SLJ's "Dot Com" in Cyberspace
By Lillian N. Gerhardt, Editor-in-Chief -- School Library Journal, 12/1/1997
On November 29, 1997, a Saturday, hardly a creature was stirring at School Library Journal's office when we passed another milestone in the history of this magazine. SLJ went online with (we are partial to clear titles) School Library Journal Online (see News, p. 13).
Leading our editors on this digital hike into information delivery is RenAce Olson, who hired as guides two well-known children's librarians, Walter Minkel, School Corps Technology Trainer at Multnomah County (OR) Public Library, and Roxanne Hsu Feldman, Children's Librarian at New York Public Library, both experienced adepts at designing and developing web sites that librarians enjoy visiting. This is in the tradition of SLJ's steady growth from its first issue in September 1954 as Junior Libraries. In our new ventures, we turn for help and advice to the people who know and use SLJ in their libraries--our readers. It is our hope that those of you with computers will tap www.slj.com on your keyboards and give us your reactions to SLJ's spot in cyberspace.
As we approached the launch of School Library Journal Online and talked about it to our subscribers, our editors were regularly asked three questions:
- Will SLJ's reviews go online?
- Will all articles and columns go online--full text?
- Will your web site carry any editorial copy that is not published in the magazine?
The answer to all three questions is a firm, "not yet."
All of the above are technologically possible, but not economically feasible. Until we can set up a satisfactory entry-by-subscription passkey system, full magazine delivery online is unlikely. Subscribers not yet wired can rest assured that what you see in SLJ's printed issues is what you will find online.
The reason for this approach at start-up is not completely a matter of commercial concern. A bigger concern among the print publications that have tested in cyberspace is whether or not the powerful speed of online delivery can tear apart an established printed entity, skew its mission, or overload its readers--not to mention the tangle of problems involved with copyright when they click on "print."
The destructive potential in high-speed information delivery is not confined to print publishing. Every youth library specialist contending with community demands or administrative orders to install commercial filters on the computers used by children and adolescents is also grappling with the way in which the dark side of cyberspace and the gutters that run alongside the Information Highway have stampeded politicians and taxpayers to disregard the mission, goals, and methods of library service. (See "Teens & Libraries," p. 53, for a thoughtful rundown of the cross pressures that result when library philosophy and library practice are pushed out of synch with each other.)
Advocates for full access to library information are facing the greatest challenges to their professional expertise in this century. Before us, we have proponents among public library and school administrators attracted to the easy promises of vendors that outsourcing library materials selection can be cheaper and faster. (Not better, you'll notice.) On our flank, we have a simultaneous attack by groups that propose filters and blockers for the library computers used by people under 17. What both factions have in common is a dazing readiness to purchase selection and/or censorship programs from commercial agencies.
The American Library Association's Library Bill of Rights and its Code of Ethics have been great strengths. Neither were developed fast or on the cheap. Both are threatened from within and without ALA. This promises a more than usually problematic series of sessions for ALA's Council, divisions, and committees when ALA meets at the 1998 Midwinter Meeting in New Orleans, January 9 14. Pray that more light than heat is shed on these potentially damaging dilemmas.
Meanwhile, be vigilant. And, rejoice with SLJ's editors that we can now bring you news briefs on these monstrous headaches over the same medium that has helped cause them.
Renée Olson
Editor-in-Chief
rolson@slj.cahners.com
