(NOTE:
The quotations below (except the Dirksen quote) are fictitious. JJ.)
First
of all, Dorothy, I want to thank you for those kind words. They mean a lot to
me.
Next, I want to assure you that I plan to keep my
comments lighter than they were when I won the Agnes Henebry
award, so let’s
all relax here and have some fun.
For
the benefit of those of you who were not there for the Henebry festivities in
1997, I gave this spellbinding talk
and urged everyone to “bloom where you are planted” and other words of
wisdom. I said we News Division people should take charge of archival metadata
because the day was coming when someone was going to do it, and we should be the
guys, because we know something about it.
When
I was finished and sat down, the room was silent. I leaned over to Margaret Neu,
who was on the Awards committee, and said, “I really left them deep in
thought, didn’t I?” She said, “Deep in thought? They are all asleep!” So
I am learning.
When
Jody Habayeb called in February to tell me I had won this award, she said,
“John, as chair of the Awards committee, I have some good news for you.” and
immediately I started thinking about what I could have won.
I
knew that I wouldn’t win the Strongest Librarian award, because Bob Jansen
already has laid claim to that. I knew it wasn’t the Funniest Speech award
because after Ben Lightman gave his uproarious acceptance speech in 1994 they
retired that one. I knew it wasn’t the Smartest Librarian award because that
would go to Nora Paul, who got out of the business.
I
finally figured out it was the Most Handsome Library Manager award because Mike
Meiners has not been in the Division for 10 years and Mike Jesse was going to be
honored for being the Division chair for a whole year without getting impeached
– even once.
Jody
told me the committee had chosen me for the Kwapil award and I was stunned. I
actually got a little teary. I thanked her and hung up the phone and ran to my
boss Dale Cohen’s office. Dale, by the way, was hoping to be here tonight, but
he now has a new assignment that requires him to be elsewhere. He sends his
regrets.
At
any rate, I ran into Dale’s office and said “I’ve got the Kwapil! I’ve
got the Kwapil!” He looked up at me and said, “I think a course of
penicillin will cure that.”
Well,
I went back to my office, and checked NewsLib, and by then Jody had posted the
announcement. Only a few minutes later my first e-mail came in. It was from
Charlie Campo. Now, Charlie was the chair of the Awards committee that made me
an Aggie in 1997. Charlie’s note said: “I see that grade inflation has even
come to the News Division.” Thanks a lot Charlie.
That
evening I went home and told my wife Carol that I won the Kwapil and she said,
“Does that mean I have to find someone else to take out the garbage?” You
can see I got a lot of respect there.
I
am fortunate to have Carol with me tonight, and I would like you to say hello to
her if you haven’t met her already. (Incidentally, one of the things that
struck me – as I was introducing many of you to her tonight – was the number
of people whom I introduced as “my friend . . . ” So many of you have become
my friends over the years we have been together.)
I
also ask that you give her a little sympathy. First, she is married to me –
and that’s bad enough. But her biggest problem is what to say when we go to
parties in our neighborhood. People ask her, “What does John do for a
living?” and she answers, “He is following his passion.” Then, of course,
they ask, “What is his passion?” and she answers, “He is dedicated to
convincing others that metadata is worth more than a second thought.”
Then
there is this long silence. You know what the people are thinking. They are
thinking, “Now how can I tell this woman in a gracious way that I have never
given metadata a first thought?”
I really was stunned when Jody called me. Like others
before me have done, I began thinking about the illustrious people who received
this award in the past, and about others in the News Division who could just as
well be standing here. There is Dorothy Ingebretsen herself, who has built a
powerhouse library with such talented people at the Los Angeles Times. I thought
of Jen Belton of the Washington Post, who is guiding the Post’s full page
digitization project with ProQuest, and is doing it from home while she cares
for her son Noah. And Nora Paul, who with Kathy Hansen is doing such wonderful
work with her “New Directions for News” project. And Sherry Adams in Houston
and Julie Kirsh in Toronto, who are so smart and so wise. And my colleague Debra
Bade, who is so valuable to the News Division and the Chicago Tribune. I also
thought of the many people in this room tonight who have experienced staff cuts
and are still laboring on. I salute you.
But
since Jody has crowned me “Mr. Metadata,” I can’t disappoint you without
spending three minutes on the subject. As I mentioned in the business meeting
this afternoon, we look on metadata as an opportunity at Tribune. One of our
company’s business goals is to increase content sharing within the company.
One key to doing that well is to have a common way across the company to
identify the elements of the story or photo or graphic or full page, and –
probably more importantly – to have good controls over what people can use and
what they can’t use and how they can use it.
Metadata
is a tool that provides that information in a way that other people – and
other computers – can understand. If it is handled right, it involves little
or no extra work by the source desks and archiving staff because most of the
information is accumulated as part of the production process, from assignment on
through creation and pagination
There is a task force at work at Tribune newspapers that
is dedicated to setting internal metadata standards and making good metadata an
accepted part of the newspaper production process. Some non-Tribune library
people are helping us. I ask that the News Division carefully consider the
documents we are producing and adopt them as the News Division standard. It will
help us all share content more easily, and it will be a tremendous help to the
system vendors, who would much rather build system that we want instead of
systems that don’t relate very well to what we do.
Now,
just as I did with metadata in my Henebry acceptance, I want to give you another
assignment. That assignment is to promote diversity. Many of us will be leaving
the library field in the next few years, and the people who follow us should
represent the diversity of this great nation. As things stand now, that is not
going to happen unless we take some action. We need to become very aggressive in
changing the course of history.
I
have talked about this with Barbara Semonche at the University of North
Carolina, with the director of the University of Iowa School of Journalism, and
with others. There is a real concern among the directors of library schools and
journalism schools about what can be done to attract the minority students in
colleges and even high schools to the interesting tasks that lie ahead in the
area of newsroom information gathering and development. No one has an answer
yet. Debra Bade and I are working on some ideas about what can be done. I invite
you to get involved.
The
last thing I want to say has to do with acknowledgment. I want to start with
this year’s Awards committee – Jody Habayeb, Melinda Carlson, Jim Hunter,
Kathy Foley and Jim Meier. The acknowledgment you have given me with the Henebry
award and now with the Kwapil will stay with me the rest of my life. This is for
me a high point in what has turned out to be an amazing career.
The
lesson that I – and perhaps some of you – need to learn – over and over
– is that people want to be acknowledged for the good they do at work, or in
their families or in the community. It is so easy to give acknowledgment, and
yet we seldom do it.
Sen.
Everett Dirksen said so often, “The oil can is mightier than the sword.” He
was proven right again tonight.
Thank
you.
