Chris Dodge, Utne Reader

The following is an electronic tour of the library of the Utne Reader. Our tour guide is Chris Dodge, Librarian. This tour was conducted in the Spring of 2001.

Utne Reader (http://www.utne.com) is a general interest magazine with a paid circulation of about 230,000. Its mandate is to reprint material from the alternative press: small circulation, independent publications which often cover topics counter to the status quo. The parent company, LENS Publishing, includes an editorial and production staff of ten, plus fourteen who work in circulation, advertising, marketing, administration, and online development. The climate is generally self-regulatory and open, with flexible work hours (based in part on the bimonthly production cycle of the magazine). The company's "Values and Vision" statement begins thus:

"We are dedicated to creating sources of information that harness the invigorating power of ideas to improve the world and add meaning to the lives of its people. To achieve this we must work together artfully, with a unified sense of purpose, a spirit of curiosity and adventure, a quest for understanding, and a love of fun. We value our work together as an act of creative expression; one that will enrich us intellectually, spiritually, and professionally."

Picture Friday afternoons off in the summer, meetings in the adjacent park, children occasionally playing in the office and dogs wandering about, fraternization away from work, beer on hand for parties, freedom from dress codes and petty rules, a hip-hop receptionist whose daily email to staff sometimes quotes her own lyrics. For me coming here was a pleasing change after years of work as a civil servant.

The view from my office.

View from window in UTNE offices

Questions

  1. Describe your responsibilities
    • managing a collection of over 1400 active periodicals: zines, tabloids, newsletters, magazines, journals (collection building, cataloging, shelving, weeding); also: managing a collection of nearly 3000 books
    • reference and research, primarily to support editorial staff and freelance writers; also: aiding fact checkers. Recently with deadline fast approaching, among questions I was asked by editors: Is Gwendolyn Brooks still alive? What are the words of the unofficial post office motto? What's another word for "future"? To the latter, speaking without thinking twice, I replied, "henceforth...ness." That was good for laughter. ("In the years ahead" was my acceptable second try.)
    • participation on editorial team (weekly meetings; reading publications and recommending articles for reprint)
    • writing (bimonthly "Street Librarian" column [StreetLibrarianarticle], book reviews, articles as assigned)
    • bibliography making
    • linking publications/articles/information with people (knowing special interests and projects of editors and editorial interns)
    • fostering connections with the community, including small press publishers and librarians specializing in alternative press (or at least incorporating it into their collections)
  2. How is the value of the information center measured? Do you follow any reporting practices?

    3. Informally only, by conversations throughout the company, sharing written communications, etc.

  3. How do you market yourself and the services of your unit to the organization?

    4. LENS Publishing is so small and the librarian's role so integral, that marketing hasn't been an issue. The editorial office space is built around a central library in which newly received books and periodicals are displayed daily.

  4. Describe how you effectively manage the physical space the library occupies?

    5. Space is a real concern. Few magazine titles are retained longer than three years. Decisions about whether to weed or retain are based on what titles are indexed (in Alternative Press Index, for example), which can be found at other nearby libraries, which are most likely to be consulted for research, and which are unique (or nearly so). Shelving is done in part according to format.

  5. To what extent is information brought to the desktop (i.e. push/pull technology)? Has there been a change of attitude among end users because of technological advancements and/or the World Wide Web?

    6. There is a growing expectation that everything now published is available on the Web. Utne Reader relies less on the Internet than most magazine publishers, I think. There is unsolicited material being sent and received ("push") as well as material actively sought via online databases, web directories, and search engines ("pull").

  6. Are you or your organization affected by copyright and intellectual property rights issues? How so?

    7. Yes. As a for-profit magazine publishing both new and reprinted material, Utne Reader works on a contract basis with both writers and artists.

  7. How much resource sharing do you use? Describe ILL and other activities which help you to meet the information needs of your users when resources are not locally available.

    8. The company has borrowing privileges at the Minneapolis Community and Technical College library, located a block away, as well as at Minneapolis Public Library, with branches throughout the city. Hennepin County Library (suburban Minneapolis) is another resource.

  8. What changes or projects have you or are you implementing? How have you approached the management and users about these changes?

    9. One change made shortly after beginning work at Utne Reader was to eliminate a two-tier range of shelving which entailed a sort of class system. One A-Z range of titles was comprised of magazines deemed to be most likely candidates for reprinting material; a second A-Z range was considered less integral. The system was labor intensive (involving yellow stickers) and, if anything, may have served to ghettoize a part of the collection. Titles are now interfiled.

    One project underway is collaboration with the Minneapolis Community and Technical College library where a growing alternative press collection is incorporated into the curriculum. ( Minneapolis Community and Technical College Alternate Press Collection.) Due to the limited space in the Utne Reader library and the physical proximity of the MCTC library, gifts of weeded material which formerly went to the University of Minnesota are now (in part) going to MCTC. More formal partnership is being discussed

  9. How did you get/keep your job? Any job hunting tips or advice?

    10. I was called and asked whether I might be interested in the job when the former librarian decided to leave after eight years. (I'd interviewed for the job eight years before, then kept in touch with the person who got the job at that time.)

  10. What can be realistically expected from new graduates in terms of specific skills and orientation? How important is previous experience prior to the MLS degree? How important is subject specialization? How can deficiencies be compensated for? For example, do you look for students who have had practicums in relevant areas?

    11. The Utne Reader library has a staff of one at the moment, though an editorial assistant formerly was assigned to library duties one day a week (and a library internship is planned). The importance of experience and specialization cannot be overstressed.

  11. Any other comments?

    12. Collection building: I'd like to have an assistant so I could focus even more on it. Information about thousands of publications can be found on the Web, but I already spend more time than I want to staring into a computer monitor. Review publications (Xerox Debt, A Reader's Guide to the Underground Press, etc.) pile up on my desk. Local independent bookstores go unvisited for too long. Small press publishers' catalogs arrive without my perusing them carefully.

    This lovely quotation from William Ayers' A kind and just parent: the children of juvenile court (Beacon, 1997):

    "Recently I spent some time with my active ninety-two-year-old father-in-law in a retirement community. One of his daily routines is watching the five o'clock news, and so we watched and commented together, day after day. There was, of course, sports (a gamble), stocks (speculation), and weather (out of control). But mostly what we saw was that the five o'clock news tells a single story over and over on what seems like a continuous feed. The story is this: you have a chance of falling victim to a random act of violence, wreckage or mayhem, or, conversely, (and this is a much smaller story), you might win the lottery. We counted up the stories: one evening a murder, a huge warehouse fire, a bank robbery with hostages; the next evening two murders, a gas explosion and a rape. And on and on. Nothing that we saw on the news was the result of human effort or agency or sustained hard work or commitment or thoughtful analysis or efficacy; everything was accident, fate, fortune.

    "The message conveyed by all this speaks to something deep in the modern predicament: the sensation of incapacity and alienation, the awful feeling of impotence, the suspicion that a desolate, frightening landscape lies just outside, the impression that nothing you do matters or means anything or could possibly make a palpable difference."

    Fortunately, a lively alternative press exists, and other independent media which offer real hope and empowerment. My job at the Utne Reader is to collect, ferret out, and disseminate the best of it.

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