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Thursday June 29, 2006
The final ALA Council Meeting started at 8am on Wednesday morning and was over by about 10am. In
that time a slew of resolutions were passed with virtually no debate.
Things started with the Council Tellers' Report. Two mini-elections were held by Council, one for positions
on the Council Committee on Committees and another for the Planning and Budget Assembly. There
are certain committees that carry more weight then others, I think the Committee on
Committees is one of
them but I don't remember exactly why. Whether they recruit for who is on what lower committees I'm not
sure.
From there came the Constitution & Bylaws Committee (CD#25.3). There were some minor changes that needed
to be made to the bylaws concerning elections. One dealt with when American Libraries should list
the candidates for the Council election and the other was for setting an official membership end date in
order to vote (you must be a member by...). The one about the candidates list engendered quite a bit
more debate then the resolution on TABOR from the day before.
An information item came up on a topic I knew about but haven't blogged about. I looking to get more info
but in the meantime here the item:
The Catholic Library Association is still in the process of revising their Bylaws and it will take the final vote
on these revisions at their next annual meeting in April 2007. Upon completion of that process, the committee
will "examine the applicant's constitution and bylaws to see that no conflict exists between the ALA
constitution and bylaws and the applicant's" and will report to the Executive Board in accordance with
ALA Policy Manual Section 9.2 and the ALA Affiliation Guidelines contained at
http://www.ala.org/ala/ourassocaition/othergroups/affliates/guidelines.htm.
The committee will report to Council at the 2007 Annual meeting.
I'll get more detail when I can though I would suggest someone call the Pope.
Next came the Committee on Legislation. There was a total of 9 resolutions all passed within the time it
took to read them out loud. It's CD#20.7 if you want the full details.
The first was on the Environmental Protection Agency and the cutting of funds for their libraries.
The second called for the support of the Federal
Research Public Access Act of 2006. The third
was on saving Federal Libraries and it contained a pretty cocky resolve clause: "Resolved, that ALA
urges the United States Congress to hold oversight hearings investigating the ongoing destruction of
federal libraries before they are lost beyond recovery."
The fourth one deals with DOPA, Deleting Online Predators Act. The resolution title was "Support of Online
Social Networks" and says in part: "Resolved, that the American Library Association affirms the
importance of online social networks to library users of all ages for developing and using
essential information literacy skills." Emphasis mine, and yes kids, it is okay to talk to strangers. NAMBLA
must love us sometimes. You know I'd be more concerned about the 'destruction' of federal libraries if
ALA wasn't so busy destroying kids.
The fifth is pretty easy to support, a straightforward call for network
neutrality. Remember folks: you pay
for internet access. Your provider now wants to limit your access depending on who is willing to pay them
for easier access to their sites. My own site would take longer to load on my own computer over an
internet connection I pay for simply because I don't pay extra for people to access my site without
restrictions. That's just wrong.
The sixth deals with E-Rate (gov't funding for electronic communication like the Internet). The seventh was
a statement of appreciation for a staff member who was leaving. The eighth called for no-fee access
at depository libraries to the PACER system.
(An interesting item if you're geeky enough)
The ninth came back to Single Payer Universal Health Care. This was discussed at Council I and referred
to committee and this time it passed, no debate. Sparanese had spoken last time trying to minimize the
amount of time ALA would spend on this but a resolved clause clearly states: "Resolved that the
American Library Association work with affiliated organizations and among our own membership to build
popular support for these bills." ALA Time + ALA Money + ALA Energy = Socialist Agenda.
Speaking of which, one last information item: Immigration Issues
Its late, I'll try to finish up tomorrow...
Jack points
out the tackiness that is ALA. Nice catch.
There should be an award for artistic blog writing, I've two contenders here:
Annoyed Librarian and Library
Dust. Really good stuff.
I am back, got back late last night. I'll try and get Day 6 up in a bit and some
extra notes today or tomorrow.
Tuesday June 27, 2006
Before I start, Anderson Cooper spoke at ALA last night. I wasn't there but a
poster on
LISNews was, read her post and especially read the comment on it. I haven't heard about
any Laura Bush protests.
ALA Council II
There was some quick info to start with asking everyone to call their Senator on the break
concerning Net Neutrality which was being discussed that day. I support Net Neutrality but
I still hate that Senators cave to who screams loudest.
There was a policy report concerning actions taken during MidWinter, not much there but
there was mention of a resolution sitting in policy committee limbo concerning the
"opposition to support of racist institutions". I'm working to get more info on that. Ask
SRRT and SHUSH would be considered a racist institution... not that ALA supports me anyway.
The Chapter Relations Committee brought forward a resolution concerning
TABOR, here are
the resolved clauses:
Resolved, that the American Library Association encourages state and regional library
associations to oppose the passage of these laws, and take steps necessary to defeat
such legislation or constitutional amendments.
It was clear by the discussion that the Council also included plans like California's
Prop 13 as a problem as well. Libraries
are a bargain for the money spent on them, which is not much. We should use that as an example
not whine about a citizen's right to limit how much taxes they have to pay. As best as
I can tell this passed unanimously. Librarians have a bigger jones for tax money then drug
addicts for crack.
Next issue was continued from MidWinter and dealt with studying the issue of a graduate
dues system. The budget committee that was supposed to look at the financial feasibility of
such a study came back and said they had to do a feasibility study to study the feasibility
of the feasibility study. "A plan to plan" as a councilor said. Bernie Margolis, another
councilor like Casey who is good at pointing out financial silliness asked why the committee
hadn't just called the Association of Associations to see who else has done a graduated
dues system. Pres. Gorman pointed out that there was not enough info about the salaries
of members to make a decision.
