Jenny Levine › Comments

I've never needed one, so it's not something that I'm aware of them having or not. - ellbeecee

You might also want to get in touch with Sarah Houghton (http://librarianinblack.net) who has considerable experience with navigating professional conferences with limited mobility issues. - Catherine Pellegrino

You shouldn't be embarrassed at all. For the vendors that are completely unreceptive to dialogues about SOPA and RWA, a cart could be outfitted with a ram plow and driven into their booths and anything that supports their setups. (Optional primal scream of "RAMMING SPEED!" might help for the effect.) - Andy

Thank you--I didn't find out I'd be able to participate until fairly recently. - Yvonne

I've seen people using the powered chairs every time I've been at ALA, so they're clearly available. - Walt Crawford

We offer scooters for people with physical disabilities (I think they're $25 to rent), and they're in pretty high demand so that's why we ask for the early notice. Definitely contact Carrie if you think you'll need one and she'll do her best to get you one. Conference Services staff leaves for Dallas early next week, so sooner is better than later. Let me know if I can answer other questions or point you to other resources. - Jenny Levine

Thanks for the feedback. I have a friend who is an MLS student...do you think she'd find it worthwhile? - Yvonne

Maybe, and I think there are scholarships for MLS students to attend ala or they can come to it for real cheap. - ♫410 I Coach 'em Up♫

Thanks! - Yvonne

FWIW, I like Midwinter a lot. There are discussion groups for the various divisions and sections, plus almost all meetings are open to visitors. Before I was on committees, I sat in on some meetings at MW to get a sense of what I might be interested in joining. Also, exhibits are pretty rad if you're into free books. There are plenty of author signings, too. A friend brought an MLS student friend once, and we forwarded her invitations to as many free meals as we got. - kaijsa

In my first 25 years in the field, I always found Midwinter more interesting and worthwhile for all the discussion groups and interest groups--and for less crowded exhibits. As for "almost all" meetings being open: That's true for 100% of meetings except awards committees and when a group with hiring authority is discussing employees, by ALA regulations. - Walt Crawford

This year might be different, though. I think every committee I'm on, and all but one DG I regularly attend are doing virtual meetings this MW. - RudĩϐЯaЯïan

True that. I haven't yet had an all-virtual meeting for any of my ACRL committees, so I forgot about that. We've skyped in people, but so far have always had at least some in-person attendance, usually with a few visitors. - kaijsa

One of the most common complaints about Annual is that it's "overwhelming," so Midwinter can be a better opportunity for new students/librarians/ALA members to network, meet people, and participate in discussions. I'm going through the Midwinter session data now, and there are still 200+ discussion groups meeting onsite. There are also going to be what I think will be really great... more... - Jenny Levine

Oh, and if anyone needs advice, suggestions, or a friendly face at (or leading up to) Midwinter, give me a shout at jlevine [at] ala.org. - Jenny Levine

You can always check with ALA Memberhsip, too. The forms on the ala.org site should be okay, though. - awd (canoeist in th wild)

shady how? - holly #ravingfangirl

Just leave the "next of kin," "mother's maiden name," and "PayPal password" lines blank. They were a missprint. - bevedog

And leave the name and SSN of the first born child blank as well. - OMG 404 Joe

*cough* from !=form *cough* - holly #ravingfangirl

it's the sender that's shady. Sorry... ALA <4711.ADFFCFCB.12.79.1.2880.8.alamemcard@dsmbounce1.de>. seems weird to me. - Caitlin

yikes, that does sound suspect. all of my membership emails from ALA have come from membership@ala.org - holly #ravingfangirl

Um. Yes. That IS weird. - Catherine Pellegrino

and thanks everyone for your help on the form emails :) I was laughing as I read the conversation thread! - Caitlin

Unless it's the previously unknown German branch of ALA, that sounds not only sketchy but just wrong. - Walt Crawford

Caitlin, would you mind forwarding the email to me (including all of the headers) so that I can find out if it's legitimate or not? My email address is jlevine [at] ala.org. Thanks. - Jenny Levine

I've seen the odd article here and there in the tech press recently about spearphishing professional organizations. If that's what's going on here, I'm glad Jenny is investigating, 'cos the sooner folks are warned the better. - RepoRat

