some interesting choices made in where things placed
Chart includes targeted individuals groups - servicemembers, elderly, and students [having dealt with terrible service from one of my lenders, I'm glad to see this group included] are under education, but could have been put in enforcement too
Also notable: central placement of research--in most agencies this function is shunted way off to the side and pretty much ignored

Roughly half of spots filled [I think this means the higher level posts] - CFPB is hiring out of other agencies, politics, academia, and is also v. diverse, because EW wants everyone to feel connected to CFPB.

New CFPB building will be open for tours, lobby education opportunities.

150 employees right now (10% of projected) - they are working on building good organizational culture

Open for suggestions at the CFPB website. They are also on Twitter (@CFPB, and putting up videos about various aspects of the CFPB's work by members of the new staff.

Logo of a shield with clear lettering - hopes to draw on positive feel for law enforcement

This is a quick post on a topic I intend to write about in more detail later.

So, it has long seemed to me that it would be useful to have a library logo. Nothing fancy, but something that we could consistently use on print and electronic materials and eventually perhaps on library swag to indicate that the guide/event/service/etc. is sponsored and provided by the Library and its staff. Sure, we could in theory achieve this by including this detail in the text of a poster or research guide, but something that stands apart and is recognizable at a glance should be even more effective. We're not looking for something to scream, but something simple and elegant. Maybe even just a well-arranged typeface.

Last year we started a small group of design and font geeks to investigate coming up with a logo. We had some great brainstorming sessions--think Mad Men--and it was clear that while we knew exactly the sorts of things we didn't want, what we wanted was harder to express. Despite lots of doodling, none of us had the skills to create anything that realized the vagueness. We discussed doing a contest, but weren't sure how to run it. We also talked about approaching a professional design firm, but were pretty sure they would all be beyond our price range. We had even crazier ideas that I can't talk about. But sometime this summer I googled "logo contest" to see if there were any ideas for guidelines floating around the interwebs. Instead I found a number of companies that basically run contests for you. Bingo! (Quick acknowledgment: we're aware that there is debate in the design community about whether these spec design contests are good for designers.)

After a season of delays for AALL, summer vacations, and fall teaching madness, we launched our contest today, and I'm pleased with how it's going. We had our first entries, including one we quite like, within 90 minutes of going live. The contenders run the gamut of the subject line, with even a few that fall into the latter two categories having some potential. We graded them hard since it's the first day and it's already clear that we should have specified no academic regalia and emphasizing library instead of HLS in our initial design brief, but I feel confident we're going to end up with something good.

Imagine you're at the AALL 2050 Business Meeting in San Francisco, CA:

A librarian no one in 2010 has met, because he hasn't started his career yet, presides as president. After the treasurer's report, it's time to award the president's certificates of recognition. Among those called to the stage: a wizened Jenny Westlaw, honored for 40 years of service to the law library community. As Jenny makes her way to the stage, the librarians spontaneously rise to their feet and give her a standing ovation.

Yeah, right.

I've been trying to figure out something (polite) to say about Ms. Westlaw and her counterpart Johnny since I discovered their existence a couple months ago. (Incidentally, via a site with a url that revealed Thomson Reuters is outsourcing some of their marketing--sloppy, but not a huge surprise.) Since that discovery, the Westlaws have been easy targets for private jokes and mockery.

So here's the thing: the scene described above happened just as I described it this year, except with Cathy Lemann presiding instead of some unknown whipper snapper. And in place of Jenny Westlaw, it was HeinOnline's Dick Spinelli being honored for his 40 years of good work.

And I'm not sure why it took me so long to figure out, but that's when it really struck me: the reason some of us have such a strong negative reaction to Johnny and Jenny is that they are fake people. Characters. Dick is real. And he's got his own, non-scripted personality and has taken time to get to know us over the years, and isn't going to disappear when corporate HQ decides on a different marketing direction.

I like Dick Spinelli. When I visited the Hein booth at SEAALL as a baby librarian, he made me feel welcome and also made it clear that he had a working relationship with my director, mentioning her name without any prompting or guessing. And it's not a problem of old vs. new ways of doing business, because I also like Fastcase's Ed Walters, who let his personal passion for design shine through in the session he spoke at, especially as compared to the more corporate Lexis and Westlaw speakers. I even like my local Lexis and Westlaw reps.

Beyond being merely fake, there's also something a little creepy treehouse about Johnny and Jenny--like we're supposed to pretend it's normal for a legal information vendor to hire actors for us to interact with. (I think I heard that J&J were already Thomson Reuters employees, but the point remains since they're not playing themselves.) I don't know about anyone else, but if that's something I want to do, I'll go to a dinner theater show or visit the Plymouth Colony reenactment, thanks very much. I'm at a loss as to whom they are supposed to appeal to. Maybe students, but definitely not librarians young or old. And I doubt students love them either--they're usually even better than us at detecting fakes.

