I really enjoyed reading ALA Editions author John Blyberg’s post Pragmatism vs. Idealism, which is a continuation of a thread (with links for latecomers) discussing collection development practice. He brings in the idea of ensuring the availability of long tail books as he suggests an intermediate position for libraries. Best bit (IMHO):

“Without provisioning for the popular stuff, you get a lifeless, disembodied tail. Without the tail, you get a Borders.”

John is currently writing The 24-Hour Branch: Library Websites That Connect with Customers, available in the coming year from Editions.

I love starting a work week with a new book delivery. Just arrived are the advance copies of Managing Your Library Construction Project: A Step-by-Step Guide.

As you might imagine, we usually pull author talent from the library profession. Sometimes, though, a topic calls for outside expertise. Such is the case with library construction. For this topic, we’re pleased to have as author Richard C. McCarthy, an experienced architect with numerous library projects to his credit.

Rick did a great job of summarizing his approach and the content coverage in his preface:

In this book I describe the process of a building project. I take the point of view of an architect—but tempered by the fact that, as of this writing, I am serving my eighteenth year as a library trustee. I try to balance these two roles and present you with as objective a view as is possible. We look at methods that can be used by library boards and directors to aid them in selecting, hiring, and working with architects and other design professionals. I cover what you can expect from an architect in terms of services, offer assistance to help you determine what services you need, and provide examples of documents and graphic presentations. Subjects covered include the parts of a typical architectural project, the evaluation of architectural firms, guidelines for interviewing architects, and advice on coping with common problems and procedures during construction. An understanding of the process boosts the chances of a successful project and helps ensure that you get your money’s worth for the professional services for which you pay.

The book is full of information that you definitely didn’t learn in library school or even in more general management training, and yet is critically important to a successful construction project. For example, try making a list of questions to ask the client references your future short-listed architects have provided. I tried it and came up with five or six pretty good ones. Rick lays out seventeen, just for starters:

1. Did the architect provide all the services specified in the contract?
2. During the programming phase, was the data collected efficiently and were the program requirements met in the end product?
3. Did the architect make appropriate use of materials provided by the library building consultant (if any)?
4. Was the architect responsive when you had questions or needed clarifications?
5. Was the architect willing to modify the design when requested to do so by the board?
6. Was the building produced on a budget and in time? If not, was this attributable to the architect?
7. Did change orders during construction increase the cost of the building by a significant amount? If so, were the changes caused by errors or oversights by the architect?
8. Did the architect provide leadership in the design and build process?
9. Were the architect’s budget estimates realistic?
10. Were the architect’s estimates of the time required for construction realistic?
11. Did the architect adequately represent the library in negotiations with civil and municipal authorities?
12. Did the architect adequately represent the library in negotiations with the contractor?
13. Was the architect easy to work with? Did the architect give due attention to your needs?
14. Was the total of the professional fees paid to the architect consistent with what you were led to expect?
15. Do you feel that you received good value for the money you spent for professional services?
16. Is the building, considering necessary compromises, what you wanted?
17. Would you use this architect again?

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I’m not likely to manage a library construction project in my own career, but next time I hire a residential architect, I’m going to use his list, not mine.

ALA’s neighborhood was once called McCormickville because so many of the extended McCormick family owned mansions near Rush and Ohio streets. The patriarch of the family, Cyrus Hall McCormick is honored with a Chicago Tribute Marker kitty corner from ALA. He was an inventor and an astute businessman, an uncommon combination that made him a very rich man. The Omni Hotel now stands on the site, and behind it a concrete municipal building. You can see a photograph of the mansion here in the Indiana University Archives / Digital Library Collection.

I don’t think any McCormick mansions are still standing. You can, however, get a taste of a McCormick mansion interior as well as an outstanding prime rib sandwich lunch special at Lawry’s The Prime Rib.

ALA moved to Junior’s mansion in 1946. Cyrus Hall McCormick, Jr. was no slouch either. He managed and chaired International Harvester a company formed in a merger with his dad’s company. Unfortunately, ALA’s space needs and the disrepair of the mansion forced the demolition of our classy quarters. ALA’s rather unremarkable new headquarters building was dedicated in 1963. ALA occupies the first seven floors of the condo building in the background.

Inside the door at 50 E Huron, outside the Human Resources offices, visitors will see framed tiles. Ernie Martin, a retired ALA staffer salvaged these from the fireplace of the mansion.

