During my year as ALA president we are experimenting with ways to increase opportunities for ALA members to contribute to, participate in, and benefit from their association. Unless you are a member of an ALA committee or board, it is difficult to produce a program at the Annual Conference. Furthermore, depending upon the sponsoring unit, the lead time for approval of a program can be a year or more.

I invite “grassroots” proposals for programs to be produced at the 2009 Annual Conference in Chicago. This program is designed to give members who don’t normally have the opportunity an opportunity produce a program and to reduce the lead time to assure programs that address timely topics.

For guidelines, deadlines, and a link to the submission form, are available on my Web site.  Ot also provides information on other initiatives promoting member participation.

Students in the MLS programs at the University of Wisconsin—Madison and UCLA will play a significant role in selecting programs.

If you have an idea, please submit a proposal!

ALA President-elect Camila Alire is seeking applicants and nominees for appointments to the 2009-2010 ALA and Council committees.

The deadline for submitting applications and nominations is December 5, 2008.

Alire is asking for volunteers to serve on the following ALA committees:

Accreditation; American Libraries Advisory; Awards; Chapter Relations; Conference; Constitution and Bylaws; Election; Human Resource Development and Recruitment Advisory; Information Technology Policy Advisory; Literacy; Literacy and Outreach Services Advisory; Membership; Membership Meetings; Nominating; Orientation, Training and Leadership Development; Public and Cultural Programs Advisory; Public Awareness; Publishing; Research and Statistics; Rural, Native and Tribal Libraries of All Kinds; Scholarships and Study Grants; Website Advisory

The following ALA joint committees:

ALA-Children’s Book Council; ALA-Association of American of Museums; and ALA-Association of American Publishers

And, the following Council committees: Advocacy; Budget, Analysis and Review; Committee on Committees; Diversity; Education; Intellectual Freedom; International Relations; Legislation; Organization; Council Orientation, Planning and Budget Assembly; Policy Monitoring; Professional Ethics; Public Awareness; Publishing; Resolutions; and Status of Women in Librarianship.

Committee charges are available in the ALA Handbook of Organization (http://www.ala.org/ala/ourassociation/aboutala/alahandbookorganization.cfm).

The online committee volunteer form is available at: http://cs.ala.org/alacommittees/volunteer.html

The ALA Committee on Committees and Committee on Appointments will assist in making the appointments.  Individuals selected to serve on a committee will be notified after the 2009 ALA Midwinter Meeting in Denver (Colo.) and will begin their committee service at the conclusion of the 2009 ALA Annual Conference in Chicago.

For more information on the committee appointments process, contact Eileen Hardy, Executive Board Secretariat, at ehardy@ala.org, or Alfredo Pinto, assistant to Camila Alire, at apinto@emporia.edu.

ALA President’s Informal Report for August 2008

In my role as ALA president I did the following during August :

CONFERENCES

August 10-14 I participated in IFLA’s World Library and Information Congress in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada. The conference theme was “Libraries without borders: Navigating towards Global Understanding.” This was my first IFLA conference. It was good to experience an event whose conventions, schedule, and structure were new to me; it helped me imagine how first-timers to our massive Annual Conference must feel.

During the IFLA conference I signed an agreement between the association and the Berufsverband Information Bibliothek (BIB). The two organizations will work together to facilitate exchanges between librarians of the two countries. German librarians interested in an exchange in the United States can contact BIB which will work with ALA’s International Relations Office to connect to libraries in the United States. Although no funds are available at this time U.S. librarians interested in exchanges in Germany should contact the International Relations Office at intl@ala.org.