Sure, it's harder for Westlaw as an entity to connect with us because it's part of a giant corporation. Giant corporations like to be uniform and careful about their public presences, which often results in bland, personality-free communications. No surprise, but I'd rather have bland than fake.

I had a boss in my pre-library life who used to stress to the account reps that ours was a relationship business, not a transaction business. I've come to believe that outlook is valuable across many fields, including our own. I'd bet Spinelli and Walters might even agree with it. Unfortunately for Westlaw, it's pretty hard to have a relationship with a fake person.

So, how about that annual meeting? Law librarians have been talking, just a little. Here's the recap, followed by my two cents:

• Caren Biberman: Some thoughts on Programming at the AALL Annual Conference
• Mark Gediman: A Modest Proposal on Programming at AALL
• Caren Biberman: Dream Big or Comments on “A “Modest Proposal on Programming at AALL” and the Report of the AALL Annual Meeting Review Special Committee
• Mark Gediman: Programming at AALL – A Modest Follow-Up…
• Nina Platt: My Experience in Participating in the AALL Programming Process or AALL Educational Programming Needs to go Back to School
• Jason Eiseman: A defense of AALL (sort of)
• Tracy Thompson-Przylucki: AALL Conference - How About a "Less is More" Approach?
• Tom Boone: Three suggestions for improving AALL program selection
• AALL: Annual meeting program planning – FAQs July 2010
• Richard Leiter: Time for change at AALL?

First, an observation: as I mentioned on Twitter after the first couple posts in the list above, I'm not entirely happy with the AALL annual meeting--content, process, and format--so I'm amused by the implication that we academic librarians love it just as it is. I know there's a longstanding assumption that AALL is academic biased, but that doesn't mean we don't have just as many suggestions on how the meeting could be better.

How many times have you heard someone say (or said yourself) the best parts of the meeting happen between sessions or after hours? After attending the meeting for just a few year (Denver will be my fifth), I know I was saying it as early as after my second meeting. And we usually say it like it's a good thing, although there is an element of putting down the programming sometimes.

I'm not going to say much about the content of programs other than to say I've been to good and bad sessions that have been both targeted and for general audiences. Some of the best programs I've attended have been those not in my general area of interest (if you go by my job description), or those that might appear frivolous (the fabulous program last year about comic books). So I'm not sure that changing the focusing or targeting will do much to improve the programs. My biggest complaint about the content has to do with accuracy in labeling of beginner, intermediate, and advanced levels, and wanting more intermediate and advanced programming--something I know is being worked on.

The process of proposing and coordinating programs is getting closer to where my concern is. First, proposals have typically been due within weeks of the previous meeting. The proposal deadline was pushed back this year, which is great, but not enough. Information, technology, and library trends are changing too rapidly to have the entire program save a handful of hot topics decided on so far in advance. When I go to a session, I want to hear more of what people are working on this year, and less about what they did last year.

The process also feels mired in a time when we relied on post office and the AMPC members meeting live to discuss it. It wasn't easy to distribute proposals to more than a handful of people. But that hasn't been the case in a long time. AALL did a great job of explaining the rating and weighting process in the program planning FAQ, but it's time to have more content decided on by direct vote of members. Others have mentioned and I have long (well, okay, two years) been a proponent of doing the selecting for, say, half the sessions by a system like SXSW's panel picker. Are there sound alike sessions? Let us decide which one sounds better. Are there trends or topics that the 7-member committee is missing? Let the membership find them. That said, if people are unhappy now, it might be complete chaos if AMPC didn't exist to provide some checks, but the balance in the process could nevetheless be shifted a few more notches from oligarchy toward democracy without danger.

The format of the meeting is where most of my concern is. Those in-the-hallway, between-sessions, after-hours moments when solutions are shared and new ideas are sparked? Let's figure out a way to have more of those during the meeting.

The majority of AALL presentations fall into the broadcast format: many people listening to one person or panel for the majority of the session, followed by a small question and answer period, but not much interaction among the attendees. I've seen intra-audience interaction happen during both main and feedback segments of programs, but it's rare.

If we're all going to the trouble and expense of getting ourselves together, wouldn't it be great if we could find more ways to facilitate more generative programs? Check Roger Martin's definition of generative meetings:

a meeting designed for the participants to generate through the dialogue something that didn't exist before the meeting and wouldn't come into existence except through the dialogue. Generative meetings have always been extremely valuable because, in a sense, they generate new intellectual property that comes about because of the real-time interplay between the minds of intelligent people.