Also glad Jenny is on the case. If the email is in fact shady, then the use of Caitlin's personal information is decidedly creepy from an info-security perspective. - Catherine Pellegrino

bogus email address.. IP sender : 85.25.1.243 whois :dsmbounce1.de, server : bravo088.server4you.de - Peter Dawson

stmp spoofing is happening from here == >http://bravo088.server4you.de/ - Peter Dawson

yes and teamshatter jus said that 9M records of MoL& welfare were hacked : _ http://www.teamshatter.com/topics... - Peter Dawson

just sent it. yeah, it has all my info in it, which is so weird. It LOOKS like legitimate ALA correspondence, so if it isn't, the hacker did an excellent job. Will be interesting to see what comes back. - Caitlin

Thanks, Caitlin. Info so far: it /is/ a legitimate email (yay, no hack!). Apparently we started using a new printer/vendor last month. Part of the goal was to provide a temporary membership card members could use until their physical one arrives. I've submitted a request to change the "from" address on these to membership [at] ala.org, so I'll let you know when I hear back about that. - Jenny Levine

Thanks Jenny! I was hoping it was legitimate, since all the info was there. *sigh of relief* - Caitlin

@Jenny, then thats such a bad vendor/provider.. as such if it has no @ala.org email indentifier, users will just report the sender as spam..thats why its bounced@de server.. makes sense now. .but still not a very good business practice (imho) :)- - Peter Dawson

Sounds like Jenny is all over it! You go girl! - Shannon - GlassMistress

I agree, Peter, which is why I submitted the request. I'll do my best to impress upon these folks the importance of this (not just for us, but for everyone). - Jenny Levine

Thanks, Caitlin, Shannon, et. al. - Jenny Levine

i got it too and i thought "why would i need a temporary ala card from some outfit in germany?" - henry

any mention of Nigeria? - maʀtha

I came home tonight and started going through my personal email only to find that I got this same message, too. My jaw would have dropped to the ground if I hadn't seen this thread first! - Jenny Levine

I can't bring myself to fill it out. I tried, but... *headdesk* - maʀtha

um...which century is this? - Katy S

whut. - holly #ravingfangirl

No. - DJF

You'd think someone that got to be ALA president would have more of a clue about surveys than this. - Stephen le Francoeur

FFS. If I can make a form on Google Docs, anybody can. - RepoRat

Damn right. It should have been a PDF, with respondents instructed to fill in the blanks, print it out, and fax it back to ALA. (I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that the Prez did not consult staff experts, like, say, Jenny...) - Walt Crawford

o_O - Derrick

wow, just wow - John: Thread Killer

Buh. - Catherine Pellegrino

Seriously? Come on people - Hedgehog

ROFL - The LB: #TeamMonique

Sigh - ωαřмaiden ❤Marrit Woman❤

Or, even creating a survey monkey is easy enough. Beats making people use a .docx microsoft product. - OMG 404 Joe

I'll see if I can implement an electronic version for them. Thanks for the heads up. - Jenny Levine

Thanks, Jenny, it is a nightmare. It isn't even a MS Word form, just a regular document. - maʀtha

Yay Jenny! - Laura H.

#Jennytotherescue - Catherine Pellegrino

Yay Jenny! - RudĩϐЯaЯïan

Yes, thank you to Jenny! - maʀtha

Dallas Convention Center - it's on the hotel map: http://www.alamidwinter.org/sites... - awd (canoeist in th wild)

Kidding, I'm sure that will be fixed shortly ;) - awd (canoeist in th wild)

Aaron, Jenny or anyone else with ALA Pipe, how much is is to register for MW and Annual as individual events and what do I save by bundling. I guess I fail at research since I can only find the bundled price without spending 10 minutes registering for either event. - ♫410 I Coach 'em Up♫

From the banner nav: Registration, Hotel & Travel: http://www.alamidwinter.org/registr... see the columns to the right of the bundle price (Bundle 338, (MW) early bird 170, (MW) advance 190,(MW) on site 190 - awd (canoeist in th wild)

Also, from the bundle registration page: "Midwinter Meeting-Only registration opens October 3. Annual Conference-Only registration opens January 2." (which should be more prominent, I think) - awd (canoeist in th wild)

ah, yeah, *obvious* - Blake

What about prices for annual? I cannot make a case on saving money when I don't know how much money is actually saved. - ♫410 I Coach 'em Up♫

