Uppity librarians unite!

A great article dealing with the changing images of librarians, just in time for what the guys over at LIS News call the 'few, the brave, the Toronto-bound'. For those of you who don't keep up with such things, SARS is causing a major headache for Toronto, which has seen all sorts of concerts, conventions, etc. cancelled over fears of contracting the disease. However, the American Library Association is going forward with its plans for a joint conference with the Canadian Library Association, and apparently the Toronto media are grateful. :) I'm not an ALA member--I can get work to shell out money for the MLA, our state association, and our local consortium, but that's about it, and I can't afford ALA and SLA memberships, even though I'd love to join. I couldn't get travel money to go to our San Diego conference and I'm sure Toronto would be right out as well, so due to budget crunches I don't get to go play with thousands of other librarians. But I think the ALA did a great job of working with people who did cancel and those who reinstated their plans, too. Because of my membership in KLA I get a lot of the news releases from ALA, and I'm really impressed with all the work they did (and thank the Gods I wasn't involved with having to plan the meeting!)