Coming in the November 2007 issue, we've got a piece from consumer advocate Ralph Nader. To preview, his article is a remembrance piece, recollections of the role of books and libraries in his childhood.

Nader returns to AL's pages after a 34-year absence (apart from a couple news briefs and incidental mentions within other stories, and a 2003 1-page story introducing his D.C. Library Renaissance Project). In 1973, "Ralph Nader called up and invited himself to the wake for libraries at ALA's midwinter meeting in Washington," as the introduction to his May 1973 (p. 275–278) article explains.

Ralph Nader and an unnamed delegate at the 1973 Midwinter Meeting

His speech and article addressed the federal budget, which threatened to zero out the Library Services and Construction Act for 1974 and cut other education programs that provided library funding. But much of his text could have easily been written today.

Take, for example, Nader's explanation of why LSCA was in danger. "The cutting in this area is not a reflection of any reflection. It's a reflection of the belief that there will be no real yelling as a result... Politicians were the first to realize that: they will cut in those areas where they will get the least defiance and the fewest repercussions." Indeed, concerns over the librarian image—and calls to change it—are nothing new.

More chillingly familiar are Nader's comments on the growth of presidential power, echoing modern-day concerns about the Patriot act, National Security Letters, wiretapping, and presidential powers generally. "Building on his predecessors' more modest usurpations, the President can now do the following things in contradiction of the fact that these powers belong to Congress: the President can make war; the President can impound or refuse to spend funds appropriated by the Congress; the President can reorganize the Executive Branch very fundamentally without obtaining the approval of the Congress; the President can unilaterally change the tax system particularly in areas such as depreciation ranges for corporations; the President can sweep up the powers of the Cabinet secretaries, put them in the hands of presidential assistants, who are neither confirmed by the Senate nor subject to hearings and interrogations by the Senate or the House because of the doctrine of executive privilege; and the President can make foreign commitments without seeking the advice and consent of the Senate by calling his treaties 'executive agreements.' "

—Greg Landgraf, American Libraries editorial assistant.

Editor's note: Judith Faust, Business and Economics Librarian at California State University, East Bay, submitted this remembrance of Annual in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. We'd already commissioned an article on New Orleans and its recovery, which will be running in the September issue of AL, and space limitations prevent us from publishing this article in the magazine as well. We did want to share her experiences, however, and Judith allowed us to publish her article here.

Worth Remembering—ALA in New Orleans
As we pass the 2nd anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, I’m reminded that I have never been prouder of “my” association than the day in November 2005, three months after the hurricane hit, when word came out that the American Library Association was going to meet its original commitment to hold the June 2006 Annual Conference in New Orleans, and that two days would be set aside for librarian volunteers to work on community service projects. As a librarian in the San Francisco Bay Area who had already been back to New Orleans to help my parents and sister with their homes, my eyes welled up when I heard the news, knowing how important this would be for the city’s economy. I was ecstatic for New Orleans and fiercely proud of ALA.

Katrina hit the city hard on August 29, 2005, its wind breaking branches and toppling trees, then pushing high water from Lake Pontchartrain and the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet into the canals which bisect neighborhoods in New Orleans. Thanks to the withholding of funds for levees by the Bush administration, years of neglect by the Corps of Engineers, and lack of coordination of the various levee boards, canal levees were unable to withstand the strain, and several of them gave way, flooding large areas of the city. Only then was mandatory evacuation instituted, emptying the city too late for those trapped on rooftops, in attics, or on freeway overpasses in flooded neighborhoods—or those who had already died.

After evacuation, the city administration kept people out of the city overlong, adding to building damage; there might not have been so much injury to property, had homeowners been encouraged to return in a timely fashion to throw out soaked furniture and appliances, to tear out drywall before it wicked moisture even higher than the water levels. Those who ignored the strictures to stay out of the city, or who had passes to return to the city for other reasons, were the lucky ones. They got in, gutted their homes down to the studs, and were able to begin early the slow process of drying them out, treating them for mildew, and getting all the permits necessary to rebuild. Then they pioneered the “endless wait”—waiting for the 10 foot high mounds of trash to be picked up from in front of their homes; waiting for electricity, water, and gas to be certified safe and turned on; and waiting for contractors of all sorts to show up.