Hmmm...Annual was 190 last year for Early Bird...http://www.ala.org/ala... - Hedgehog

I don't see 2012 pricing for Annual yet (I would go with last year's price found here...http://alaannual.org/content... well, really here (in pdf) - > http://alaannual.org/sites... - awd (canoeist in th wild)

Does Bundled registration end October 2? I won;t know by then if I'm going :( - RudĩϐЯaЯïan

Rudi, yes. Bundled registration ends October 2. There's a refund schedule on the registration confirmation: Bundled Cancellation Policy If you cancel the Midwinter Meeting registration before the Midwinter Meeting cancellation deadline (December 2, 2011), but you do not cancel your Annual Conference registration your refund will be: ALA Member: $93 Division Member: $93 Retired Member:... more... - awd (canoeist in th wild)

Also, a Bundled fee breakdown if needed: Bundled Registration Fee Breakdown For MidWinter Meeting -ALA Member $143 -Division/Retired $143 -ALA Student $53 -NonMember $225 For Annual Conference -ALA Member $195 -Division Member $190 -Retired $170 -ALA Student $82 -NonMember $250 - awd (canoeist in th wild)

If Midwinter were in Blake's room, I'd actually consider going. Partay. - Louise "Weezy" Alcorn

I'll post here when I get the pricing info for Annual, although if it's different from last year's cost, it's probably not by much. Unfortunately, the person with that info is out sick today. Issues surrounding information necessary to make decisions duly noted for fixing.... - Jenny Levine

I heard back about Annual pricing: - Jenny Levine

Early Bird ALA Member: $220 Division: $215 Student: $95 Retired: $185 Non Member: $255 - Jenny Levine

Advance ALA Member $235 Division: $230 Student $120 Retired $200 Non Member $298 - Jenny Levine

Onsite ALA Member $260 Division $260 Student $130 Retired $230 Non Member $380 - Jenny Levine

This is customer service. You rock Jenny! - ♫410 I Coach 'em Up♫

Note that Bundle Reg is still open through this coming weekend. It will end on Sunday so that reg for Midwinter on its own can open Monday morning (10/3). - Jenny Levine

When you fill out the form, please be sure to sell yourself and your skills well. The more the Committee knows about your skills, abilities, and interests (and how you feel they relate to the requested committee) the better we can rank everyone -- and the better we can say "how about this committee since those you requested have filled" if the appointments are already full - awd (canoeist in th wild)

so what kinda of things are open? I'll fill it out tomorrow when I'm more awake...or hopefully more awake - Sir Shuping is just sir

There "should" be at least one seat open on all ALA-level committees. Note that this form can also be used to volunteer for ALA, AASL, ACRL, ALCTS, ASCLA, LITA, LLAMA or PLA committees. The Presidents-Elect each make appointments to their own committees - awd (canoeist in th wild)

this is the form with nine frillion committees on it, the one that gives me hives. ALA is way too big to do this in this way. By putting the onus of figuring out the committee structure on the member, ALA creates a big-ass barrier to entry to people who don't already understand the organization. And I, quite simply, don't have time to research ALA to figure out where my strengths would be a good match. - Jenica

I'm happy to do a Reference Interview if you like? adobbs at gmail ... eta: I should also give you the questions I would ask: What Divisions are you a member of? What do you feel are your strengths? What really interests you or gets you excited about ALA (and/or Libraries)? Those are a good start :) - awd (canoeist in th wild)

I might just be grumpy and apathetic. But that form DOES give me hives. :) - Jenica

I tend to agree with Jenica....a volunteer form shouldn't require a reference interview. And I get they're trying to cut down on duplication of forms, but still... - ~Courtney F from Android

One of the upcoming features on ALA Connect will be a group matching feature that tries to pare down the overwhelming list of potential committees to those that match the interests you've listed in your profile. Then maybe I can feed those into a slimmed down version of the form so that you can just check a couple of boxes. I also want to implement a "suggest this committee to your friend" feature at some point. - Jenny Levine

What about it makes you sad? (am leaving out that it's YALSA's site, as opposed to big ALA, as most folks think of YALSA as merely a part of ALA) - awd (canoeist in th wild) from Android