That sounds a little like Lawberry Camp, doesn't it? The Camp is happening again this year, but I was disappointed when AALL decided not to accept it as an official workshop. Sure, the explanation that workshops require measurable learningoutcomes makes sense rationally, but "learning outcome" is not the only valuable outcome. I appreciate the statement that the association believes the unconference and PLL summit should be held and supported, but as a member of the sponsoring SIS on the former, it didn't feel supportive when we heard how the program was accepted--especially when there was a snafu that initially led to it not getting a room assignment on the schedule or the requested AV equipment.

What would I most like to see change in the annual meeting? More open and practical support of non-traditional programming. Not just Lawberry Camp, but unconference sessions in other programming slots. More variety and creativity in formats. To toot the CS-SIS horn again, sessions like the Cool Tools Cafe that got people moving around the entire room. I'm not sure about everything that needs to change to make that happen, but I do know we need more support from AALL/AMPC and a willingness to be flexible on what constitutes an outcome. On the other side, maybe we need to do stuff like encourage Sarah and Jason to list outcomes from previous instances of Lawberry Camp as potential learning outcomes, or focus on the types of problems that attendees can expect to work on solving.

Here's what I don't want to happen: new, creative, innovative sessions just stacked on the existing, already overflowing program schedule to compete with the main stage(s). Like Tracy said, less is more. Many people are overbooked already. I'd love to see the dominant but deprecated broadcast format give up some space to opportunities to generate new ideas, solve problems, build relationships, and make the annual meeting a must-attend event. Here's Roger Martin again:

most meetings are still run on the tried-and-true broadcast platform and that is why the majority of people think that meetings are generally a waste of time. They don't have to be, but they generally are.

Need evidence that law librarians love generativity? Don't listen to the haters; check out the thriving law librarian community and conversations--serious as often as silly--that happen on Twitter.

Klingons do not procrastinate. It is a tactical delay.
--Lt Commander Worf

It's January 31st. A full month into the year. A bit late, in other words, to be posting about New Year's resolutions, or plans, or whatever you prefer to call them. Yet there is a benefit to the delay in that I can report on progress so far.

What I did post to Twitter and FB on January 1 was this: #in2010 I will run a half-marathon, read 40 bks, & stick to a budget. Also: knit a lot, librate a lot, entertain cats a lot, etc.

The second half was a silly statement of the obvious. As for the first three:

I will run a half-marathon...
Running is the area in which I have been slacking the most, given my motivation to run in the dark is almost zero and my usual path spends most of the winter unevenly snowed over. However, I have joined a gym and engaged in a few sessions of that strange activity known as cross-training. Once it gets lighter out, I'll get back into the swing of things. Last year I ran my first 10k in October after beginning running seriously for the first time (successfully) in August. (I have a long pent up future post about how much I used to hate running and how shocking it is that I've come to love it.)

Given how unlikely I once thought it even this time last year that I would ever run more than about 3 miles at a time, I'm confident that I'll meet this goal. The real challenge may be selecting the course. I have been thinking about the Valley of Fire half, since I enjoyed visiting that state park last year, but I am beginning to come to my senses about the hilliness of the course and will probably choose one flatter and closer to home.

Read 40 books...
I may need to increase this one, as I finished my eighth book of the year today (with only one of these having been started in 2009). Granted, two of them were short (Michael Pollan's Food Rules is more a pamphlet in book form), but it's great to have some momentum going. Part of it stems from digging right into the pile of free and nearly free books I picked up at ALA Midwinter. Quite a lot of the books over the next couple months will be for the history of Boston course I'm taking, but I'm hoping to slip in some purely fun reads as well.

Stick to a budget...

This is another one where I have fallen off the wagon, and need to get back on. The only major debt is my library school loan, puny by some standards, but I'd like to start saving more than I am. The only way I've ever been successful at that is keeping track of spending, so I'm planning to spend some time researching budget software for Macs.

As for knitting, entertaining the cats, and generally being a librarian stereotype...
..those are all falling into place with no trouble. Imagine that.

Well, it's been longer than I thought. August? Wow. Anyone still reading?

I just got a pile of new books visiting the exhibit hall at ALA's Midwinter meeting yesterday. I have not been to ALA before, nor had any desire too since I was a wee baby library student (chiefly because it's SO GINORMOUS compared to cozy AALL), but I had a great time. I even had one vaguely work-related conversation, as a vendor tried to sell me on a book that reminded him of A Civil Action. He's going to mail me a copy. It sounds fascinating, and I can't wait to add it to the pile--and pass it along/recommend for purchase if appropriate!

So, the point of this post is to report belatedly on 2009's reads before 2010 gets much further along. Last year I was inspired by Tom Boone's 2008 resolution to read 52 books in a year. Having similarly fallen out of the habit of regular lengthy reading (even before grad school in my case), I made that resolution for myself for 2009. My attempt began strong, faltered in the spring, and picked up steam again in the fall. I knew I wasn't going to complete the challenge, and would have been very happy to have finished 40. I came in at 30 and a half, and I'm not disappointed.

