LITA Conference: "Outsourcing Intentions"

[Pat Wallace <DENWALL@AOL.COM>]

FORWARD TO ALL  from Pat Wallace  <denwall@aol.com>
Note:  This post is from me acting as an interested student of library
science and was not authorized by any organization or
committee.


The message below from Yvonne Farley was forwarded to me by Chris Dodge, a
cataloger in the Hennepin County Library and
co-editor, with Jan DeSirey, of the Minnesota Social
Responsibility Round Table Newsletter .   Yvonne attended
the joint LITA (Library and Information Technology Association)/LAMA
 (Library Administration and Management Association) Conference in Pittsburg
last October 13-16th and shares some observations from the conference in her
post.

This is from the Sep/Oct MSRRT News:
"Yvonne Farley, reference librarian at Kanawha County Public
Library, has been named West Virginia 'librarian of the year',
winning the state's annual Dora Ruth Parks Award. The editor
of West Virginia Libraries for over ten years, Farley has also
chaired the state library association's Intellectual Freedom
Committee,  served as a judge for the American Film Festival,
and currently sits on the board of the American Friends Service Committee's
West Virginia Economic Justice Project.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
>Date: Tue, 15 Oct 1996
>From: Yvonne Farley <farleyy@wvlc.wvnet.edu>
>To: Chris Dodge
>Subject: LITA Conference: "Outsourcing Intentions"

>Just came from the session on "Outsourcing Relationships and
>Intentions". What an eyeopener it was!!!!  Robert Renaud from >the
University of Arizona said at one point that practically >the whole library
can be outsourced.  Another woman speaker >from Wright State said that the
job of librarians in the future >will be to manage contracts.  Ameritech will
do your >automation, cataloging, acquisitions and reference (via the
>WWW)....  This is THE IDEA being bantered about here. The >vendors are
poised.

>I also have some locations which Ameritech does do now >...school libraries
and so on. Actually, I think this is the >privatization of the public
libraries and academic libraries.
>I believe that unless things change, this will eliminate >library jobs by
the thousands as well as public control over >information. I kept thinking
throughout that this was >"astounding" and that it was bound to come to
libraries. About >the only people who will survive will be the
administrators. >There may be a few souls in public service but more and more
>things are designed to eliminate the "mediation of >services"....they won't
even need ref librarians there to help
>people find things...I also went to a session on the use of >artificial
intelligence in libraries with an emphasis on >reference  questions.  It was
something else.

>One of the speakers was Bart Kane the State Librarian from
>Hawaii.... Most all of the people in the room were >administrators and Bart
Kane got some laughs and applause. >Especially when he said that he had saved
jobs in Hawaii and >that the "employees were grateful for about 24 hours."
 >Everyone applauded and laughed...

>Have to go.          Yvonne

What Yvonne heard at the conference articulates the long-range aspirations of
some vendors to enlarge privatization and outsourcing as the norm rather than
the exception for libraries. Her account serves to make more real
a sense of threat for the future of librarianship implied in efforts such as
those by Bart Kane, head of state libraries in Hawaii.

On Nov. 23rd I asked Yvonne for permission to post her
observations.  On Nov. 25th she replied:

>Pat,
>You certainly have my permission to post this.. Obviously the
>big vendors think it is important enough to begin getting into
>this field of running libraries....When I brought it up >informally among
people at our library conference at the end >of October, I found that many
library directors liked the idea >of outsourcing cataloging and especially
automation. The >smaller rural libraries often do not have enough trained
>personnel or facilities to do cataloging. In West Virginia the >state
library commission has been cataloging books for half >the libraries in the
state...they are called "direct services" >libraries. I could see the state
farming this out to a company.

>I read your posts and have been following this issue [re: >Hawaii] for
several months because I think it is the most >important library issue right
now.

>Later, Yvonne

P.S.  Yvonne said that she does not know where to find any info
in print or on the net from vendors as to their future plans.
Do any of you know of such references?
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