San Antonio Was Not All Roses

Numbers don't lie. And that's bad news for the American Library Association's most recent midwinter meeting (January 14-19) in San Antonio, TX. Although the Lone Star State's summery weather could not have been nicer, this year's midwinter meeting attracted a disappointing crowd of 10,601--or 2,000 fewer participants than the year before--when the meeting was held in then-frigid Philadelphia. And although many librarians gave the meeting an enthusiastic thumbs up, the yeas failed to drown out the nays. Simply put, librarians were heard grumbling about the schedule of meetings, stacked one on top of the other, like the straw that finally broke the camel's back. But if ALA's midwinter meeting failed to be an out-and-out crowd-pleaser, it did offer its share of uncontested bright spots.

On a day when the nation paused to honor the legacy of slain civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., another African American made some history of his own. On January 17 Christopher Paul Curtis became the first African-American man to win the Newbery Medal, for his novel Bud, Not Buddy (Delacorte, 1999)--and the first author to capture two of the most prestigious prizes in children's literature, the Newbery Medal and the Coretta Scott King Award, in a single year.

The awards ceremony also featured the announcement of the first-ever winner of the Michael L. Printz Award, an award sponsored by Booklist and administered by the Young Adult Library Services Association in honor of the late Topeka, KS, school librarian. Walter Dean Myers's novel Monster (HarperCollins, 1999) won the award.

Early-morning risers were pleased to hear that School Library Journal and the Gale Group have joined forces to offer the new Giant Step Award. The annual award, which carries a $10,000 prize, will honor a school library--or a public library working with a school library--that has made significant improvements in service to students. Guidelines are  available on SLJ's Web site (www.slj.com/giantstep.asp) and the Gale Group's site (www.galegroup.com/schools), or by calling the Gale Group at (800) 877-4253. Nominations must be received by SLJ by May 31. The winner will be announced in September.

Conference-goers also were briefed on the state of federal legislative proposals for Internet filtering. Shying away from making bold predictions about what legislators might do in the remaining 100 days of the 106th Congress, staffers from ALA's Washington, D.C., office say that 2000 will likely be a complicated year. While the presidential campaign may bring attention to filtering legislation--Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) has mentioned his bill in speeches--the fact that Republicans want to retain control of the House of Representatives may make them cautious about passing legislation that's overly complicated, says Elyse Wasch, legislative assistant for Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI).

What's most likely to happen, says Leslie Harris, an ALA consultant, is that lawmakers will seek a middle ground and move away from McCain's bill, which would allow only those schools and libraries using filtering software to receive e-rate funding. A more moderate bill, Harris suggests, has a better chance of passing, such as the one introduced by Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA). Santorum's bill (S. 1545) gives schools and libraries two options: "to install systems or implement policies for blocking or filtering Internet access to matter inappropriate for minors."

As for other Web-related developments, the American Association of School Librarians (AASL) may soon have a new revenue source. The AASL board of directors discussed the possibility of charging fees to use some of its programs on ICONnect (www.ala.org/ICONN), an online resource that teaches library media specialists how to navigate cyberspace. The fees would apply solely to interactive programs that AASL would develop in the future--not programs already on its ICONnect site.

ALA's Office for Information Technology Policy has taken pity on librarians who are copyright weary. Carrie Russell, ALA's copyright specialist, says that ALA's Web site now has a copyright education program (copyright.ala.org) that addresses basic copyright principles and frequently asked questions.

The biggest technology news at the midwinter meeting was the announcement (in one case) and non-announcement (in the other) of two important corporate changes. The automation software companies Winnebago and Sagebrush have merged. But the long-rumored announcement of bigchalk.com, the new Net spin-off company that would bring together Infonautics' Electric Library and Bell + Howell's K-12 unit, best known for its ProQuest database services, did not occur until after midwinter attendees had gone home.--Rick Margolis, Renee Olson, and Walter Minkel