The Australian Library Journal

On celebration

John Levett

While preparing copy for this issue, I came across the following amongst the book reviews:

In an age when students taking first degrees in library and information studies readily accept the fallacious assertion from some writers (who should know better) that pre-internet librarians were merely book keepers, there is even more need for our profession to record its own history. Although library history has (like the history of other professional services) largely disappeared from current curricula, and information history has hardly begun to be explored, we do have a responsibility to society at large to record and publish information about ourselves. It is strange that members of a profession which is emphasising its informational role seem reluctant to seek out information on their own professional origins and development. [Edward Reid-Smith, reviewing Dictionary of American library biography. Second supplement. Ed. by Donald G Davis, Jr Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited, 2003. 250p US$60.00 hard ISBN 1563088681]

I had not long finished working on copy for the February issue which was a festschrift celebrating the work and ideas of Margaret Trask, a shaper of the profession who died in November 2002. It was a very substantial issue, and larger than our normal 40 000 words. A number of contributors had chosen to write on a wide range of topics, reflecting the breadth of Margaret's interests. This came about through the initiative of a small handful of friends and admirers. I had not long before written a commissioned obituary [limited to 850 [!] words] for a national newspaper commemorating another giant who had recently left us. That had been preceded by a personal memoir for another colleague, close friend, mentor and deeply missed. Even earlier I had attempted to find someone to write about another quiet achiever who less publicly, but no less valuably had made her contribution to the profession. I failed in this, and as far as I know she passed largely unnoticed.

I have been saying for some time that obituaries pose a distinct problem for ALJ, and therefore for the Association, but the circumstances retailed above suggest that there is no pattern, policy or procedure in place to properly mark the passing of even outstanding colleagues, and by and large it is left to surviving friends or admirers to write the thousand or so words which may appear in inCite. This is admirable and often moving, but it is almost entirely a matter of chance, and in many cases, in a very short space of time, the uncommemorated individual's life, presence, personality, contribution, fade and disappear. Their papers, if they had retained any, vanish, are dispersed or simply discarded: only in a few cases does a collecting institution like the National Library of Australia secure them.

Does this matter? And if it does, what possible solutions exist? Opinions will differ as to whether or not it matters, and since we have not for a long time seen the word 'history' in the curricula of our discipline wherever it is taught, only a minority of us may be moved. But the logical corollary then is that none of our achievements, or the individuals who contributed to them, are worth celebrating or remembering, and if they are worthless after death, then how can we assert a value while they are alive? And if what we do is therefore valueless even in our own eyes, where does that nihilism lead? If we do not record the past, how can we celebrate it? How understand it? How perceive where we presently stand? Readers will have their own views, and are welcome to express them: but let me, since I have the floor for the moment, assert that it does matter, and without memory, and through memory, example, we will condemn ourselves to be broken on the wheel of perpetual reiteration. The end of history is the end of progress, or any notion of it. I do not assert that 'we need a policy on this', policy of itself, imposed from outside the collective consciousness or will, is doomed to failure while those that promulgate it live, and oblivion thereafter. What is needed is a change in the way we choose to live and to regard those who have gone before us: we cannot cling to adolescent attitudes which assert that what has happened before we came on the scene has no meaning for us, and no relevance, as many candidates for office imply in their electoral programs and promises. Life, in any other context than that of a television screen, is more than a succession of sound bites, like it or not. So, if, like me, you think the past, and the contributions of the individuals comprising it are worth recording, look around you, mark those people who you think are giving to their profession and not just marking time or taking from it, and start planning now how you might ensure that that contribution does not pass unmarked, into oblivion. And one day soon, it's just possible that someone will look at your contribution, and start planning...

I referred earlier to our previous issue, the festschrift for Margaret Trask: since its publication I have had several queries about ALJ's policy regarding festschrift issues. At the time I committed the Journal to the sponsors of the Trask festschrift, there was no policy as such, but in view of the interest since its publication it is evident that some guidelines are needed. Here is a draft set for consideration:

The ALJ is an appropriate vehicle for the celebration of any individual's contribution to the aims and objectives of ALIA by way of an obituary, individual articles or a whole issue by way of a festschrift.

Contributions to a festschrift should not be exclusively biographical or in the form of a memoir, but should also address the areas of the discipline in which the individual contribution was made.