Oh, it's largely aesthetic issues I have with it, especially when it comes to some of the locations for the roundtables and divisions. And, I think that the fact that YALSA (in this case) is part of ALA is an important part of this. If someone searches google for info about the ALA (and division) book awards, these are the pages they see that represent ALA, and the pages aren't user-friendly. They're clunky, info isn't organized as well as it should be (which, for an library org, is sad), etc. - Katy S

I just find it frustrating, especially when those pages haven't changed much in the last several years (aside from content). - Katy S

Thanks. As i'm not a yalsan, all I can do is agree and suggest (and hope the upcoming migration to drupal helps things)... - awd (canoeist in th wild) from Android

Yeah, aside from my own aesthetic preferences, I just think that if these awards are going to be marketed (like they currently are and more), then the place the represents them should be a little more modern and easier to navigate so that non-librarians who happen upon the pages are suitably impressed. :D - Katy S

Jenny L. once explained to me the size/scope of the ALA web presence...it was in the tens of thousands of pages. Complete insanity! - Jason Griffey

JFYI, ALA is moving to Drupal in a few months, and there's been a movement to standardize the division templates as part of the migration. For example, see ACRL (http://acrl.org/) and AASL (http://aasl.org/) for already finished templates (not in Drupal yet). I think I heard that YALSA's redesign will get implemented in Drupal, in part because their main web person went on maternity... more... - Jenny Levine

Ha - jinx! - Jenny Levine

That is awesome. I know it's a big beast of a site. I just seem to manage to end up using/seeing the less-than-great sections. Although, like I said, I do think that any of the pages about the book awards should be more user-friendly. - Katy S

We've spent a lot of time redoing the Awards Database (http://www.ala.org/templat...) in the hope that the individual units will stop trying to manually maintain their own static award pages. It'll improve even more once we're in Drupal. As you can imagine, it's a cultural change, but I think that piece will be in much better shape a year from now. - Jenny Levine

Too bad ALA only gives out so few recognitions and awards;) - awd (canoeist in th wild) from Android

they don't bother asking about LITA because everybody that matters is already a member. - DJF

Here's the survey link if you need it: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s... (I also asked why the lack of LITA and several other units (and the repetition of ASCLA) in the Comment space in Q15) - I'm sure someone in Conference Services or the 3rd Party Vendor is (or will be) kicking themselves about this at some point soon - awd (canoeist in th wild)

Honestly, LITA may have gotten lost in the snowstorm of ALA divisions, IG's and RoundTables. I was glad that they had the Learning Round Table Name correct on the survey. Yea us. - ♫410 I Coach 'em Up♫

Jill, was that a joke or really your perception of LITA? If it's not a joke, that is not a good thing and the message needs tweaking /LITA2012PresidentalCandidate - awd (canoeist in th wild)

Seriously, Jill...if that's the perception of LITA, I would REALLY like to talk. #boardmember #brandingwonk - Jason Griffey

Jill: if you'd like a slightly less-agressive take on LITA, feel free to email me. We are (seriously, not making this up) actively trying to work on what LITA _is_. I would love to hear about your experiences: Griffey at gmail. - Jason Griffey

Crap - that's my fault. I was copying and pasting in the options, trying to alphabetize them and I must have pasted over the LITA entry. Dang - sorry about that. I'll try to download the results so far and then edit the survey to add them back in. Send me an email at jlevine [at] ala.org if you want me to add LITA to your answers and you provided your name on the form. - Jenny Levine

Fixed now. 63 people had filled out the survey, so I'll go back through the data and check LITA membership for anyone who indicated they're an ALA member and add that info to their submission. - Jenny Levine

Thanks for fixing it Jenny! - Hedgehog from Android

O love for Jenny, how thou multipliest exponentially :) - awd (canoeist in th wild) from Android

I think you have to come to the CC to get your stuff. Just wait until you need that stuff. Say the first time you have to hit the CC - ♫410 I Coach 'em Up♫

Confirming no satellite registration. - Jenny Levine

Ell, if you have your badge, that's all you really need.... Bring an old badge holder to use until you can get to the CC tog et everything else. - RudĩϐЯaЯïan

I think what 410 sez is right--not only will the badge work, but I've yet to see much delay in handing out material since ALA went the "I have my badge" separate-station route. Just pick it up Saturday before your first session or before the exhibits... - Walt Crawford