I first came in October, to continue the work of my brother, his wife and son, and my brother-in-law, all of whom had gotten into the city early on and tossed out furniture, saved valuables, and ripped out the sheetrock/drywall on the bottom floors of two family duplexes where waters had flooded to 4½ feet. By that first week in October, the trash piles in front of our houses had been picked up, though the duct-taped refrigerators still stood at the curbs as rumors flew—“They’re not going to pick them up with food in them, you’ll have to clean them out first.” “No, they say just to keep them taped up, don’t open them.” Though live oaks lived on with broken branches still dangling on high, all the magnolias, the French bay tree descended from Aunt Ina’s cutting, and all grass and shrubs were dead—the lawns not just brown but white with the remnants of half-dissolved sheetrock.

My daughter from New York and I were there to help my sister, who was essentially general contractor for the four units. We waited for termite people to come and inspect, retrieved safe deposit keys, gathered up photo albums to take to air-conditioned storage units, and packed box after box with items salvaged by the “early crew”—china, family photographs, glassware from cabinets above the waterline. Those had been transported pell-mell upstairs in addition to all the lighter furniture my 85-year-old father had taken up before he evacuated to Florida on Aug. 27th. It was impossible to move around on the second floor—but we knew we were lucky to have one. I cleaned the toilet on the first floor, filthy with chemicals, oil, and chunks of sheetrock, found the original 16-mm home movies to take back to Florida, went through a file cabinet of drenched documents and financial papers to see if anything could be salvaged, sorted through/threw out the endless papers both my mother and father collect (newspaper clippings from 1978, anyone?), picked up soda cans and bottles that day-laborers had tossed in the yard as they helped clear out the house, and just tried to keep going all day, although everything needed to be done, and in the end it was completely overwhelming just choosing what to do.

We tried to wear ventilator masks, but people who had been there for weeks said the air was so much better they didn’t bother – and the masks were so uncomfortable and hot that we stopped, too. It was beastly hot, as it is in October in New Orleans, and after the hurricane and flood, the drought that the city had been enduring for months took up where it had left off, so there was no rain to dissipate or dilute the chemicals and oil that had been in the water and now lingered on the ground. We wore sturdy shoes and rubber gloves everywhere, not knowing what we were touching. We had brought food and water from Florida for lunches and washing hands at the site, since there were few stores with food, and none in the immediate area. We stayed with wonderful, generous cousins who had homes close to the river—ironically, the highest part of the city —who had electricity and water to shower in, though not to drink. At night we drove miles and miles to find restaurants that were open for business, and worried about whether to eat the seafood.

After a week or so of work, I flew back to the Bay Area to my "real" work as a business librarian at Cal State East Bay. In December my husband and I came back to New Orleans, to work for a few days before heading to the panhandle of Florida to share Christmas with my 85-year-old parents. Renovations were going slowly in fits and starts, according to which contractor decided to show up, if any. We were still packing things to go to storage units, staying out of the way of work crews—and, of course, sorting through papers(!). We stayed with cousins, enjoyed seeing those who had not yet returned to town in October, and ate in restaurants that had opened nearby since then—a great joy, even if the waits for food took hours. Patience was held to be the great virtue in attaining food in New Orleans restaurants.

In May we made another trip to the city, just before my parents would see their home for the first time since the August hurricane. The wonderful cousins who had let my sister and brother-in-law stay in their New Orleans home for months, came by early one morning bringing azaleas and impatiens, and planted them in the front bed of my parents’ duplex. It was almost shocking how lovely they looked, especially against the still-brown front “lawn” of dead grass, weeds, and bare earth.

