[WEB4LIB] RE: New Directions

[Jennifer Heise]

K.G. Schneider wrote:
>>       Two years ago, many of you marked my name on the ALA Council
>>ballot with the expectation that I would represent your views, values,
>>and priorities.  Last week I decided that, because of my higher personal
>>costs associated with attending conferences, and because I have
>>college-age children, I will be unable to attend conferences this year.
>>With regret, I resigned my position as councilor-at-large and ALA
>>Council representative to the Planning & Budget Assembly, as well as
>>American Libraries Advisory Committee member.
> 
> 
> Skip is exactly the kind of person I like working with in ALA: sensible,
> thoughtful, hard-working. He laughed at the idea that he might participate
> in the work of the association without leaving his office. But as I said to
> him, the capability is there. We could do this if we wanted to. However, to
> quote my favorite lightbulb joke (where the question is, "How many
> therapists does it take to change a lightbulb?"), first, the lightbulb has
> to really want to change.
> 
> To give a "web-for-libraries" spin to this, be aware that for some time
> there has been discussion within ALA governance about participating in ALA
> electronically. Quite a bit of ALA governance is predicated on a
> mid-20th-century model where we show up twice a year to do the "work" of the
> association. Most of the work seems to be on the order of a pyramid scheme,
> where we vote on actions developed at the conference that lead to more
> actions to vote on in six months. A surprising amount of ALA activity
> revolves around this reality, and it is this reality--show up at ALA, do
> work, go home, repeat--that means that most of the actual governance
> activity of ALA is hidden from member view, because since the committees
> that generate the work Council votes on must first meet so that Council has
> something to do, the bulk of the governance decisions takes place after most
> of the conference attendees have long gone home. (This is much less true for
> LITA and for some divisions, such as PLA.)
> 
> Not only that, to mollify those who have been insisting that ALA move from
> hoop skirts to comfortable slacks, ALA has developed a category of "virtual"
> committee member that trivializes the entire concept of participation.
> "Virtual" members can "participate," but their presence does not count
> toward a quorum and they cannot vote on committee actions. ALA is unable to
> consider the idea that someone might be a vital member of a committee and
> not fly cross-country twice a year to attend a conference. Personally, I
> find the entire category of "virtual" member to belittle and demean the
> concept of association participation and make our association appear
> exceptionally backward. 

Well, as a younger member of ALA (I'm 36 now), I've participated on a 
number of ALA committees as a Virtual Member-- specifically MARS 
committees, the User Access to Services Committee and the MarsBest 
committee. Both of those committees' tasks were well adapted to 
electronic participation, and I didn't feel that I missed much by being 
a Virtual member.

The real hump for younger librarians, and others who may not have 
achieved financial stability, is that while conference participation is 
often funded by your organization, your dues generally have to be paid 
out of your own pocket. For what I make, $150 membership in ALA, along 
with over $100 in my state association, etc. should probably be trivial. 
But somehow it isn't.

I have to admit that I feel that my work has been trivialized by Karen's 
comments. I'm also starting to feel like I 'don't fit in' here on 
Web4Lib-- I'm interested in open-access initiatives and I don't have my 
own RSS feed :) (I do have a pseudo-blog-- at Livejournal -- for my 
research notes and librarian rants, etc.)


-- 
/   Jennifer Heise, Helpdesk/Librarian, Email: jahb at lehigh.edu
\ \ Lehigh Library & Technology Services, Phone: (610) 758-3072
   / Fairchild-Martindale Library, 8A Packer Ave, Bethlehem PA 18015

"Comment is free, but facts are on expenses." -- Tom Stoppard