Listening to ALA members in Seattle
February 1, 2007 9:02 pm American Library AssociationFictional Seattle radio call-in psychiatrist Frazier Crane greeted his audience with “I'm listening, Seattle.” In Seattle during the recent ALA Midwinter Meeting I listened, not to questions about relationships gone awry or intimate secrets, but to ALA members speaking about their concerns about ALA and librarianship along with their hopes and aspirations for the association and our field. What did I hear while making the rounds of ALA groups campaigning for president?
ALTA's exciting idea
When I met with the board of ALTA (the Association of Library Trustees and Advocates) I heard about their plan to offer ALTA membership at a special price to entire library boards. What an innovative way to show more trustees the value of ALTA and ALA! I assured them that this is something I will talk about as ALA president so that more library boards will take advantage of this great opportunity.
Sometimes feeling overlooked
In my meetings with some of the Round Tables and some of the ethnic caucuses (AILA, APALA, BCALA, CALA, REFORMA), I heard two things: First I heard of valuable service they perform in giving their members opportunities to work with colleagues from every type of library on shared interests and passions. They have created needed organizational niches to meet their members' distinct needs. I also heard that they sometimes feel overlooked and underapreciated by ALA. As vice-president and as president I will definitely meet with the leadership of these groups and we will brainstorm about ways to make their contributions better known. In the process I imagine we will find opportunities for collaborations among some of these groups. The ethnic caucuses definitely showed the power of collaboration in their very successful Joint Conference of Librarians of Color in Dallas in October!
Hopes that the ALA Web site will indeed improve
When I was asked about the ALA Web site I was able to relate my experience as a participant in the December 18 Web retreat at ALA headquarters. The group reviewed results of a usability study of the current Web site. This was the launch pad for brainstorming about how the site should serve members and its broader audience. By the end of the day the group gave ALA staff clear direction on priorities for change. During the past year ALA has gone through an RFP process to adopt a new content management system. Conversion of the site to this new CMS will take time, as will implementation of the changes identified as priorities on December 18. ALA is listening. I will continue to listen to members and carry their concerns to ALA headquarters until we have the Web site that meets our needs.
Concern about difficulty booking hotel rooms for Midwinter and the coming Annual Conference in Washington, DC
I shared this concern with Mary Ghikas, ALA's Senior Associate Executive Director. She described coming procedural changes designed to improve the situation. She also described a phenomenon I had not heard of. In some cases when several members are going to share a room, each of them books a hotel room until they decide which booking to use. This takes rooms out of the pool for unknown lengths of time. I don't know how common this practice is. While understandable, it is problematic. As one of the many currently waitlisted for a hotel in Washington, I think that ALA needs to plan for the robust attendance we have seen at recent conferences (with the anomaly of New Orleans) and increase the pool of rooms and make all of them available at the start of registration. It is in ALA's interests to solve this problem. If members decide that it is just too hard to get lodging for a conference, they may decide not to attend. That will hurt revenues. Members who book multiple rooms for the same group of roommates should book just one. It will take trust between ALA and its members to solve this. We can create a win-win solution. If the problem persists when I am president, I will lead the Executive Board in working with staff to solve it then.
My platform
I also received a great deal of positive feedback about my platform. Thank you to all who listened to me in Seattle. I hope that after hearing me you decided that you will vote for me. Please do!