June, and the ALA Conference, finally arrived! I flew into the city and was stunned to see a brass band in the baggage area. In honor of the conference, city fathers had brass bands greet arriving librarians at the airport for days. People who in the past might have been unresponsive to tourists or surly at our invasion of their city were effusively appreciative of our presence in New Orleans. In cabs, at restaurants, in stores, at the conference exhibit hall, on the streets—everyone thanked us for coming to the city.

Or, as Times-Picayune columnist Chris Rose noted in his June 27, 2006 article, “And the Librarians Shall Lead Them:” “It was so good to see all those name-tag-wearing-wanderers from across the heartland here in our city, whether they were shooting blue goo down their throats at Coyote Ugly or buying hot sauce in the French Market or browsing the aisles at Beckham’s Book Shop in the Quarter.” Rose, author of the poignant 1 Dead in Attic, the “Katrina book” owned by more New Orleanians than any other, commented on the generosity of conference attendees, “A friend of mine worked the New Orleans Public Library booth at the Convention Center for 90 minutes Sunday afternoon, and reported that passersby put about $1,500 in the donation jar just in that small window of time.”

Volunteers carry supplies into New Orleans' Benjamin Franklin High School.

Over a thousand librarians whose yellow volunteer T-shirts read “Libraries Build Communities” performed community service in New Orleans. My friend Patrick Sullivan from San Diego State told me of the Habitat for Humanity home he helped build in the Musicians’ Village. His crew had worked all morning on the house, roofing, painting, putting up sheetrock, and more. Then just before noon, cars began to roll up, a shade structure was erected, then a bandstand, and finally 4 or 5 musicians drove up and began playing music while Patrick and other volunteers lunched on food provided by the musicians. The volunteers were touched to see quite literally the reason why they were working: so that the musicians who are the soul of the city can come back and have a place to live. Other librarian volunteers worked in libraries and private homes that had been flooded, and librarians didn’t come alone; one librarian brought her teenage son with her to work on gutting a house in the Ninth Ward. Even those who didn’t volunteer spent money on hotels, ate in restaurants, bought things to take home, and donated cash at the convention hall. All told, we brought at least $20 million to New Orleans—that’s a lot of azaleas and impatiens.

As I flew back to the Bay Area, I thought about the changes in New Orleans, the wonderful conference, and the difference ALA had made to the city—now and for the future. The enthusiastic volunteering of over a thousand librarians that had contributed so much to New Orleans neighborhoods and libraries made a difference to ALA, as well. Michael Dowling, Director of ALA’s Chapter Relations Office, said ALA members were so pleased with the volunteering in New Orleans that it was decided to continue volunteering efforts at a variety of locations in Washington, D. C. for the 2007 Annual Conference. As for me, I’ll never forget that our American Library Association was the first of the large organizations to honor its commitment to bring its conference to New Orleans, leading the way for others. For that, I’ll be a member forever.

—Judith Faust, Business and Economics Librarian, California State University, East Bay.

I don't remember specifically when I first started hearing about the scourge that is Generation X. It was somewhere in my high school or college years, but more detail than that I can't give. I do, however, remember specifically that at the time, the media reports discussing the scourge that is Generation X were saying that the last Gen-Xers were born in 1975. That's a year before I was born, so I felt enthusiastic, optimistic, and even a bit entitled at having dodged that bullet.

It wasn't to last, though. Before long, the birth range for Generation X was extended to 1978, turning me into the lazy, sullen, apathetic sod I am today.

In an unrelated event (I swear—it happened a few months before I joined the staff), AL dug up a bit of controversy on the generational issues front in May 2004, with a cover story titled "What Will Gen Next Need to Lead." (pp. 32-35) In it, authors Arthur Young, Peter Hernon, and Ronald Powell related results of their "five-year study of what today's library directors see as desirable leadership attributes for their successors."

Several letters took the authors, and the magazine, to task for a variety of pretty well-founded reasons: The fact that none of the authors belonged to Generation X, that the survey hadn't asked opinions of any Gen-Xers, that its title was intentionally condescending, that the desirable attributes were desirable for leaders regardless of age, and that the whole concept of leadership needed to be rethought anyhow. (Aug. 2004, p. 35-36.)