In the staff lounge in the basement, poster size photographs show the mansion and one of its renowned features, a circle staircase.

To the left is a photograph that hangs in the Human Resources area, showing what Headquarters looked like in the Fifties.

Last week in Friday Photo, Jenni displayed the promotional billboard for Canyon Ranch Living, a luxury condominium development. Luxury high rises have sprouted around ALA like dandelions on my chemical-free, suburban lawn. I admit to not having visited any of these condos. I know they have huge jacuzzis in marble bathrooms. Still, looking at these photos, especially ol’ Cyrus’s place, I have to say, luxury ain’t what it used to be. At least not here in McCormickville.

Art Plotnik, who hired me at ALA and was my first guide to libraryland, writes me occasionally. His recent e-mail complemented our catalog, commenting on the editorial mugs. Having seen my post on LibraryThing, he asked if I had catalogued his book Spunk & Bite, now in paperback. Yes, I have! The harcover edition. Although it wasn’t in my first handful when I set up the account, I did demo LibraryThing for my wife, who had asked about it, and Spunk & Bite is what I pulled from my shelf.

Corresponding with Art, an author of books on writing, I sometimes feel self-conscious about my flat responses to his elevated expression. So I was heartened to see that he is not above the cheap pun. He writes in Spunk & Bite:

Perceived correctness can be comforting to the reader, like a tidy house. But what distinguishes a piece of writing is the ambiance—the environmental mood—that language can create. That’s why locution, locution, locution is so important to us realtors of the words.

Plotnik defines locution as the use of a word or turning of a phrase in a stylistic manner. As he does throughout the book, he provides examples. “If a thing can be done, why do it?” from Gertrude Stein. The British, queenly locution, “We are not amused,” as an understated way of expressing displeasure. And a curious locution that he claims New Yorkers will recognize: “That terrific woman, which you should have married her!” In the bell-ringer category, he quotes the “jailhouse locution” from Tom Wolfe’s novel A Man in Full.

Look bruvva . . . I ain’t tryin’ a disrespectchoo . . . I ain’t tryin’ a sweatchoo, an’ I ain’t tryin’ a play you. So whatchoo doggin’ me for?

Plotnik admits to doggin’ E.B. White, co-author with William Strunk, Jr., of Elements of Style, but only because “few American locutionists stand taller than White,” yet his advice to writers “concerned itself more with boundaries than White-like flights above rooftops.”

What’s number one in LibraryThing’s Spunk & Bite recommendation machine? Elements of Style, of course. Writers, read them both.

Last night a non-librarian friend of mine was telling me about a project involving streaming video of live music concerts. I asked him what the company plans to do with the concert library. Would customers be able to search for old concerts to view? Had they hired a librarian to create the metadata? “Metadata? Who needs it when you have PodZinger?” he said.

I disabused him of that notion.

But PodZinger, which uses speech recognition technology to “create a text index of the words in audio and video and to categorize content” is nonetheless exciting, because much of what it is indexing wouldn’t otherwise have any sort of index at all.

I lost a significant amount of work from an MS Word file last week, with hide nor hair of an autosaved temp file to be found afterward. Thanks to a tip from our managing editor, Christine, I was able to find the errant file, masquerading as a temp version of a completely different file in a totally random place on my hard drive. So even after at least 10 years as a Word power user, I’m still occasionally attacked by software gremlins, and I still don’t know (or at the very least, I don’t always remember) every trick for navigating the program’s hiccups and oddities.

Even more notorious than Word for its idiosyncracies is Excel, and the program’s sterile functionality puts off more than a few good librarians. Luckily, Tony Greiner and Bob Cooper are here to help with their new book, Analyzing Library Collection Use with Excel. With expertise and a healthy dose of good humor, they walk readers through the process of using Excel to make quick work of library collection use analysis. Starting with the absolute basics and ending with instruction on how to use Excel charts to make your findings really pop in presentations, this book will unquestionably make your job easier. To quote the authors:

Technology has now solved the problem of the cost of collection analysis. By following the procedures in this book, most libraries will be able to analyze their collection in no more than a few days, and perhaps a good deal less. Every library has an acquisitions budget. A use study will help show you where to put it. If you want more money for your library, change your collecting to meet the demand, watch your circulation rise, and a year or two later go to the funders with the numbers. Funders like success.