PRESS INTERVIEWS

• Interviews on the relationship between increased use of public libraries and the nation’s economic downturn with the following:
  • Democrat and Chronicle, Rochester, NY
  • Sacramento Bee, Sacrament, CA
  • Lexington Herald-Leader, Lexington, KY
  • Associated Press, WV
  • Press Enterprise, Riverside, CA
  • Toledo Blade, Toledo, OH
  • Oak Leaves, Oak Park, IL
• Interview on electronic media and services in libraries, Christian Science Monitor, Boston, MA
• Panelist in program on the future of libraries and librarians on KQED’s “Forum” call-in radio show; archived at http://www.kqed.org/epArchive/R808261000

In interviews with the print media I observed two things. First, national and regional reporters ask more insightful questions and have prepared for the interviews. Second, it seems that few of them have visited a public library recently. Frequently they were surprised to learn about services that are common in our public libraries. Michael Krasny, KQED’s host, was briefed very well on current library issues.

GOVERNANCE ACTIVITIES

• Presided during the Executive Board’s Executive Commitee conference call on August 4
• The Executive Board did not conduct a conference call in August

ALA and Women’s Day magazine want to hear your ideas for a topic that gives Women’s Day readers an opportunity to tell the world how important their library is to them.

The Campaign for America’s Libraries, ALA’s public awareness campaign about the value of libraries and librarians, has partnered with Woman’s Day magazine since 2002. Each year, Woman’s Day readers are invited to respond to a question about libraries, and up to four readers’ contributions are published in a spring issue of the magazine.

We would like to solicit your ideas for future topics to be featured in Woman’s Day.

Past editorial topics were:

* How the library improved my health (2008 – article to be published in the March 2009 issue)

* Starting my small business with help from the library (2007)

* How the library changed my life (2006)

* Researching my family tree at the library (2005)

* Why I would want to be a librarian for a day (2004)

* The book that changed my life (2003)

* The relationship between writers and the library (2002)

If you would like to submit an idea, please send an e-mail to Megan McFarlane by Friday, August 29. Please feel free to forward on this message.

On July 2 my old ALA president-elect’s Web site came down and was replaced by a new ALA president’s Web site. It remains at the same URL. It repeats the design of the old site but has been reorganized to highlight the president’s activities. The newest item at the site is an audio recording, made in a studio prior to the event. of my July 1 American Library Association inaugural address. To listen click on “Listen to and watch Jim.”

To set the tone and establish the theme for my inaugural speech, a fife and drum corps opened the ceremony and Benjamin Franklin, played by an interpreter, welcomed the audience and reflected on his love of reading and his contribution to the genesis of the library movement in America.

I am honored to serve as ALA’s president for 2008-09. I will do my best to honor the great trust my fellow ALA members have placed in me.

Last night Diedre Conkling shared the URL for an ALA Committee on Organization (COO) document about electronic participation and ALA’s open meetings policy.  I don’t recall if she posted it to the NMRT List, the Council list, or both.

Early this decade there were members who objected to committees doing any work outside of the ALA Annual Conference and Midwinter Meeting.  COO responded by defining “meeting”–basing the definition largely on Sturgis–in a way that clearly excluded asynchronous email exchanges and listserv discussion from that definition.  The definition, approved by the ALA Council, is part of ALA policy.  At the time it was proposed and passed, it was intended (and I believe still functions) as a permissive policy/definition.  It makes it clear that a lot of work done outside of the f2f meetings at Annual Conference and the Midwinter Meeting is not a meeting and therefore not covered by the open meetings policy.  In the absence of that definition, some contended that email discussions and the like violated the open meetings policy.  (I’ll keep my comments to this narrow issue and not comment on open lists, an issue COO did not discuss at the time.)

The issue is broader than the open meetings policy.  It is about participation opportunities, not just meetings.  Early this decade COO (while I served as its chair) chose to take an incremental approach to virtual (a term I personally dislike) participation.  The committee took that approach because the political realities at the time were that incremental is the approach that could win support from the majority of the committee and the Council.  To learn more about the issue’s background and contradictory opinions that members expressed at the time, see the collection of COO documents (including the one Deidre cited last night) at http://tinyurl.com/4lbp2h.