Along with some brief thoughts on them, my 2009 reads were (in approximate chronological order):

The Lady Elizabeth: A Novel by Alison Weir
Well-told historical fiction (and first novel) by one of Elizabeth's most popular biographers. I'm looking forward to the sequel. I learned later in the year that I agree with critics who claim Weir infers far too much in her non-fiction, but her writing is clear and compelling regardless of genre, so she makes a good novelist.

Innocent Traitor: a Novel of Lady Jane Grey by Alison Weir
Since I loved the previous book, I wanted more of Weir's take on the Tudors, even though I'd read enough about Grey in the past to know going in that this would be sad and depressing, as it certainly was.

Dreams from My Father by Barack Obama
The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama
Pre-inauguration, I thought I should do some reading about the new president. Dreams was as brilliant as I expected. Audacity, alas, was merely a campaign book.

Blindspot by Jane Kamensky and Jill Lepore
I was excited about this one when I started it: it's written by local authors and I got a pre-signed copy at a local bookstore. It began as a great romp, but the prose got increasingly sensational and unbelievable and ended an absurd shade of purple. I've been unable to sell it on Amazon for some reason, so if anyone would like to take it off my hands despite this review, please let me know and I will be happy to mail it to you!

Sandra Day O'Connor: How the First Woman on the Supreme Court Became Its Most Influential Justice by Joan Biskupic
Another signed-by-the-author volume, this one much more satisfying. Purchased at AALL2007.

The Tribe of the Tiger by Elizabeth Marshall Thomas
More about big cats than I expected, but interesting reading about the psychology of cats of all sizes.

The Lace Reader by Brunonia Berry
Another locally authored and set book. Alas, way too much mystical woo-woo for my taste and I barely finished it.

Rules for Radicals by Saul Alinsky
I've had this lying around since it was recommended during the 2004 presidential campaign. An interesting study of power and how to shift it, especially reading it so soon after The Audacity of Hope.

Everything is Miscellaneous by David Weinberger
A re-read, before David addressed our library staff. In the unlikely event I ever teach a course in librarianship, it will be required reading.

Bet Me by Jennifer Crusie
Not my usual genre,but I enjoyed a co-authored Crusie I read for a friend's book club a couple years ago. This one was also fun. If she weren't a successful romance novelist, Crusie could make a good living as a food writer.

The River King by Alice Hoffman
I don't tend to care for Hoffman, so I'm not sure why I read this one. Oh yeah, a book club.

Snowcrash by Neal Stephenson
I got around to re-starting and finally finishing the book frequently cited as an inspiration for Second Life. Pretty good.

The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters
Waters got everything just right in this eerie novel about the British class system post-WW2. It would probably seem even more brilliant if I were British.

Angels and Ages: a Short Book about Darwin, Lincoln, and Modern Life by Adam Gopnik
Gopnik had the interesting idea of a dual exploration of the lives of Darwin and Lincoln, who were born on the same day. Some good insights, although Gopnik annoyed me on a few points as well.

Catching the Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human by Richard Wrangham
If you liked the Omnivore's Dilemma, you'll probably like this. (And if you're a raw foodist, you'll hate it.) A great blend of food science, biology, evolution, and anthropology.

The Difference Engine by William Gibson & Bruce Sterling
This one is cited as the progenitor of the Steampunk genre. I wanted to love it, but it got a resounding "meh." It was obvious that it was co-authored and the story totally broke down in the last third.

Ahead of Her Time: A Sampler of the Life and Thought of Mary Wollstonecraft edited by Ella Mazel
A short volume I picked up from my library. Mixed with some brief biographical notes, it was indeed a good introduction to the early feminist.

Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
Such fun! I need to read more Neil Gaiman.

The Singing House by Janette Griffiths
I discovered this tale of Wagner fans and singers because its author and I were listening to and commenting to one of the Ring cycle operas at the same time on Twitter. No joke. A charming story that I'm really glad Janette mentioned!

The Road by Cormac McCarthy
How many books do you read where every word is perfect? Not many. This is one. A heartbreaking masterpiece. I might even read more McCarthy at some point, although I suspect most of his work is too grisly and bleak for me. Despite the bleak setting, this one was not.

Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superatheletes, and the Greatest Race the World has Never Seen by Christopher McDougall
A little adventure, a little sports, and a little science woven with great stories and characters who sound too outrageous to really exist, but do. So much fun, I suspect even non-runners would enjoy it.

Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World by Vicki Myron
A sweet short tale about a library cat is buried among the story of the author's not very interesting personal troubles and repeated conviction that small town people are better than everyone else because they're so humble. Yuck.