But the best aspect of the book is Tony and Bob’s approach to the subject. No jargon or techspeak. Just straightforward instruction accompanied by fifty-eight large, easy-to-read screenshots. Be warned, though. After reading this book, you may need to allocate time for fielding your colleagues’ Excel questions…

Our neighborhood has been a busy construction zone for the last five to ten years. No fewer than ten new residential or mixed use high rises are currently under construction within about a five-block radius of ALA HQ. It’s generally exciting, and although my family has been priced out of the neighborhood (hence the upcoming move), overall I’m pleased with the coincident changes.

Not all the changes are happy ones, though. Soon to be torn out during the construction of the incongruously named Canyon Ranch Living high rise across the street from ALA HQ is an outdoor labyrinth located just behind the St. James Cathedral. According to the St. James visitor information page, “labyrinths have been used for centuries as a way to center the mind and heart.” For more information, readers are directed to Veriditas, The Voice of the Labyrinth Movement.

My photo doesn’t do the labyrinth justice. Its placement in a heavily shaded area between the cathedral and the Episcopal Church Center (a 1968 tries-too-hard international style building, also fated for demolition) makes for cool contemplation but lousy photo lighting.

While looking for a better image of the labyrinth on the Veriditas site, I came across this cool Online Finger Meditation Tool. My favorite part? The adjustable inertia level. Now that’s something I could use in my everyday life, especially on a Friday afternoon.

I have been curious about the Google Co-op tool since I first heard about it. I wondered where Google would take it, what they’re up to with this tool. In its earliest implementations they seemed to be angling toward a health information portal, though the tool can be used for any content. I thought about how we at ALA might use it, and put it on my “Someday” list. One thought was to gather up ALA’s various best of the Web picks.

Bill Drew did so with the Reference and User Services Association’s best free reference Web sites. In the past, I have ripped these from the RUSQ journal when I came across one and filed it away at home thinking I would one day bookmark those that might be of future use. Now I can throw that folder away.

Contributing editors of Guide to Reference are selecting free Web sites as well as print and fee-based databases. Editors of Reference Sources for Small and Medium-Sized Libraries have done so with their manuscript in-house. Perhaps these sources could be lumped in with RUSA’s best. ALA’s librarian, Karen Muller, created a Google Co-op search engine Librarian’s E-Library.

Should the Association of Library Service for Children copy their Great Web Sites for Kids into Google Co-op?

Ben Bunnell of Google included Google Co-op Custom Search Engine in his Midwinter 2007 presentation. He suggested Google Co-op custom search engine as an alternative to creating lists of links , citing Real Climate as an example. You can place the search box and results on your Web site and specify or prioritize sites to search. At Real Climate, Google custom search engine is a radio button choice under a standard search box. Another possibility for free content of Guide to Reference.

Working at ALA, I’m always in awe that I can have a conversation with an award-winning author about royalty checks or address confirmations. At times, it is easy to forget that I am rubbing elbows with people at the forefront of the LIS field, until hearing, say something like, Dr. Eliza T. Dresang winning the 2007 Scholastic Library Publishing Award. A co-author of Dynamic Youth Services through Outcome-Based Planning and Evaluation, she has received this honor for her extraordinary contributions in promoting access to books and encouraging a love of reading for lifelong learning. Her Radical Change: Books for Youth in a Digital Age has become a staple of children’s literature curricula; it has directly influenced librarians, teachers, and the children they serve. The award, which consists of a citation and $1,000 prize, will be presented at this year’s Annual, on Tuesday, June 26. Congratulations!

I’m always surprised when people want a tour of ALA HQ. I’ve honestly never worked anywhere that was more architecturally nondescript. Case in point, the ALA Publishing Editorial and Marketing Offices hallway.

Now, the people, of course, are much more interesting, and if the tour were of individual offices, it might fall a bit closer to being worth the price of (free) admission.

One thing that might startle first-time visitors, though, is how few people work here given how much is accomplished. For example, the offices and cubicles of LITA, ALCTS, and LAMA fit along one short hallway.

The real environmental value of working at ALA HQ is actually the stunningly beautiful downtown location. May is especially gorgeous here in the Cathedral District, as dozens upon dozens of streetside planting areas are filled with tulips in full bloom. The photo below is the St. James Cathedral tower just across the street. So next time you are at HQ, I recommend skipping the tour of the offices and asking for a tour of the neighborhood.

This post marks the first in a series of Friday Photos, not of drab hallways but rather of (we hope) interesting shots of ALA people, offices, or scenes from the neighborhood as we offer a glimpse into our work life here at HQ.