Audre Lorde to Howard Zinn Library, 10/26/2011 Meeting Notes Tasks The following tasks are especially great for people who can't be on site much, but anyone who is willing can help! Please send a message to the listserv if you do take one (or more) on! (1) Conference/Skype Call with the People's Library at Occupy Wall Street. Reach out to organizers of the People's Library and ask if they are interested in scheduling a Skype call with us at some point in the next two weeks to share notes and ideas. If they are into it, circulate some times that OWS Library folk are available on a doodle poll, so we can pick a date. (2) Find bookshelves. Search the free listings on Craigslist, or the furniture listings. We agreed tonight, that as a working group, we will pitch in to refund you up to $50. We also thought $15/per bookshelf was a good average price to look for. In particular, the library needs bookshelves with back panels. If the shelf is more than five shelves high or more than 3 feet wide, check in first so we can make sure it will fit. (3) Compile media coverage of the library. Links to articles and blogs about the library have been sent to the list, but we don't have one place where they all are. Compile a list from the posts, and an online media search (like google media), and make a list that we can post on the wiki and other places. If you have the ability, also print a copy of each article for the library's archive at Dewey Square. (4) Join the Emergency Team. We decided at tonight's meeting that we wanted to decentralize the emergency plan for what to do in the event that Occupy Boston is raided and shut down. We need folks to sign up for two things. One: If you have a car, and a place in your home where you can store 3-10 crates of books, please sign up for the emergency phone tree. You will be called as soon as we learn of a raid, and asked to bring your car to Dewey Square to retrieve some of the books. Two: If you have the ability to text, email and Facebook, please sign up to be an outreach person in the event of a raid. Your task will be to spread the word that the raid is happening, ask people to come down to Dewey Square to help secure the library space by standing vigil at the library tent, and help transfer library materials to cars if that becomes necessary. Minutes Attendance: Alana K., Brian S., Clara, Clare, Emily B., Susie H., Vered M. I. Introductions II. What if suddenly we need to move the collection? What are our post-Occupy Boston plans? • Emily: Keep it as a collection. • Vered/Susie: This came up before. The ideas are in previous minutes. • Brian: Why are we keeping it unified? • Vered: At least somewhat because it was started as a unified collection by John. • Susie: At the last meeting we were leaning towards keeping the collection as a whole. Of course, we can't solve the whole picture tonight. • Emily: People at least want to keep it for further use. • Susie: Decentralization is a strength. Maybe 3-4 people should split the books and be caretakers and communicate as a group. Emily agrees. Vered agrees and notes that it is also easier to move this many books among multiple people. Several people said they can get their cars down here pretty quickly. • Susie: I can imagine something like a phone tree. You know who to call in an emergency and who to call if you can't reach that person. • Brian: What we do will also be affected by how the emergency plays out. • Clara: We should have some proposal for what will happen. • Vered: At least we should have phone numbers. • Emily: What about the accountability of the people at the meeting vs. the people who aren't here. Can we make this decision without their input? • Vered: People who are physically here tend to be able to decide in situations like this. Morever, given the shutdowns of other camps (Occupy Oakland and others), we should get ready sooner. • Susie: We should also preserve other information-capturing aspects of the collection, not just books. What about the various things we have up on the walls, for example? We should also summarize and photograph, maybe so that BRRC, PLG, and any other participants can write an article later recounting what happened. The project is not just the books. • Vered: The question, “what is this?” is actually not so easy to answer and can guide our vision of what to do with the library. • Clare: E.g., quotes from Lord and Zinn helped her better articulate what the library is. • Vered: Let's make an emergency plan today; the vision can develop later. • Susie: Maybe a couple of people can cooperate together to articulate the vision. For the emergency plan, she can send a message to the listserve to get volunteers for the emergency tree. We should post the plan but not people's phone numbers publicly in the library. • Clare: We should take everything in an emergency that we can, not just books. • Susie: Don't throw anything away. • Vered: There is also a strategic reason to stand our ground. It would be a media issue if the cops threw away the library's collection. • Emily: Cops threw away medical supplies in the attack on Occupy Oakland. • Susie: I'll include both the idea of volunteers to move books