What do you mean it's not located within a hollowed out dormant volcano? - Andy

Andy, I thought the volcano was near your library...that's why you're in charge of opening and closing it... - John: Thread Killer

My crown was being threatened! I have to go all "Game of Thrones" on them. - Jason Griffey

I WOULD LIKE TO CHALLENGE. but i won't be there. nurts. ; ) - jambina

Now I'm trying to decide which house motto fits you best. - Jenica

You're not the only one, Janice...er...Jenny. - Walt Crawford

I'm persistent - I just keep walking up to Jenny and Walt and talking to them like they should know me... I think it's started work with Walt - at least as of the last ALA... ;) - WebGoddess

Oh, I'm much better during ALA--as long as people are wearing their badges. I can read just fine. (Actually, I'm not so terrible with faces, but putting a name to a face: Fail. Heck, in NOLA I'll just claim that the heat and humidity are frying my brain, right?) - Walt Crawford

The worst part is that I'll often remember the person's name five minutes after the encounter, but I just can't seem to remember beforehand. And I seem to have a special talent for spinning badges around so that they're facing the wrong way. Not handy, that. - Jenny Levine

Jenny, I share all of these talents of yours. In many cases I also seem to be unable to remember who I've only talked to online and who I've met in person, until I've met them a few times. - Jason P

Print Names on Nametags Bigger. - ♫410 I Coach 'em Up♫

Apparently we topped out at 525 people in the room. I was a few minutes late, didn't think I'd get in - Hedgehog

You can at least follow along via the captioning feed at http://tinyurl.com/alavthcap or Twitter is doing a good job of summarizing the major points. The full archive of the event will be available afterward online, too. Watch http://connect.ala.org/members for info about accessing it. - Jenny Levine

hrm... streamtext would be a great ALA Council Caption distribution channel. I may have to get on that horse again... - awd (canoeist in th wild)

Also, Beth Tribe at Howard County Library in MD. and Nini Beegen MD Learning Coordinator. - ♫410 I Coach 'em Up♫

Allen County PL in Fort Wayne, IN. talk to Sean Robinson - Jenny Levine

Thank you! - Greg Schwartz

No, no, no, Rochelle, it's where's the BATHROOM? - Catherine Pellegrino

Do you have a stapler I can borrow? - Katy S

I'm looking for a book but I don't know the author or title. All I know is that there is something blue on the cover and it came out last year. I think. - Andy

Can you waive my fines? - Christa

Why does the Embassy Suites you (used to) use for joint Exec Committee meetings have the worst happy hour of any Embassy Suites? Hmm. Maybe that's a little in, and maybe it's changed in 15 years... - Walt Crawford

In the basement in Miriam's. Bathrooms are on every floor. Yes. 3rd floor in the Library. Sure. Before my time. - Jenny Levine

This, ladies and gentlemen, THIS is why I love Jenny Levine. :) - Catherine Pellegrino

*applauds* - Marianne

When will you stop talking about the coming librarian shortage? - John Fink

I've had my differences with Ms. Levine in the past, but in her recent years at ALA...as with this thread: Bravo! - Walt Crawford

How can hip hop be dead if Wu Tang is forever? - Andy

If Satan is evil, why does he punish the wicked? - Andy

Thanks, all. Round two! We talk about the librarian shortage a lot less than we used to, but this is something I'm going to try to respond to on the ALA Marginalia blog sometime soon. -10.5. Because there's no one person who speaks for ALA, including the President. No ghost but we do have a lot of bugs (bada bing!). Send me an email about the renew requests and I'll ask someone to look... more... - Jenny Levine

[Applause.] - Walt Crawford

I'll add my applause to Walt's [Applause]. Nicely done, Jenny - WebGoddess

*intensifies his worship of Jenny from afar* - awd (canoeist in th wild)

Jenny = awesome. I'm still wondering when they're going to give her an award - Sir Shuping is just sir

Thanks. I've mailed an assitant in the exec office for now, we'll see what comes of that :) - Pete #TeamMonique

Late to the party, but let me know if I can help. - Jenny Levine

not gonna name names - Blake

Doin' my part to keep the numbers down. - bevedog

I promise to continue sucking. - Zamms

He's totally talking about me... *nose grows* - lris

Actually, he probably is, so reduce that nose forthwith. - Zamms

Oh, I could start a blog on LISHost! That would drive down your average stats - maʀtha

