ALA Annual - DC

Here is the semi-annual posting of my schedule ... Right now, this matches the version of the calendar in the ALA Scheduler, and lives both on Google Calendar and in my personal Outlook calendar. It is still tentative! There are overlapping meetings. Some of the decisions are "game day" decisions based on location and priority in my work/ALA life. I am the incoming chair of the ALA Membership Meetings Committee, so that meeting along with the Membership Meeting itself take priority. As the ASGCLA Division Councilor, Council and the ASGCLA Board get priority, too.

I get to town early, and will actually do some tourist things during the day on Thursday!

Clicking on any event will show details. Also clicking on "ALA" opens the calendar for that day. I have figured out how to show the Agenda ... this is a work in progress as I jump into HTML editing to make it look the way I want!

And do note the time zone note on the bottom. I have entered the correct time zone in the calendar ... so we will see how that works out for me. I may have mastered this!

ALA Committee Volunteering - part of the inside story

First of all, if you want to volunteer for an ALA Committee, now is the time.

The deadline is November 6, 2015. Here is a link to the online form.

Important note (added 10/28): You are limited to volunteering for 3 positions. (That is the maximum number of volunteer positions you are permitted to hold at any one time.)

The use of this form, which automates many of the database and communication processes involved in volunteering for, being selected by an appointment chair, being notified of a possible appointment, selecting or refusing the appointment, and being added to a committee roster is available to all ALA divisions and round tables. Currently, United for Libraries,FAFLRT, GODORT, LHRT, LRRT, LSSIRT, STORT, and VRT are not using the form. Please contact them directly if you have an interest in volunteering.

So why use the form and what happens next?

The form populates a database that is available to staff (of course) and the volunteer leaders who are responsible for appointments. Those volunteer leaders include division Presidents-elect (me, right now - 2015/16), and the members of the Committee on Committees and Committee on Appointments. If you are interested in the distinction between these two committees and their responsibilities, see my (semi-ancient, but still accurate) post: ALA 101 - Part 5: Committees.

Since I am the President-Elect of ASCLA, I get to use this database. I'll be using it for two different things. First, the Committee on Appointments - which includes all my colleagues in the other divisions - works with the President-Elect of ALA to make some appointments. But, and this is critical, it is also what I will be using to make the appointments to all the ASCLA committees.

I can not repeat this often enough: If you want to serve on an ALA (or division) committee the fill out the form. Back in the day when I served on the Committee on Committees, it was all paper, spreadsheets, and emails. This new system is much smoother and slicker.

Yes, talk to someone if you want to be on a committee but

Fill Out The Form

Feel free to make comments - or otherwise contact me!

ALA Elections 2015 - Some Reflections

First of all, wow. It was an interesting election.

All of the results are posted on the ALA web site, here.

One of the documents that I particularly looked at was 2015 Election Response Rate by Ballot. With all the sections of divisions and all the round tables, there are 81 different ballots. (Yes, you read that right, 81!) Most people only get some of them. How many, depends on how much you pay in dues and how the particular division or round table is structured. What I was interested in was the participation rate.

Both for ALA as a whole (Ballot 0 - Officers), like in the local, state, and national elections, the turnout of voters is not always what we would like. It is usually lower. But, I am proud to say that the election in which I was a candidate had one of the highest participation rates.

My visual inspection (I could not quickly grab it an put it in Excel for sorting, but may try again) shows these as the top participation rate groups:

RMRT	56.06%
GLBTRT	38.67%
LearnRT	38.34%
ASCLA	33.66%
IFRT	33.62%
EMIERT	32.68%
SRRT	31.14%

This means that ASCLA was the only division with more than 30% participation. It is the smallest division (615 members eligible to vote). But it clearly reinforces my contention that it is the easiest to get involved in - I believe that the voting participation rate shows that.

ALA Elections 2015 - about me

Edited 5/11 - no part 2 or part 3!


If you have not received your ALA ballot, they are distributed over several days.