March by Geraldine Brooks
March a Pulitzer and the topic was intriguing, but turned out to be the worst book I read all year. Mr. March of Little Women fame is revealed to be a craven coward who keeps meeting up in unlikely ways with his first love, a biracial slave woman who is a paragon of culture, literacy, medical talent, selflessness, and unlikelihood. Dear Geraldine Brooks: what did Louisa May Alcott ever do to you? Dear Pulitzer Committee: srsly?

Carrie by Stephen King
The only other King I'd read was the Hearts in Atlantis short story collection, which I didn't especially care for--partially because there was a tie-in to the Dark Tower series, which I hadn't read and thus found annoying. Carrie, however, was excellent, despite my general distaste for supernatural elements and my mostly knowing the whole story despite not having seen the whole movie. (Thanks, pop culture world.) I hadn't expected the faux primary sources interspersed with the story. Nice touch.

Eleanor of Aquitaine by Alison Weir
I'd been wanting to read a proper bio of Eleanor for years--or at least as proper as is possible given the paucity of primary sources for her life. Weir did a great job reconstructing, though as mentioned above, she frequently uses far too authoritative a tone in her guesses about her subjects' feelings and motivations.

Candy Freak: A Journey through the Chocolate Underbelly of America by Steve Almond
Omnomnomnom. I expected an inside view of the candy industry. I didn't expect the history and inside view of some remaining mom-n-pop candy producers from around the country. Fascinating...and will make your sweet tooth go out of control, especially if you can find the candies he mentions. Lucky for me, Lake Champlain chocolates are all over the place in New England.

Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation by Tim Brown
Brown does give lots of examples of how design thinking works in different types of projects. Recommended reading for librarians who are thinking about designing or redesigning resources or services.

Are You Somebody?: The Accidental Memoir of a Dublin Woman by Nuala O'Faolain
A sometimes hard to read personal memoir that was recommended to me by a law librarian last October. Although so much of it is specific to O'Faolain's experiences, it was still a fascinating look into an Ireland my mother might have experienced had she stayed there instead of emigrating as a young child.

The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan
Fun YA novel that is unavoidably reminiscent of Harry Potter due to the supernatural powers, trio of heroes, and special school. Still: fun. I didn't know when I started it that it's being made into a movie, but I'm looking forward to it.

Sense & Sensibility by Jane Austen (started; finished in 2010)
I decided to read this one finally after re-watching the Emma Thompson movie for the umpteenth time. Typical witty Austen, and Elinor and Marianne continue to remind me of my sister and me. I will leave it as an exercise for my reader to figure out who is whom, but anyone who knows us both will get it right.


As you can see, there were quite a few I disliked. What were my favorites? Born to Run and The Road, with Catching the Fire a close runner-up to BtR in the non-fiction category and Sense & Sensibility and Neverwhere as runners up to The Road in fiction.

I read Catching the Fire, The Little Stranger, and the Lightning Thief on the Kindle app on my iPhone, which I love. The only reason I didn't read more things on it is that I frequently find the books I want to read either aren't available for Kindle or cost as much or more than the print versions, which is ridiculous. I also joined Paperback Swap this year on my sister's recommendation, and it is also awesome.

In 2010, I plan to read 40 books and do some other things. More on that soon.

Yesterday there was uproar in the law library community over this charming ad Westlaw sent to some of its subscribers:


Yes, I agree. It's insulting and offensive. But beyond the outrage, I'd love to see it lead to more discussion of the positive things we as law librarians are going to do to change things so that next time a major legal publisher makes such a blunder, we all just laugh it off. And more important than discussion, action. What do we, the legal information experts, do to take more control of legal information back from vendors?

Do we start at home, encouraging our in-house reviews and journals to publish in accordance with the Durham Statement (have you signed yet?): commiting "to keep the electronic versions available in stable, open, digital formats"?

Do we continue to advocate for better and easier access to government information that ought to be free anyway? How many law librarians have signed the Improve PACER petition yet? There are definitely more than 682 of us.

Do we get more active finding creative ways around such shortcomings, like creating RECAP?

Do we help come up with more tools like handy LibX, the brainchild of a Virginia Tech librarian collaborating with a VT computer science professor?

Do we go continue to call for better user interfaces from vendors? How about going beyond critiquing the vendors to become expert interface designers on our own, making more useful library websites, less sucky OPACs, and engaging institutional or regional repositories?

Do we support our local legal information institutes and figure out ways to make them even better for research?

There's obviously not any set answer here, just lots of possibilities we need to get serious about exploring and implementing so we don't have any reason to get freaked out next time a vendor encourages users to make an end-run around us.

I'm not big on sports metaphors, but in his AALL 2009 keynote, Jonathan Zittrain mentioned the concept of library defense. Even I know enough about sports to know that you can't win only playing defense. So what's our offense?