(mostly because I would never post) - maʀtha

I think my numbers are declining, but they've never made any sense anyway. I'm *sure* I'm not causing you trouble at the moment. - Walt Crawford

It's like you don't even *support* the blog people anymore. - Meg V. Meg

The more you deny it, the more guilty you look! - Blake

geez, I stopped blogging - what more do you want? - Jenny Levine

Switch back to using a Typewriter - Blake

Well my readership has been stagnant... :-p Trying not to overwhelm you (but then, I haven't been writing much on HL) - Hedgehog

Aha. There's the problem. If people blogged more, they wouldn't get as many hits (this appears to be true in far too many cases), so the loads on the servers would decline. Stop FFing, start blogging! - Walt Crawford

oh man, when you said "Harper" I thought this guy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki...) was completely flummoxed. - John Fink

I'm blinking at "Mr. Roberta Stevens." AMONG OTHER THINGS. - Marianne

That was the NPR reporter, Lynne Neary, saying "In the current climate, libraries worry they'll become obsolete." - bevedog

I'm bummed that the NYPL dude is like, "YES, license us on a per-use basis, that would be fun!" - bevedog

Steve, yes - I didn't like that at all. When I heard that line, I imagined librarian heads all over America shouting "#$%@! libraries aren't just books!" and then exploding. [added: that's to the NPR reporter bit] - Rachel Walden

You have to consider the two guests: Mr. "public libraries are DOOMED anyway 'cuz books are dead" and Mr. "we're rich and we LOVE publishers, so bring on the pay-per-use!" [The second one is mentioned in the next C&I; I'm avoiding the first entirely.] - Walt Crawford

Harper is working with librarians? really? when did that happen? I'd like to go visit that reality - Sir Shuping is just sir

My favorite part is the full article with the picture of the patron with the Rocket ebook reader. - Jenny Levine

How do we get Iris and Steve interviewed for these shows? - laura x

As a prequel to Laura's suggestion, how do we get the NPR librarians to go shake some sense into everybody involved with this piece? ;) - Rachel Walden

you could all go recommend my comment linking to John's roundup and Iris and Steve's post. then there'd be what? 663 recommends on a single comment? They'd notice that, I bet! :D - Marianne

At least we have internet access to fall back on as a service we provide. [sagenod] - Andy

Second thoughts: If anything kills the library, it won't be eBooks. It'll be funding and/or a cultural shift that completely eliminates the need or use of a library (although I think there will be a few left as giant consolidated information retention institutions). - Andy

It could be publishers who decide they can't possibly enable sharing and those who need or want libraries are s**t outta luck. But I think readers won't let that happen. They will go all Fahrenheit 451 on it if that's what it takes. - barbara fister

I don't think libraries worry that they will become obsolete. I think libraries worry that their funders will think libraries have become obsolete. Important difference. - Jenny Reiswig

+++Jenny - laura x

[I am very happy to see my colleague from my UCSD days, Jenny Reiswig, hanging out here more often lately.] - bevedog

Yup, Jenny. And to some extent the librarians need to be doing a better job making sure those funders know that what they provide is much more (or should be) than books on a shelf. - Rachel Walden

Or links to databases on a website. - bevedog

And, on the other hand, esp. in public libraries, that job has to be done without dismissing the books on a shelf as unimportant or suggesting that they'll go away as soon as that's feasible. (Also: Libraries don't worry about being obsolete. Libraries don't worry about anything. Librarians, on the other hand, worry a lot, sometimes with good reason, sometimes not so much.) - Walt Crawford

[Recasting my response to Rachel: "Books and beyond" is good. "Books are only the beginning" is fine. But the explicit or implicit suggestion that the books really don't matter: Not so good. Maybe not so great for academic library directors to give up on the cultural memory role either, but that battle appears mostly lost.] - Walt Crawford

Yeah, I don't think I said that books don't matter, or that librarians should say that they don't. But the focus in stories like this is always "ebooks = libraries not necessary, because libraries = printed books," and that's hugely problematic. - Rachel Walden

Rachel: I don't think you did either. I could certainly quote those who have, or those who say public libraries are screwed because they're associated with print books, which are dead as dodos. The problem is getting the "more than books" message out without disparaging or apparently abandoning [print and other] books. - Walt Crawford