I'm not going to defend the treatment here—I can see some legitimate reasons for it, but AL Editor Leonard Kniffel has expressed some interest in writing about it, and since he was here at the time he's probably got better insights than I. Instead, I'd like to examine some of the magazine's early intergenerational issues.

The Junior Members Round Table was founded, informally at least, in 1931. Despite not officially joining ALA until 1941, its activities made regular appearances in the Bulletin throughout the Thirties. And the JMRT was a reasonably active group, with projects such as Library literature, 1921-32, an update to a bibliography of library science writings; a series of Library Information Leaflets to help patrons use catalogs, periodical indexes, and other library tools; the "Dividends" section of the Bulletin, a neat little department relating specific examples of impressive service feats, such as a library helping a hospital increase the efficiency of its steam power plant, saving the city the cost of a new system; an essay contest; and state projects coordinated by regional subgroups (Jan. 1937, p. 13; Mar. 1937, p. 156-158; Apr. 1937, p. 231; Jan. 1938, p. 49).

The non-unifying non-theme: Almost none had any relation to age or the specific concerns of new librarians. There were a few—a survey of round table members' reactions to library schools, a statement by JMRT Chair Robert Miller at a 1933 meeting of the Board of Education for Librarianship on the JMRT's recommendations to address unemployment, and a directory of librarians under 35 in Louisiana compiled by that state's group (Feb. 1933, p. 97; Mar. 1934, p. 139; Mar. 1937, p. 158). But most of the JMRT's activities could have been done by any group.

There were only a couple of instances of overt hostility towards young librarians published during that era. One, a "quotation received recently from an Illinois librarian" whose name, sadly, wasn't revealed, declared that "Apparently they want the A.L.A. to be a sort of combination of a trade union with delegates to send around to fight their local salary and service battles, and a public relations office including a group of talent scouts to travel around and keep the juniors busy with frequent visits, local meetings, and chances to perform. ... As a national body it should concern itself with national and over-all affairs and should not have to worry about seeing that the junior members get their money's worth." (Apr. 1945, p. 152) In a second, Aubry Lee Hill of the public library in New Rochelle, New York, in her her address "Speaking for the Younger Generation" at the 1935 Annual Conference in Denver, read a letter she received from another unnamed librarian: "What some of you lack is unselfish idealism—you are so damnably ego-centric—and you lack humane tolerance and understanding of imperfections, which will give you the patience and ability to work yourselves to the top of a difficult situation instead of blowing up. ... P.S. You lack ballast, too, and you lack patina."

Nasty postscripts aside, the general tone the magazine took towards the juniors was one of mild condescension. Sadly, much of this tone came from the servility of the juniors themselves. For example, in 1938, Chair J.H. Shera's "Swan-Song of a Junior" pulls out a bunch of overwrought highbrow references (citing "Cassandrian qualities of perspective", the oppressive inertia facing Tolstoy or Gorki characters, the pacifism of Ferdinand the bull, and of course, Shakespeare) to prove that he's ready to graduate to the regular membership upon turning thirty-five. In 1934, JMRT Chair Louis Nourse declared library staff associations "A Job for Junior Members"—a double-whammy implication that neither junior members nor staff associations were good enough for the real members to worry about.

So it seems that the young have picked up ground in the intergenerational bicker-off. Go us! Of course, as generational date ranges seem to shift every so often, we all may find ourselves on a different side one day.

—Greg Landgraf, American Libraries editorial assistant

International stories have always been a hard sell in American Libraries, but we run them anyway–selectively. I’d like to publish every article we receive from a librarian who has traveled to an exotic locale and fallen in love with international librarianship, but we just can’t. There’s not enough ink in our well. And reader surveys have always put “international” near the bottom of the priority list.

Construction of the Biblioteca Alexandrina in Egypt in 1998, from the April 2000 issue of American Libraries.

