meeting minutes -- ALA Annual Conference 2006

Submitted by jenna on Sat, 08/19/2006 - 12:51pm

Radical Reference meeting
June 24, 2006
Iron Rail Infoshop, New Orleans

Introductions
Present: Kate, Dena, Julie, Eric, Radym, Ellen, Jeanelle, Laura, Jenna, Liz, Michelle, Sean, Maggie, Sonia, Greg, Beth, Kat, Laurie, Erin, Robb, James, Jonathan, ShinJoung, Gabriel, Johnny, Alycia, Rico, Theresa, Vanya, Robin, Caroline, Nathan, Tina, Philip, Fiona, Lauren, Keith, (apologies for misspelling names.)

Eat and Socialize

Iron Rail Introduction
Iron Rail started in Spring of 2003, there had been an info shop in the 90s, wanted another one, and also wanted to emphasize the Library aspect of it, inherited some of the library from the previous info shop, Crescent Wrench. This building had been known as the Ark, and was a community center, and a lot of projects shared this space, and the info shop thought they would be a good match with the other community groups. Back half the room is the library, the front has stuff for sale, they open for activist groups and meetings and films etc.

After the hurricane, they came back in October, and none of the city libraries had reopened yet. The infoshop didn’t flood, b/c the building is in a high place. Membership numbers jumped after the storm—currently there are about 500 members, 350 of whom have joined since the storm. There was a membership fee originally, but it was ditched after the storm. There is a $10 deposit for out of town borrowers.

Current projects: library is the main focus of the infoshop, just started cataloging, and would like some help. Still doing movie nights and other events and readings. There was a grand reopening party. Providing free internet has brought a lot of people in. A big resource for people wanting to find out about activism, and esp. local activism in NOLA. Initially there was the goal as the Iron Rail being a place to increase literacy in the city, but this isn’t a focus right now, but might in the future.

A suggestion that Iron Rail folks with ref questions could be contacting Rad Ref. We should leave flyers.

Books are donated. Also, money from memberships goes to buying books for the library. Collection = radical political history, diy, New Orleans and Louisiana.

Funding for operating costs come from the sale books and zines and records, and occasionally small donations. Rent is very low.

They will happily accept book donations. What they cant sell and don't want in the library goes on the "free shelf."

Radicals from out of town, or other young white radicals come to the infoshop. From the neighborhood, there are a lot of gay folks and arty folks who come in. some suburban kids come in.

Benefit show later on for Mardi Gras Indian that [something. . . anyone remember the circumstances that necessitated a benefit?]

Radical Reference Meeting Agenda

Intro to rad ref
started in summer 2004, a few folks wanted to put something together for the RNC and to apply librarian skills to the effort. By July there was a website, and did outreach to local organizations. At the RNC we had 40 street librarians, 15 had ready reference kits, caps, and cellphones. There was home support . There was lots of positive support. The website is the primary means of reaching the public. There are now 350 on the listserv. 75 are on the question answering queue.

Value of Rad Ref at ALA conferences
Rad Ref brings us all to gether at conferences, gives us a chance to see each other, meet, discuss. Should we be going to other library gatherings, or trying to meet at other times and in other ways? It’s hard for a lot of people to get to ALA.

Given the presence of SRRT and PLG, is there a role for us? Discussion ensued. Folks should feel free to organize other events at other venues.

Discussion of Vision of Rad Ref and empowering rad ref members
Vision discussion – we support other communities/activist communities as library workers

We also try to work within our profession.

We could be going to other meetings in ALA and bring our radical perspectives to them.
We can organize locally on state and local issues.
We should think about how national rad ref could support our members locally.
70,000 people were at Bonnaroo! We could be going to major cultural events like this.
Radical ref could be better at helping folks get local collectives together.
We need to think more about outreach and getting known in various communities.
Booth 3526 – consortium to get free copies of A Beginner’s Guide to Community Based Arts

Reference Standards

We have reference standards, but no quality control. University of Wisconsin reference class has been doing a project where they evaluate our answers.
Having standards would make us more attractive to library students who need reference experience.
A suggestion to have someone volunteer each month to fact check all that month’s answers.
A suggestion to have library school student interns do the fact checking.
RUSA guidelines are too long, but are really good as standards. They could be boiled down to be useful.
Standards work group - Theresa Tobin, Beth Dunning, Dena Marger
A call will go out to the list to others who might want to contribute. Once the standards are developed, we need an "enforcer." "Review of Questions" should be one of the standards.

Local collectives

New York Group – did presentations at various conferences, organized library student conference
California Group – spoke to a class at UCLA, ate a lot
Boston Group – hasn’t met in a while, but was doing some training for local activist journalists, organized an Eyes on the Prize showing at a local infoshop.

Announcements