The ALA Policy Manual, the ALA Bylaws, and the Sturgis parliamentary manual all play roles in this.  It is my understanding that the electronic participation task force that Janet Swan Hill chairs is taking another look at how these intersect and their implications for policy.

Two things have unquestionably changed in recent years—new technologies and member’s use of these technologies.  A third change, which may be generational, is members’ desire to experiment and explore new modes of participation using these and emerging technologies.

Meanwhile, we have policies, bylaws, etc., on the books.

I have ideas about these issues. I have given them a good deal of thought for a number of years.  I haven’t yet prepared my inaugural speech for July 1; I’ll share my ideas then.

Please join me in Anaheim in July for a planning session to strengthen our approach to advocacy for our libraries.

As incoming president of ALA, I have been busy developing initiatives for my 2008-2009 term. I am seeking your assistance in developing one of these initiatives in particular:  advocacy for all types of libraries.

I believe that we need to sustain and strengthen our advocacy efforts on behalf of all libraries. I think of our school, public, academic, and other types of libraries as parts of an integrated library ecosystem. If one part of the system is threatened or suffers, the entire system is threatened and suffers. We know that libraries offer incredible lifelong learning opportunities, yet no one type of library can deliver learning opportunities from cradle to grave. Through our library ecosystem, however, we offer these opportunities in abundance. No other agency in American society can offer lifelong learning opportunities as effectively as our libraries!

How can we convey this message to decision-makers and the public, at large? How can we strengthen our efforts for the benefit of every type of library?

We’ll begin to answer those questions at a planning session at the ALA 2008 Annual Conference in Anaheim, hosted by the ALA Office for Library Advocacy. Please join me, Carol Brey-Casiano, Chair of the ALA’s new Advocacy Committee, and Marci Merola, Director of the new ALA Office for Library Advocacy, at:

• Advocating for All Libraries: Saving the Library Ecosystem
• Saturday, June 28, 1:30 to 3:30 p.m.
• (Location to be announced)

Please RSVP to rsvp@ala.org no later than June 9, 2008; write “Planning Session” in the subject line. For more information, please visit www.ala.org/rettigadvocacy.

See you in Anaheim!

On March 13 I testified at a U.S. House of Representatives hearing on behalf of ALA and the Association of American Law Libraries.  The hearing was held by the Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight of the House Science and Technology Committee.  Complete information about the hearing is available on the subcommittee’s Web site.
In the days immediately before the hearing I received drafts of my testimony from the ALA Washington office staff, edited those drafts and raised questions and returned the drafts.  Phone calls supplemented this iterative process.  I also had a call from two senior Democratic staff members of the House committee.

The purpose of the hearing was to gather evidence on the Environmental Protection Agency’s response to date to its sudden closure of some of its libraries in 2006.  Because this was an investigative oversight hearing, the witnesses were required to stand, raise our right hands, and swear to tell the truth.

I had testified before another House subcommittee for ALA in October.  That hearing dealt with a variety of issues related to the Library of Congress, including the process it follows in making significant changes in cataloging policies.  Testifying before a Congressional committee is one of those things that is a bit daunting the first time. But after that initiating learning experience it is easy.

I was one of five witnesses.  The others represented the U.S. Government Accountability Office, a union of professional employees in EPA, the Union of Concerned Scientists, and the EPA.  Rep. Brad Miller of North Carolina chaired the hearing.  At times he was the only member of the House present.  There were a number of concurrent hearings on March 13 vying for their presence.  The minority party was represented by Rep. Ralph Hall of Texas.  Mr. Miller was well informed about the topic and made an opening statement that laid out the issue in brief; Congress had told EPA to restore its library system and Congress was not happy that it has not received evidence of progress.
Each witness had five minutes to make an oral statement.  This was an abbreviated version of the text of the full testimony document submitted for the record prior to the hearing.  Mr. Miller was prudently indulgent, allowing witnesses to run over the House five-minute limit for oral testimony.  Despite many revisions and deletions to those drafts that went back and forth between Washington and Richmond, mine ran 5 minutes and 30 seconds–a good 30 seconds briefer than any other witness.