While I was in D.C., a library director whom I'd just met wondered why there weren't more younger people at the Academic Law Library of 2015 workshop. I didn't have a ready answer, and I've been thinking about it ever since. There were actually a number of reasons.

First, I confess that my (possibly superficial) impression of the pre-workshop listserv discussion was that many of the issues on it were things that had been hashed and rehashed for years with little action. No thanks. (I have subsequently heard good things about the workshop, so I'm happy my impression was incorrect or that the listserv didn't otherwise accurately preview the workshop.)

My other personal issue with getting to the workshop was working with a shortened travel schedule, because I also went to CALI. The best I could do with that was get to D.C. in time for the late morning CONELL exhibit hall.

Finally, and perhaps most important, I've only now noticed in the workshop description that the target audience is listed as "academic law library senior managers." This does not describe me, nor many of my most talented peers--future directors and AALL presidents certainly among them. Granted, 2015 is not far in the future and there are some young-ish librarians that fit that description, but if one is really interested in the future of libraries, one should make sure that ALL the librarians who will be making and living it are invited.

...

I'm aware there was also some to-do about where the young law librarians were at the business meeting and member forum during the conference. (I'd been planning to go but didn't, because I ended up working the Gen X / Gen Y Caucus booth. Oh, irony.) I do think it takes a few years to figure out the association and gain a level of interest to support attending the business meeting. I went to part of one my first year (and haven't been back since), and it wasn't really clear to me that I was supposed to be there, to be honest. I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in having had that experience.

Meanwhile, what I'd like to know is, where are the older law librarians showing an interest in the younger generation? Yes, quite a number support CONELL, but that's for newer librarians, not necessarily younger ones. Bob Oakley was a marvelous supporter of the Gen X / Gen Y Caucus from its first meeting, and I think of him fondly every year during our meeting. Jim Milles attended last year. This year, board member Chris Graesser attended our meeting (and witnessed our first election), and president Catherine Lemann joined her for our social. I may be missing some stealth boomers, but that's not very many.

Like the business meeting, Caucus meetings and socials are open to all law librarians. The former is now a must on my agenda for next year. I sincerely hope there will be some more generational cross-over in the other direction too.

Three years ago this month, I went to my first day of work as a law librarian, then headed the next day to my first AALL.

I've always appreciated that my anniversary in the profession coincides with the annual meeting; it's a nice chance to reflect on my career so far. Not going to navel gaze here, but suffice to say I am satisfied, and looking forward to many more years of gentle law librating.

There are a few things, however, that stand out.

Before I became a librarian, I had an absolute dread of networking. The thought of it made my skin crawl. So I was surprised to find that it wasn't actually so bad when law librarians were involved. In fact, I didn't really mind it at all, and it's only gotten better from there. I think it helped a lot that the CONELL committee does such a great job of helping newbies get started.

The other thing that helped early on was walking into my first (the first, in fact) meeting of the Gen X / Gen Y Caucus. It feels incredibly corny to say, but it was a thrill to walk into a room with about a hundred people my age who were just as excited to be law librarians as I was. (I suspect part of the excitement was that I didn't really know anyone in library school let alone anyone younger who was also interested in law librarianship.) The first thing we did was re-arrange all the chairs in the room into an enormous circle. It was great. That was a highlight, but my whole first annual meeting made me feel like I'd found my people.

Fast forward three years to my fourth annual meeting. I got to work the CS-SIS booth at CONELL's exhibit hall this time. It was worth getting up for the early flight. I met a lot of the cool new people and began to feel more like an old conference pro. Someone handed me a slip with the URL to sign up for the mentoring program, and I think suggested I do so as a mentor. I guess I'm really not a newbie anymore.

Meanwhile, I've been on the Gen X / Gen Y social planning committee for three years, and this year's event was mind-blowing. We made a reservation for 20; I counted at least 53 people at one point. Yeah. It's just one indication of the group's success. We're taking all necessary steps toward becoming an SIS. Our members represent on SIS and chapter boards, and on national committees; and present multiple times at conferences. They're also behind creative new things like the first annual Lawberry Camp. (Got ideas for next year? Help with the proposal.) I have a lot of loyalties within the association, but ask me which group I'm most proud of, and it's the Caucus.

In addition all that, I've made some really amazing friends in the profession, especially over the past year or so. People I like to think I'd be friends with if we met outside of the law library sphere. I've found not only my people, but my pack.

