ALA participation

[KAREN SCHNEIDER]

I would like to remind Web4Lib members who are also ALA
members (or were, or could be) that participation in ALA is not
something handed to us on a platter.  It requires work,
participation, team-playing, effort, and time.  The only people
who are "excluded" from ALA participation are those who
choose not to contribute the elbow grease required to make ALA
happen.  ALA is heavy with committees and round-tables, and all
you have to do to join a round-table or division is sign a form. 
There are also procedures for establishing round-tables and
committees clearly outlined in the Handbook of Organization
provided to every member.  I can vouch that for many
committees you need to clearly specify that you AREN'T
volunteering when you show up at a meeting or you find yourself
pressed into service!

 And as I look around at Council meetings and many other
activities, I am concerned by the greying of the active body.  We
need more Web4LIb types active in ALA.  We are the new
librarians.  (That includes us greying, bifocaled types who think
new thoughts.) 

I noted that the membership meetings at ALA were largely empty,
though incoming president Barbara Ford had some very
important things to say about electronic participation in the
organization.  (By the way, I originally didn't support her, but I
see now she is the first president in a long while who really "gets
it" about technology, and she has excellent horse-sense.)  Now,
why were these meetings empty?  Because they weren't
advertised?  Signs were all over, and these meetings were
promoted elsewhere as well.  Because they charged admission? 
Of course not.  The rooms were empty because people chose not
to attend.  There were TWO meetings that without any further
preparation people could have used to advance just about any
old issue they believed in.  All it would have taken was some
organizing effort on their part.  It happened in the good old days;
it could have happened there.

Now I will be the first to say that the old ALA infrastructure is
weighted down with old ideas and folks who don't understand the
new technologies very well.  But why is that?  Because the new
folks, except for a handful here and there, largely in LITA, aren't
participating.  What's left are the aging activists of a generation
ago--people who in their time offered some magnificent
contributions to librarianship.  Most librarians today don't even
know about librarians picketing their own conference in protest
about McNamara speaking, or about the origins of the Feminist
Task Force, or the radicals who promoted relevant information
services in urban libraries.  These folks burned a lot of elbow
grease on the issues that meant something to them.  And many
good things about librarianship happened  because these folks
MADE them happen.  The reason you have Internet services at
library conferences is because a group of librarians made it
happen, year after year, until ALA got a clue and offered it as a
real service.  You can pick up a book at hte store and see an ALA
award label on it--from the Caldecott picture books  to the
GLBTF award for best gay/lesbian book.  These awards take
enormous amount of work but are also well-respected.

In the old days, some of us would say, "if you aren't part of the
solution, you're part of the problem."    I'll add that it is
inexcusable to begin a sentence with "ALA does [or doesn't]..."
or to charge ALA with excluding you when you haven't made the
first leap to participate.  

Karen G. Schneider/schneider.karen at epamail.epa.gov
Contractor, GCI/Director, US EPA Region 2 Library
http://www.epa.gov/Region2/library/
At-large Member, ALA Council