After all five witnesses had made our statements, Mr. Miller and Mr. Hall each had five minutes to ask the panel questions.  Mr. Miller started out by addressing the EPA representative and noted that four witnesses had one interpretation of the situation and EPA had another significantly different interpretation.  Four of us had painted a picture of secrecy, intransigence, and indifference by EPA; EPA painted a picture of a situation that the rest of us wish were true.  Mr. Miller asked a number of pertinent questions of the witnesses.  Mr. Hall took about half of his allotted question time. Mostly he complained about the slowness with which EPA makes decisions about permits for oil refineries in Texas.  It was clear from Mr. Miller’s facial expressions as he listened to the witnesses as well as from his questions that he was not pleased with the current state of affairs.  He grilled the EPA witness on the process by which it is putting together a report due to Congress on March 31.  Apparently a lot of work remains to be done on that report.  He also advised the other witnesses to clear our calendars on March 30 and 31 in case EPA really follows through and asks stakeholders for comment on a draft of the report, one of the steps EPA says it plans to take.

My time on behalf of ALA and its ongoing fight to assure citizen access to government information was time well spent.  I know it was a lot more fun to be one of the other witnesses than it was to be the EPAs witness!

For a summary of ALA’s position on the issue, see its Washington Office’s "District Dispatch" blog and scroll down to the March 13 entry.

Several years ago the American Library Association launched online communities software developed by another national association. ALA’s online communities never really caught on. The software was not intuitive and many users found it clunky and sometimes confusing. So it was very welcome news from Jenny Levine last week that ALA has put our an RFP to migrate the communities to Drupal. This will offer much needed flexibility lacking in the old software. As it develops My ALA will give members greater and greater opportunities to interact, learn, contribute, and collaborate.

One of the reasons we participate in conferences is to learn. Participating in the ALA Midwinter Meeting as ALA’s president-elect is definitely a learning experience!

I have had opportunities to learn about ALA from a variety of perspective, each of them informative in a distinctive way–as a division president, as a member of Council, as chair of the Committee on Organization (COO), as a member of the Budget Analysis and Review Committee (BARC), as a member of the ALA Executive Board, as a candidate for ALA president, and in other roles. All have helped paint a fuller picture of this incredibly complex organization.

We learn on or own and we learn from others. Both fellow ALA members and ALA staff are wonderful teachers for a president-elect. Since May staff have been helping me understand the role and responsibilities of the president-elect. More significantly, they have helped me transform ideas for presidential initiatives into programs and to create a realistic budget to carry out those programs

Fellow ALA members proved to be good teachers in two ways. I had the opportunity to meet with a number of ALA committees, especially those focused on advocacy efforts and a group in the Emerging Leaders program, to describe those initiatives. Members’ questions have helped me refine my thinking about those initiatives. Some responsibilities rest distinctively with the president or the president-elect. Among those is presiding over Council meetings. While president Loriene Roy was in New York to appear in the Today show with this year’s winners of the Newbery and Caldecott medals, I presided at the second meeting of the ALA Council. Suffice it to say that it was a learning experience. I imagine that meeting was also a learning experience for the new members of Council.

I also learned, as next year either Linda Williams or Camilla Alire will, that sleep is not a major part of the schedule of an ALA president-elect during the Midwinter Meeting. I suspect that is a lesson that will be renewed at the Annual conference, at next year’s Midwinter, and at the 2009 Annual Conference. At the same time, it was an exhilarating experience! It also had a lot in common with my experience as a candidate at the 2007 Midwinter Meeting. Then and again this year I had the rewarding opportunity to meet a wide range of ALA members and hear their concerns and ideas. What did I learn from both of those Midwinter experiences? I learned that ALA members are committed to our profession, to our Association, and to building a vibrant future for both.