Our second Council meeting began the day on Tuesday. Judith Platt, Freedom to Read Foundation President reported litigation activity underway to defend the rights of readers and bookstores to resist challenges to their right to have access to books and information. Membership in the FTRF has fallen off in recent years. ALA Members are encouraged to join: http://www.ftrf.org/joinftrf.html

“Resolution on Support for Funding for Cataloging and Bibliographic Control at the Library of Congress” by Councilors Diane Dates Casey and Janet Swan Hill was passed unanimously. Also passed overwhelmingly were “Resolution Supporting the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA)” and “Resolution Concerning ALA Policy Opposing Sweatshop Labor” (ALA and its affiliates will not purchase products for distribution to Membership that have been created by sweatshop labor).

In the afternoon on Tuesday I attended a Chapter Councilors’ forum where state councilors get together to discuss concerns about chapter issues. There is apparently an issue with the PLA running trainings in states without the knowledge of the state associations. There was also talk of holding a chapter councilors’ reception in Denver at the Midwinter meeting. (As you may have gleaned, receptions are good—the more you get invited to the less you have to think about how to fit in eating between meetings and, of course, the more money you save on food! The ultimate score is a reception with an open bar!)

Nancy Wilson

Monday began with an ALA/APA meeting. Despite the commonly accepted concerns about the fiscal viability of ALA-APA, the good news produced at this session reflected very heavy attendance at ALA-APA programs — such as those involving “negotiating for better salaries” and “the union advantage”. One action item passed overwhelmingly at this session was the recommended minimum salary for a professional librarian at $41,680 and “a minimum wage for all library workers of at least $13.00 per hour….” I voted against this resolution, not because I don’t believe in a livable wage, but because the recommendation did not take into account the employment of student workers and other special cases.

The budgetary ceiling for ALA-APA was passed at about $265,000. Although I voted for this, the fiscal future of ALA-APA remains cloudy. Unlike, ALA-APA, the fiscal future of ALA appears to be very solid and well documented. The budgetary ceiling for ALA was approved at $67,984,278.

In the afternoon I attended the Human Resource Development and Recruitment (HRDR) committee meeting. I am a member of the advisory committee to this ALA office. This office runs the Emerging Leaders program and coordinates the job center at conference. The Director Lorelle Swader gave an exhausting report of all of the activities her office does each year. I enjoy being on the committee because of my human resource background and because it is purely advisory and does not require lots of time, which I don’t have with council obligations. In Chicago, June 2009 Annual, HRDR staff and committee members plan a reception to celebrate 30 years of HRDR being an office at ALA. Let me know if you will be in Chicago and I can probably get you an invitation!

I attended the PLA president’s program with Jamie Lee Curtis after the HRDR meeting and attended the reception following it.

In the evening I attended a lively discussion at council forum of several issues included a lengthy debate involving a new resolution calling for “Expanding Council Transparency”.

Nancy Wilson

Ala Council report–Chapter 2

Sunday morning I was up bright and early for the ALA Council/Executive Board/Membership Information Session. The Budget and Analysis Committee (BARC) report by Marilyn Hinshaw was detailed and informative.  The challenges facing ALA in this year of serious inflation have been considerable.  The Endowment Fund Report by Chair Robert Newlen was also informative and encouraging.  Despite a highly volatile market, the endowment fund only declined by 1.7% during the past year. 

Immediately following this meeting was the ALA/APA Council meeting.:  Revenue results for ALA-APA we said to have fallen short by about $11,000. There seems to be a feeling that the viability of ALA/APA, the lobbying arm of ALA, is tenuous.

The rest of the morning was taken up with the first regular Council Meeting.  Resolutions Committee Chair, Peter McDonald, presented a significant revision to the guidelines for developing Council Resolutions. The new, redesigned ALA web site is expected to be launched in September 2008.  Preview site:  http://staging.ala.org/home.cfm  Efforts are underway to reduce the length of Mid Winter and Annual Meetings for Council as early as 2010 so that Council sessions could end on Tuesday rather than Wednesday. During the afternoon I went through a small section of the exhibits and in the evening attended the ALA President’s reception. Later I attended a private screening of WALL-E the new Pixar movie at Disneyland, courtesy of MovieLicensing USA.

Nancy Wilson

I am delighted to continue to serve as your representative on the ALA Council. Here is a report on my first day at this year’s conference in Anaheim, California.

After the councilor’s orientation on Saturday morning my first business meeting was the Chapter Relations meeting Saturday afternoon. This is a meeting of the Chapter Relations Committee and the staff of the chapter office in Chicago. The office is in charge of all dealings with chapters. This is the office you might call if you needed some advice from ALA about library issues. During this meeting I listened to reports from various divisions of ALA and caught up with chapter news. Some important highlights were the extension of the Capwiz advocacy website to all states and reports from officers of various ALA divisions.

 Immediately following the chapter relations meeting was our first membership meeting.  The primary agenda item was the report of Janet Swan Hill of the Task Force on Electronic Member Participation.  It was not only received well, but seconded by practically every remark uttered.  The urging was for full fledged electronic member participation to begin ASAP. The Membership Meeting also approved unanimously a “Resolution on Improving the Federal Depository Library Program and Public Access to Government Information”.

I’ll post more shortly.

Nancy Wilson

I was very pleased to be appointed to the Human Resources Development and Recruitment (HRDR) Committee which is an advisory committee and meets once at each conference to advise the HRDR Office in the Chicago offices of ALA. Lorelle Swader is the director of the office which oversees the ALA Joblist and the Emerging Leaders program at ALA among many other things. We met on Monday afternoon and heard Lorelle speak about the programs in her office. I was particularly pleased to be attending as a state representative during the discussion of the emerging leaders program. This is an ALA program which trains young librarians to be leaders in the library field. Thus far the two groups of graduates in the program have been absorbed into the ALA organization. It is my intention to urge the HRDR office to send some of the ALA emerging leaders back  to work at the state level. Lorelle was happy to have me on board as a representative of the chapters and said that they want people in the program to become leaders at the state level as well. I look forward to continuing the work on this committee for the next two years. If you are interested in the program you may get more information from me anytime.

Nancy Wilson

802-453-2366

readmorenow@comcast.net

I am writing on the train home from Philadelphia and am happy to share news of the ALA conference with you all. Before conference began we were told of a resolution to open nearly all ALA listserves for read only access to all members. The general principles of open access were strongly supported but the resolution was referred back to committee for more study during our first council meeting. The entire issue of electronic access and online meetings was hot at this year’s conference. There is a task force on electronic communications which continues to study the issue. At our first day of council meetings we were introduced to a resolution requesting that computer access at the conference be handicapped accessible. The resolution passed easily at our final council meeting today. During our second day at council we were introduced to a change in the ALA code of ethics. The changes were in language dealing with fair use and balancing the rights of users and producers of materials. We also voted to accept some changes to Standards for Accreditation of Master’s Programs in Library Science and Information Studies.

I’ll post once more about this conference in the next day or so and, as always, please let me know if there are any issues you would like to discuss.

Your voice at the American Library Association,

Nancy Wilson