Case in point: the building of the great Bibliotheca Alexandrina. Because it was so many years in the planning and so many more in the actual opening, by the time it did open in 2002, it was reduced to four anticlimactic paragraphs. That is, however, four more paragraphs than many a splendid American library has received upon its opening. The ancient Library of Alexandria being rebuilt as a 21st-century international library and museum complex? Seemed like an important story to me.

This year, on the occasion of the fifth anniversary of the Bibliotheca’s official opening, I got an invitation from Chief Librarian Sohair Wastawy, formerly of the Illinois Institute of Technology, to visit the library and do a couple of talks with staff. So I decided to spend a week at the BA (as they call themselves) and to see for myself this modern incarnation of the ancient Library of Alexandria.

When I laid eyes on it, “magnificent” was a word that came to mind. “Spectacular” was another. In the middle of this chaotic, crowded, and rather poor city, the Bibliotheca Alexandrina complex contains six specialized libraries, including a booming children’s library, three museums, a planetarium, and seven research institutes.

A little background: In 2000, American Libraries published "Dream in the Desert: Alexandria's Library Rises Again" by Ron Chepesiuk. Construction of the new complex had been "essentially finished by the end of 1999 and officials were expected to be announced by November or December. The cornerstone had been laid in 1988 by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Dreaming and planning began some quarter of a century before. No announcement came; instead, the opening was then delayed in 2001 in favor of a six-week trial run." Director Ismail Serageldin said the facility needed at least four more months of construction work.

In April 2002, President Mubarak cancelled the scheduled official opening because of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but the library hosted "a gathering of international Friends" instead and called it an "unofficial opening." By the time the library did officially open—six months later, AL had reduced its coverage of the momentous event to four short paragraphs at the tail end of the news section.

The next time the Bibliotheca Alexandrina was mentioned in AL was when Sohair Wastawy left her job as dean of libraries at IIT and returned to her native Egypt to become director, a move she called "a distinctive and extraordinary opportunity."

Five years later, talking with Wastawy in Egypt about what the last three years have meant for her, she said it has been an amazing journey. "I took people off the street," she said, "and turned them into librarians." Her staff of 250 is composed primarily of the young and ambitious. As director of the library operation in this multi-facility library/museum/planetarium complex, Wastawy has spent three years working "nights, weekends, 18-hour days." The results have to be seen to be believed.

In a nation whose economy has slid distinctly downhill over the past 20 years, where 40% of the population is illiterate, and where an equal number of people live on one-to-two dollars a day, the library stands facing the Mediteranean Sea. Although details of its dates and demise are sketchy, it stood, scholars believe, very near the site of the new library.

I walked through the ruins of another ancient library on my visit. Wastawy called it a "daughter library" of the original Bibliotheca Alexandrina and joked that it was "the world's first extension service." I was reminded that the last news item we published about the Bibliotheca Alexandrina was in May when the BA signed an agreement with the Library of Congress to cooperate in building a World Digital Library.

Biblioteca Alexandrina Director Ismail Serageldin and Chief Librarian Sohair Wastawy in May 2007.

Speaking with BA Director Ismail Serageldin is speaking to a man inspired.He talked about his passion for books and his drive to make the Bibliotheca Alexandrina one of the top libraries in the world, observing that the library has in its new incarnation tried “to recreate almost on the same spot that wonderful adventure of the human mind and human spirit that the ancient Library of Alexandria was.” He believes that the mission is still the same: intercultural dialogue, the pursuit of knowledge, and the organization of universal knowledge, promoting rationality, pluralism, dialogue, and understanding.” Fulfilling the mission,” Serageldin said, “in a different world with different tools, is a major contribution that Egypt is trying to undertake with many friends from all over the world and in a time when, regretfully, obscurantism, fanaticism, and xenophobia are rampant in many parts of the world."

"Libraries and books both of them have a wonderful future ahead of them," Serageldin told me. "Libraries are going to be the portals through which people will go on that marvelous journey of discovery whether it be to imaginary lands to the historical past or to understand the marvels of cutting edge science it will all be organized by libraries but available online."

You can watch a short video about the Bibliotheca Alexandrina on American Libraries Focus.