The City of Brotherly Love showed its harsher side when it welcomed attendees to the American Library Association's Midwinter Meeting.
A wind chill that brought temperatures to minus 16 degrees below zero and a snowfall of about 10 inches rudely greeted those who arrived on Feb. 3, the day before the exhibit hall opened.
Traffic on Saturday, Feb. 4, in the Pennsylvania Convention Center seemed fairly light, but by the next day, business was brisk. In fact, the convention bested its attendance at the previous midwinter meeting, in Los Angeles, 12,612 attendees to 11,121.
Many of those 12,000 visited the Library of Congress exhibition booth, which featured the latest high-tech initiatives from the nation's library. The newest of the Library's offerings, THOMAS, proved to be quite popular. "This is something I'm glad to see my tax dollars spent on," said a woman who saw a demonstration of the online service that provides the latest information on the U.S. Congress.
THOMAS is one of many menu choices on the Library's World Wide Web (WWW) homepage (//www.loc.gov) To access THOMAS directly, the URL is http://thomas.loc.gov. The system can also be accessed by telnetting to thomas.loc.gov.
Also new to the Library's WWW server is the online version of the exhibitions "The Gettysburg Address: Words That Shaped America" and "In the Beginning Was the Word: The Russian Church and Native Alaskan Cultures." Although both exhibitions have closed at the Library, they will remain "on view" via the Internet.
Also being demonstrated on the Internet was LOCIS (Library of Congress Information System). LOCIS offers, in addition to the Library's online catalog (books, microforms, serials, music, visual materials, manuscripts, etc.), status of federal legislation, copyright files and information about products of the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped.
The address to telnet directly to LOCIS is locis.loc.gov.
LC MARVEL (Machine-Assisted Realization of the Virtual Electronic Library), the Library's Campus-Wide Information System, was also on view. MARVEL combines the vast amounts of information available about the Library with easy access to diverse electronic resources over the Internet.
LC MARVEL uses the Gopher software from the University of Minnesota. To access LC MARVEL directly, telnet to marvel.loc.gov and login as marvel. Connection is also possible through a local Gopher client or another Gopher server by pointing to marvel.loc.gov, port 70. It is also possible to connnect to LOCIS from MARVEL and from the Library's WWW homepage.
Visitors to the booth also were able to take a look at American Memory, a project that offers digitized versions of the Library's collections on disk and on the Internet, including prints and photographs, manuscripts and motion pictures. American Memory, a five-year pilot, was the Library's initial project to digitize its collections.
The Center for the Book had representatives on hand to answer questions about its reading promotion programs, especially the newest, "Shape Your Future -- READ!"
Staff of the Cataloging Distribution Service demonstrated several of its newest products.
For example, Cataloger's Desktop provides fingertip access electronically to the Library of Congress's nine most popular cataloging tools on one CD-ROM disc. Cataloger's Desktop, a Windows-based CD-ROM product, is a revolutionary new cataloging tool created by the Library of Congress using Folio software.
On Feb. 5, the President's Program was held in the ballroom of the Marriott Hotel, adjacent to the Convention Center.
ALA President Arthur Curley spoke about ALA's Goal 2000, which, according to its subtitle is a "five- year plan to position the association for the Information Age."
The plan, approved by the ALA Executive Board, calls for expansion of the association's Washington Office. The plan is based on a report submitted by ALA Executive Director Elizabeth Martinez.
"We are unanimous in our enthusiasm for the bold vision you have presented," said Mr. Curley.
Implementation of the policy calls for a modest dues increase -- the first in 10 years -- and would be used solely to beef up the resources of the Washington Office and establish an Office for Information Technology Policy.
The goal, according to Ms. Martinez, is to redirect ALA's resources toward a "21st century purpose" -- defining librarians for the public as the "gatekeepers" in an information society.
Patricia Glass Schuman, ALA past president, continued the theme by stressing that "we need to help position libraries for the 21st century. Libraries, as we know, are taking a backseat to other budget priorities. . . . America needs libraries and librarians now more than ever."
As the audience responded in thunderous applause, a "special library advocate" took the stage, founder of the nation's first subscription library, in Philadelphia. "Ben Franklin" lamented the fact that "support of libraries has diminished to a horrible degree. He offered rules by which "a great nation can become greater," among them:
- Generously provide funding for libraries.
- Maintain the "public storehouse of knowledge" in public hands.
- Do not let the Information Superhighway become a "toll road" and
- Do not "neglect to cultivate" knowledge and wisdom.
Pulitzer Prize-winning author David McCullough ( Truman, 193), who was the keynote speaker, immediately won over the crowd when he proclaimed, "I have only been able to have the career I have had because of books and libraries.
"I am doing everything I can to awaken leaders in politics and business of the great need to support our libraries," he continued. He said America's system of free public libraries is of "inestimable value," because "libraries are dedicated to the advancement of learning."
Although Mr. McCullough said he would be testifying before Congress in support of the national Endowment for the Humanities, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the last, for example, "could be doing a better job," he said. "How can Public TV not have a book show?" he asked, while mentioning his efforts to get such a show on the air.
Mr. McCullough compared the proposal to "zero out" the federal contribution to the budget of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to Congress's "hue and cry" in 1814 over whether to buy the library of Thomas Jefferson to replace the collections of the Library of Congress, which had been burned during the War of 1812. "Many in Congress asked, 'What do we need them for?' said Mr. McCullough. Some other comments: "Thomas Jefferson's library is [full of] finery and philosophical nonsense"; and much of it is "in languages many cannot read and most ought not to."
The wiser politicians prevailed, Congress purchased the Library, and it became the seed of the universal collection of 110 million items the Library holds today in more than 460 languages.
"To say that public television is for the elite is to perpetuate a lie," he said, his voice rising. According to Mr. McCullough, 67 percent of public TV viewers do not have more than a high school education, "almost the same [percentage] as viewers who watch [commercial] TV."
Getting back to the subject of libraries, Mr. McCullough, thanked the librarians for their "belief in the fundamental good, the bedrock purpose of the library systems in this country.
"I am absolutely a library advocate."