Two other mentionable-but-not-really-related highlights:

• This year's opening even in the halls of the Library of Congress was phenomenal. The mild thunder and lightning storm added a little locked-in-the-library magic to the evening. As I commented elsewhere, it's a shame the place isn't more portable, because it sure beats convention halls and hotel ballrooms.
• CS-SIS karaoke outing. Last year when I went for the first time, there were fewer than a dozen people and it was fun, but low key. This year? I'm not sure what happened (nor which year was more unusual), but there were over 70 people. And since Connie Crosby has video anyway, I'm just going to say it: looking out into a room full of law librarians and realizing that everyone else was also belting "Don't Stop Believin'" is something I'll never forget. Though perhaps I should. :)

And with this post, I hope to get blogging here a little more often. I've been waiting till I get around to switching to WordPress, then Tom Boone and Jason Eiseman convinced me at CALIcon that I too can handle Drupal--but I'm unlikely to make any kind of platform switch until I get a new computer this fall.

On April 4, I attended The Yale Internet and Society Project's Library 2.0 Symposium. (Side note: it was ridiculously exciting, as a recent escapee from south Florida, to go to an event in another state and be able to drive there in less than six hours.)

Aside from transcription, formatting, and adding some links, these notes are presented as I took them - i.e., uncleaned up, sometimes random or unclear, and I've probably gotten a few things wrong or otherwise misrepresented them. My personal comments and observations are in brackets.

It was quite a good conference overall, but I felt some professional frustration in that the presenters with the more traditional library careers tended to be the ones who felt least current and relevant to me, while the non- (and wannabe) librarians seemed to "get it" much more--that fear of technology is so old hat it doesn't need to be restated in detail, that we need to embrace change, stand up for ourselves and our institutions, and get involved in our communities. There were definitely some exceptions, but that was my general impression.

Welcome

Conference materials will appear on these websites:

• http://isp.law.yale.edu
• http://yaleispblog.net
• http://www.flickr.com/photos/37029140@N05/
• hashtag: #lib20
• Videos will be posted after the conference

Since it’s a digital conference, they created a video to open the day in lieu of formal opening remarks:

Panel 1

Josh Greenberg, Director of Digital Strategy and Scholarship, New York Public Library

• How do we digitize librarians and their experiences?
• Example of Jessica Pigza’s craft blog – started virally with no public link, worked with Design Sponge. Craft book exhibit eventually brought 400 ppl to NYPL exhibit, Flickr group created.
• Important themes: IP, changing role of libs, third-party sites
• Red tape involved to get out and do lib work where ppl are
• No lit yet on personal/professional blogging and tweeting and public’s perception of this fuzzy line

John Palfrey, Professor of Law and Vice Dean, Library and Information Resources, Harvard Law School

• 3 criteria of DNs: age, access, skills
• 100% of DNs start with Google then Wikipedia. Some cut and paste; others savvy skeptics.
• News currency: first step grazing; second step going to deeper to blogs; third step smaller group here re-blogs, creates own content
• We need to experiment; pick out what works
• Faculty: some sad about changes; others think we’re not changing fast enough
• Empirical research support
• What materials do we all just provide access to for everyone
• What about unique things?
• Collaborative collecting
• Need to share info about coll. stuff
• Services: moving from cathedral to bazaar model
• Young ppl and fac work in bazaar model – we need to be bazaar guides instead of high priests

Questions

• Q for JP: HLSL in ten years? A: Multi-faceted issue. Unique materials, BD materials, open access, Cohen fellowship – but we can’t do it all
• JG: tension between individual and institutional voices
• Q for JP: hurdles that need to be overcome? A: Local and IP hurdles, fac find OA procedures annoying, implementation is hard, publishing cycle needs to be broken, must be sure about preservation and commitment to archives, collective action opportunity rather than collective action problem. Crucial to push fair use boundaries: use it or lose it. [last sentence echoes in Twitter]

Ann Wolpert, Director of Libraries, MIT

• Books are mature tech; JP’s students aren’t reading books/extended arguments [Twittering law libs don’t think this is a problem]
• MIT fac discussion – committee formed after HU’s OA decision
• Fac view lib as what’s in front of them – each fac sure other disciplines work same way as theirs
• “so sue me” model of using fac’s own work – until they discovered open courseware site was gutted of copyrighted materials.
• Death Star of vendor consolidation [this reference was popular throughout the day]

Charles Cronin, Visiting Fellow, Yale Information Society Project

• An optimist, not a futurist
• Woolf quote about two types of readers
• 40 year crisis in pub libs; popular materials – piano rolls, films
• Problem: ppl not using libs for info [again, some Twittering law libs don’t think this is the problem]
• We need digital Carnegies

More Questions

• JG: paradigm shift needed – model of licensing to higher ed/businesses must be broken
• Questioner notes JP was the only person to mention special collections
• Question for JP: libraries in sky with bazaar at each individual school – how do ABA accreditation stds affect ability to change/re-org? A: JP worried no one will follow us in OA; hubris keeps us from collaborating – we need to stop competing on size of collections and start competing on how well we collaborate [good response to this on Twitter]