and volunteers to be at the tent in case of an emergency. • Vered: In a sense, the library is a part of what grounds this place. People come into the library and say, wow, this library makes this tent city feel real. • Susie: Part of proactive reference to other groups should be getting feedback from others about what to do if we suddenly have to vacate. What are they doing? • We decided that the following volunteers would talk to other groups about their thoughts: • Clare => legal • Clara => medical • Vered => food • Brian => media • Susie => logistics • Alana will start to gather notes, a vision, and feedback in order to present it in a coherent document so we can begin thinking through our vision for the library. III. Accountability • Emily: How do we inform each other of what's going on? How do we come to decisions? What does consensus mean when we have a listserv with “loving lurkers”? Should we have a weekly meeting? • Brian: Does a specific recurring time exclude people? • Clare: Even if it's not specifically recurring, we can meet regularly. • Emily: We could alternate daytime/night and the day it's on. • Susie: We could also do a small logistics meeting where we just check in and discuss what's going on but don't make major decisions. • Clare: Or maybe informally email people about what's going on. • Vered: We could have a log in a Google Doc. • Emily: If we have a way to report back, we wouldn't necessarily need more frequent meetings. • Vered: We could just have unresolved issues in the Google Doc. • Susie: It should also be printed periodically. Should we highlight unresolved issues and things like reference questions? • Susie: Are we accountable to the GA? I think of us as more accountable to other groups. • Brian: I think the way in which we're accountable to the GA is that we should be transparent. • Emily: What about announcements to the GA? • Vered: Our documentation should be on the wiki, not just Google Docs for transparency. • Susie: We should definitely have a physical presence at the GA. • Clara is going to start the Google Doc log. Use it to note down what you did and what's going on when you've spent time at the library. • Emily: We will have a check in about logistics at every meeting. • Susie: Sometimes the people at the meetings might not be the people who are doing the work, hence posting what you're doing and posting minutes is important. IV. Announcements and points of discussion • Library logistics • Clare: We had a $5 donation. • Vered: Should we use money for collection development? • Susie: We should be cautious about money donations. • Alana: The larger community should have input if we accept donations. • Clare: For now hand it over to finance. • Susie: Can we try to figure out how to deal with the uneven floor? Also, we need more bookshelves. What about a Craig's List committee to find bookshelves? • All: $15 is a good CL cost cap for a bookshelf. • Vered: This may be a good task for people who couldn't make it to site but would like to help out. • All: Total monetary cap of $50 for committee buying stuff. • Programming • Clara: We have been having weekly children's programming. It has been great. It would be great to have children's books in the library. • Susie: We could use my 2nd tent for programs and a pop-up quiet space. • Emily: Instruction and a book club could be great. Also, could we follow up on other things going on in the Occupation. E.g., Chomsky mentioned a bunch of authors in his talk. Maybe we could feature them. • Collection development • Children's books, anarchism (there have been lots of requests) • Susie: Maybe we could make subject-specific bibliographies to be turned into fliers. • Brian => anarchism • Clare => socially-conscious kids' books • Reference • We should have a sign advertising that we will answer questions by email. • Susie: We have set up a reference outreach structure. I don't know if we're using it. • Clara: There seems to be overlap between the people signing up for subject specialties and subject weeding assignments. • Outreach • Vered: We should set up a Twitter account. • Other ideas: Liaisons to other groups, signs, BRRC & PLG websites. • Emily: Post about these meetings on the BRRC site? • Archives • Susie: We should do shelf by shelf photoarchiving. • Emily: This fits in the with the cataloging question. • Susie: Let's put cataloging on the next agenda. • Susie: We should archive media references to the library. • Alana has been printing copies of material. • Emily: Can we make the archive process more transparent? • Brian: As a general principle, let people know what work you're doing. Use the list. • Trip to NYC • Susie: It may not be necessary to go with the current group planning the trip, but we should at least talk to the NYC people at some point. • Vered: If anyone goes, tell us about it. • Susie: Maybe we should have a Skype call. • Emily: Do they have a vision, contingency plan, other ideas? V. Next meeting • Brian: Weekend instead of weekday to vary the meeting time? • All: Poll was great last time. • Vered will send out the poll because she has volunteered to facilitate next week. • Vered will also create the agenda.