The whole or part of any issue of ALJ may be allocated for this purpose, subject to the editor's discretion and pressures on space.

Any copy submitted for publication by way of a festschrift should meet the normal editorial standards of the Journal.

Contributors to a festschrift are not required to be members of ALIA.

The identification of potential contributors and the securing of copy for submission to the editor is a matter for the individual or group sponsoring the festschrift.

The editor will nominate the particular issue in which festschrift contributions are to appear.

In this issue 'The end of history: censorship and libraries' by Australian IFLA president-elect Alex Byrne offers a moving review of the role of libraries in a free and informed society and their vulnerability to censorship in its many guises and camouflage. Laurel Anne Clyde, working from the University of Iceland brings us up to speed on research on school librarianship 1991-2000 in Australia. Virginia Dickson, formerly a hospital-trained RN and more recently a librarian relates the evolution of an information literacy unit in the University of Notre Dame, a topic which Valerie Perrett also addresses from the ANU perspective. Debby Wegener and her library web team colleagues May Goh-Ong Ai Moi and Mae Lim Mei Li offer a frank perspective on how they rejigged their digital library portal in quick time as soon as it was learned that many students were unable to use it to their best advantage. And the usual score or so of book reviews.

Just to hand is a letter from Maurice Saxby which dovetails well with some of the issues touched on in the editorial above. It appears in the letters pages along with an optimistic report of the opening of the new library at Alexandria by Marilyn Segal and Myron Webber. Not many new libraries in the Middle East, I'm afraid.

ALJ and AARL on the web

Ivan Trundle recently wrote to the editors of both ALJ and Academic and Research Libraries regarding ALIA's policy of including the text of both journals on ALIAnet. Ivan's letter is reproduced below for your information and comment.

Dear John and Peter

I've had a query or two (or three) over the past few months over the policy of including full-text materials of ALJ and AARL online.

In particular, there has been reference made to a decline in journal subscriptions based on the full-text being immediately available online. I can't verify these figures on that basis, and I doubt that anyone else could, either: the reasons for a decline in subscriptions cannot be easily determined without more than anecdotal evidence .

The principle behind having the full-text available online and immediately after production was that it was a service to members of the Association and the wider sector, and until we were able to restrict access to full-text to subscribers only (and delay access to others for a period), then it was to be a 'free-for-all'. (note: this is not 'policy', though is something that could be referred to the ALIA Board's Publishing and Editorial Reference Group).

The cost of print production is offset by subscriptions (or, put another way, the subscription revenue pays for the print production), and whilst there is a cost involved in placing material on the web, these costs are borne by the publishing department of ALIA National Office, and are not attributed to the journal in question. I also accept that there are costs involved in production outside of the printing process, and the Association should seek to recover those costs through the subscription process. However, the long and the short of it is that web-based publishing comes with significant cost-savings: I'm sure that you are both aware of the significant costs of putting real ink to paper and the subsequent distribution.

This places me in more than a slight dilemma. We simply don't have the resources yet to restrict online access to subscribers only, and then to the wider public at a later date, primarily because all of ALJ and AARL sit outside of the members-only area of the website. Moving parts in (and then out) would prove to be a significant hurdle to overcome, especially since there are enough subscribers who are NOT members of ALIA (so where does one place the full-text, then?). The logistics of providing direct full-text access to subscribers is, however, on the wish-list of future site developments, but it won't happen in the next 12 months, at least. There is a lot to build prior to this. And a lot of work to be done on our membership database linkages that can enact any subscriber verification - one proposed solution is to restrict access to members-only (non-member subscribers miss out, but non-subscribers who are members would have full access), and that full-text be made available to the wider public only after a pre-determined time. This option is equally difficult to implement, but is also on the possible wish-list.

As an interim message, and in a bid to assuage critics, I propose that ALJ and AARL full-text [online] be restricted to [n] months after publication date, where [n] is either 6 or 12 (or whatever you see fit, in a range of zero to 24). Abstracts and other material (editorials etc) would remain free to all, from date of publication. We have a working production model ready to go, and can readily modify the number of months 'delay' at the drop of a hat, independently for either journal.

Your thoughts on the matter would be appreciated. I'm not fussed either way (I can see valid arguments for free access and restricted access), but the implementation of restrictions proposed above would certainly ease the concerns of the Board.

Ivan Trundle, manager, communications and publishing