Panel 2

Mary Alice Baish, American Association of Law Libraries

• She’s not as cynical as she was a few years ago. Everyone seems to figure out answer to this before she says Obama
• Transparency pledge [do we need one from libraries?]
• Open govt directive: it should be transparent, participatory, collaborative (core principles of democracy [and maybe libraries?])
• Govt responsibility for e-lifecycle mgmt of docs: creation, metadata, version control, official status, citation, authentication, permanent accessibility
• EPA example – digitization without standards = bad
• Change of culture after re-opening of EPA libraries – all about community [this should be underlined three times]

Michael Zimmer, Assistant Professor, School of Information Studies, University of Wisconsin Milwaukee

• Postman on Faustian bargain with technology
• Long tail
• [can libs really see FB data from those who fan their pages as opposed to friend them personally? I think not.]
• Proposes best practices for Library 2.0
• [Faustian bargain with tech can't be as bad as the deal we've got with vendors, can it?]

Ted Striphas, Assistant Professor of Media & Cultural Studies; Director of Film & Media, Indiana University Department of Communication and Culture

• Focus on booklike aspects of Kindle obscure the ways it attempts to go beyond books
• Why is Kindle always marketed displayed with books/paper materials?
• Book recommendation: Gary Hull, Digitize This Book
• Commodification of audience labor - Kindle users are a mass, unsuspecting focus group

Jessamyn West, Community Technologist, Librarian, and Blogger

• Her slides at http://librarian.net/talks/yale2009
• Ppl who need egovt have the least access
• 2.0 can feel like the anti-local
• Michael Pollan variation: “Use the Internet. Not too much. Mostly _____.” What’s the _____? [I propose Twitter in jest; Tom Bruce proposes lolcats; Stephanie Davidson proposes "read information. Not too much. Mostly non-commercial" which I really like.]
• [Everyone laughed at the picture of Jessamyn’s library building, which I thought was no more laughable than Langdell. Small cottage, big stone temple: both very traditional.]

Jonathan Zittrain, Professor of Law, Harvard Law School

• Was at 1999 ARL and OCLC joint meeting in Colorado – sensed fear
• Library definitions, noun - pooling arrangement to deal with scarcity, first sale doctrine, organized piracy
• Notes JP’s use of lib as verb [my notes unclear here]
• Talks abt “consumption of knowledge.” Is knowledge gone when you consume it? What comes out the other end? A: We call that scholarship
• Project Gutenberg – what a crazy idea to just start typing in books
• Mentions .sig of Michael Hart (of PG)
• Boldness of Google Books – why aren’t libraries doing this??
• Perfect is the enemy of the good [this echoes through Twitter] [why does JZ get what many librarians don’t?]
• Makes fun of WAX [Harvard's web archiving system]
  

Panel 3

Laura Gassaway, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Professor of Law, University of North Carolina School of Law

• History of copyright act

Jonathan Band, Technology and Law Consultant

• Proposes Fair Use Legal Defense Fund and notes EFF and other orgs already do some of this work

Denise Troll Covey, Principal Librarian for Special Projects, Carnegie Mellon University Libraries

• Book recommendation: Corynne McSherry, Who Owns Academic Work?
• Libraries should exercise and foster civil disobedience and moral courage

Kenneth Crews, Director of Copyright Advisory Office, Columbia University

• Balance is impossible so throw it out and do good stuff
• Copyright is a social interface – law is abt ppl
• Awkward social relationship with copyright
• Private responses and structural responses
• Creative commons – Google Books
• Remember that Google Books settlement is only about books
• Fragmentation in the future of books, readers, publishers, libraries
• New libraries: [need to get text of this slide in full] Expanding universe of… Supernova… Ecology… Gatekeeper… Appeasers… Apologists…

Panel 4

Jeff Cunard, Partner, Debovoise & Plimpton

• Overview of Google Books settlement

Guy Pessach, Lecturer, Faculty of Law, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

• Digital archives in Europe

Frank Pasquale, Visiting Professor of Law, Yale Law School

• Similarity between private health insurers and Google. Google as middleman
• Mentions Darnton’s On the Media appearance last week discussing “cocaine pricing” of info
• Book recommendation: Jessica Lipman, Digital Copyright
• [try to find his slides – a unique and interesting take, but my brain was full]

Brewster Kahle, Digital librarian and co-founder of the Internet Archive

• Discusses problems in MIT’s making available digital copy of 1964 book Libraries of the Future by J. Licklider – which had been published by MIT.
• Orphaned works
• We’re very close to universal access to knowledge – let’s not stumble now.
• Book recommendation: Terry Fisher, Promises to Keep</li>
• Google gets libraries to work against each other with non-disclosure [sounds like Westlaw]

Concluding remarks

Yale’s Librarians on Parade movie was played

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_eGdSp47Uw&hl=en&fs=1]

Where are we moving books and libraries to now?