Some of you may have noticed my name out there. This went out to a discussion list a little bit ago:

ASCLA 2015 Elections are Approaching!
Please click on this link to view the following ASCLA members who will be running for election for ASCLA offices in the 2015 Elections. Please join me in thanking these members for agreeing to stand for election for an ASCLA office and be sure to vote in the Spring elections! Voting begins on March 24, 2015 through May 1, 2015 @ 11:59 PM CDT.

Because of my standing for election as Vice President/President-Elect of ASCLA. For those who do not know, ASCLA  is the Association for Specialized and Cooperative Library Agencies, one of the divisions of the American Library Association.

It is the smallest of the ALA divisions. For more about ALA and ASCLA, visit the tab ALA 101 (on this blog).

So, here is what I said in my statement of professional concerns:

I have often recommended to new members of ALA to find a home in ALA with others whose work is like theirs. ASCLA has been ALA's smallest division and because of the small size, it is possible to get to know people and to become involved.

I did some simple analysis of recent membership trends, and plotting ASCLA's membership against ALA's membership shows that ASCLA has retained members better than ALA. That does not mean that we do not have to continue to work to recruit members, but it does show that ASCLA has value for ALA members. I have many contacts across the association, and want to leverage the knowledge those people have, to make ASCLA even more successful. Part of the perspective which I bring is from having been active in the larger organization. I believe that my experience, and contacts, will help position ASCLA for the future.

I ask for the vote for those of you who are ASCLA members.

I did stand for this office once before, in 2000. In that election, I was not successful. The difference was four (4) votes. In a way I was relieved. I changed jobs after agreeing to run, and it would not have been as good a fit as it is now. I also had a great deal less experience with ALA.

ALA Elections - Part 1

ALA Midwinter is almost upon us. I will not be attending it this year. However, it is where a lot of the campaigning for ALA and Division offices takes place.

I'll be blogging about the candidates for ALA President in a separate post, as I have in past years. I'll also take a look at the Council candidates list.

I belong to several divisions, and recently received the issue of the newsletter listing the candidates. And, what a great crop of candidates! In this case the Division is the newest named division: United for Libraries.

First a bit of history. United for Libraries was formed by the merger of the ALA division ALTA -- Association for Library Trustees and Advocates which then became ALTAFF, Association for Library Trustees Advocates, Friends, and Foundations -- with the independent FOLUSA -- Friends of Libraries USA. Over the years I have belonged to one, the other, and occasionally both. The merger makes sense, but that is not the topic.

While on the ALA Executive Board, one of my liaison assignments was to what was then ALTA. I always enjoyed working with the wonderful folks who were working so hard to advocate for libraries.

This year, in addition to candidates for President and Secretary/Treasurer, UFL is electing a division councilor and board members. For the board positions, they are putting up only the number of candidates to fill the vacancies.

For what ALA Council does, see my (now old) post on ALA governance.

The candidates for Vice-President/President-Elect are both people I know and respect. It will be a hard choice for me. One candidate is Christine Hage who I know from activity on PUBLIB, ALA Council, and PLA. While it is not mentioned in the UFL write-up, my recollection is that she has served as PLA (Public Library Association) President. That experience would stand her in good stead in this position.The other candidate is someone whose skill I respect greatly. Peter Pearson is the President (i.e., "head honcho" or chief paid employee) for the Friends of the St. Paul (MN) Public Library. He has led the organization to be one of the premier public library support organizations. He was my inspiration when I was in Bridgeport (CT) and worked to help re-start the Friends group there. When I got to Eau Claire, I found that he had been very helpful in setting up and guiding that organization over the years.

The Division Councilor candidates include the incumbent, Susan Schmidt and Nann Blaine Hilyard. I can't claim to know Susan well, but I know that she has done a good job (based on electronic postings) in reporting to UFL. Nann is someone I know very well. She is very active on PUBLIB. That is where I first "met" her, and I think that we actually first met in person at a social event organized on that list. Since then, we both served on ALA Council together. We also served on the ALA Executive Board together.

For me, this will be a tough decision.

The other parts in this series, will include a discussion of ALA Council candidates as well as one posting about the ALA President campaign.