(10:13 pm) re: Yikes

    You can see the actual voting numbers here.

    Someone said to me they were surprised I got as many votes as I did. That depends on how you look at it. If you agree with Rory's view (and his commenter's) then yeah, 2000+ conservatives in ALA is huge! But Rory has it completely wrong and my "statement of professional concern" was crystal clear on that:

The American Library Association has made it a sad time to be a Librarian. But you can either ignore the problem or try and fix the problem. I'm game if you are.

The resolutions on torture, the War in Iraq, and using President Bush as a punching bag are all excuses to not deal with real library issues. On the few occasions ALA does address real issues it is from such extreme political positions as to be offensive to the majority of Americans we serve.

I'm not asking you, as a voter, to be conservative or as conservative as I am. I am asking you to support a change in ALA. An attempt to bring some balance, some clear thinking, back to the organization and to put a stop to the political party atmosphere that has turned ALA into a sideshow.

    Emphasis mine.

    Since I'm the only person who listed a website as their place of work I think that had to perk enough interest for people to actually read the profile. So 2000+ voted for me and 12,000+ voted against. That's unfortunate. Especially since there will probably be another resolution on the Boy Scouts in NOLA, and there will definitely be one calling for the impeachment of the President. So ALA is going to continue to be run roughshod by the inept and unprofessional (the anti-intellectuals so to speak ). And there's plenty of weak-kneed fence-sitters who are going to let them. If that's what the voters wanted then that's what they got.

    What now? I run again. Voting was up but its still only 25% of membership. And maybe if some of those librarians who said they would vote for me if they hadn't passed on renewing their membership were to re-up (a-hem) then maybe we can get that vote total up.

    Am I going to do this indefinitely? No, but ALA is screwed up, and if its going to pretend to represent my profession then I'm going to make an honest effort in seeing that it does so a little bit more 'professionally'. If it becomes obvious that isn't possible then I'll work to end it. Its that simple.

    Thank you very much to the 2,034 people who did vote for me. I know for a fact that not all of you are conservative or even close to being as conservative as I am. It was a conscious choice on your part and I appreciate that. And yes, it does give me some hope.

Monday May 1, 2006

  (12:59 pm) Yikes

    Not only did I not win, I got the lowest number of votes! Ouch.

    I'll blog more tomorrow when I have time but I'm still going to NOLA and I'm still running again next year. I encourage some of you to consider doing the same! Nothing is going to be fixed overnight.