2 points on that. 1. APA has done a general librarians salary study that it is charging
members for already. 2. Someone made the comment that librarians "values of privacy"
prevented the info from being available. Extra point: these people are nuts. I'm
running for Council again and if elected I'm going to propose policy changes so that ALA
is collecting professional data on a regular cycle and make it available for free to
all libraries.
The call for "a plan to plan" passed.
Next up was the budget for ALA and the 2007 Budget actually calls for the "dissemination of
published research data, training materials, and standards." But no idea what that actually
covers. There was also a statement saying there was no clear growth of ALA over the past
five years. Maybe if they approached library issues more even handedly and ignored non-library
issues they might get more bang for the buck. (FYI this document is CD#13.4 if you want to
try and get a copy)
Budgetary ceiling for 2007 - $54,653,986
Interesting note, the annual convention next year is in DC. Normally ALA pays cancellation
insurance which guarantees revenue in case they have to cancel for any reason. Normally
it runs about $30,000 but now they need to incorporate 'terror insurance' for DC which
ups it to $90,000. As best I can tell from the budget ALA gets $3-4 million for a convention.
I don't know is a rainy day fund would be a reasonable alternative but its crazy to pay
that much money on a what if?
One of the John Berrys gave a report on the Freedom To Read
Foundation. He Talked about the "Meet John Doe" program that occurred on Monday (I didn't
make it) and about the four whiners inability to discuss the issues with their family and
not be a part of the "national debate". Do know there are probably thousands of Americans
who work with top secret material and can't talk about it with family or be part of the
"national debate". Toughen up.
He discussed very legal actions they are involved in (cd#22.1) and hinted that they had
been asked to sign on to other legal actions which would be announced after conference.
Bet you money its the ACLU and the book about Cuba in the Miami schools.
Last item, I talked about the Darfur resolution yesterday. When something is passed by Membership it
then goes to Council for a vote and action. It was amended so that instead of SRRT doing
the urging now it was the Council. Also the following resolved was added:
A very telling comment from Councilor Melora Ranney who asked it to be amended to remove
the word Darfur from the second resolve in case this should eventually become ALA policy.
Which means ALA's official policy would be to encourage libraries to actively provide
information to the public on genocide. Every action leads to another action, each one of
these items is a building block for more liberal and socialist activity. I mean why
genocide? Why not cancer? Aids? Genocide is global politics, SRRT loves it and they'll use
it to come up with future political resolutions. Libraries should never be dictated
by any one specific subject.
All of which makes the outcome very disturbing because maybe 2 people voted against this
nonsense. Even the more level headed members voted for this resolution and basically
voted to continue feeding the socialist monster that is SRRT. Its unprofessional behavior
and absurd.
This will be the last post until Thursday. Council III is tomorrow morning from 8am until
12:30. My flight is at 1:40 so I may even have to leave before Council is over, bad
planning on my part and I apologize in advance if I miss something important. I won't be
home until late. Thankfully I have a real vacation in a couple weeks. No computer, no
meetings, can't wait.
Executive Board
Unfortunately I leave tomorrow after Council III and won't be at EB III.
It started with the Endowment Trustees Report. This is where the Socially Responsible
Investing (SRI) comes in that I discussed on
Friday. Someone at the
conference did say I was a little heavy-handed with that but they took my point. Anyway,
the SRI part of the account is called Ariel.
Here is the first paragraph of that section of report:
Translation? Its a crappy investment. But if any people out there with financial experience
want to correct me feel free. 7 Regular investments ranged from Marisico at 3.2% to Heitman at
14.3%, the one exception was Credit Suisse which was -0.4%.
From there was a long crazy conversation about whether it should be called the Endowment
Fund or the Longterm Investment Fund. It was painful to watch.
Magically the ALA Exec. Board became the ALA-APA Exec. Board.
Basically there was fallout discussion from the APA Council session concerning the budget
and also whether there needs to be a Legislative Council Committee for APA to deal with
things like the union resolution discussed earlier. (see how the heads grow? maddening)
Back to just ALA Board
They went into executive session for a about a half hour, which I thought was unusual to do
mid-meeting, no details given on that.
Barbara Strickland, former Executive Councilor, gave a report on the School Librarians Task
Force. If you want her report its EBD#8.3, maybe you can get ALA to send it to you. She said
something in the beginning along the lines that there are no real stats on school libraries,
on how many there are or how they're staffed. It continues to amaze me how badly ALA does
at serving libraries on critical issues like this. Much like the salary survey, stats like
these should be done on a cyclical basis and paid for by ALA and supplied for free. What
good is this organization with an annual budget over 50 million dollars if it can't offer
basic irrefutable facts about the state of libraries and librarians? What did they talk
about on the board? "Collecting stories", getting people's opinions about libraries. Big
whoop.
The next item was a visit from Deanna Marcum, Associate Librarian for Library Services,
Library of congress. This is inside baseball stuff and had to do with the discontinuation
of the bibliographic and cataloging services of the Libray of Congress. I'm not a cataloger,
I don't know the heart of it. My interpretation is that libraries have been piggy-backing
off of LoC's work, cataloging welfare so to speak. What experience I do have was with the
OCLC setup where multiple people contributed. But I don't know how that compares to this
issue. Marcum is going to have "a summit" to discuss the fallout of what happened. Exec.
Councilor Janet Hill made a point about pretending the future is now the present and jumping
into new technologies too soon. EC Michael Golrick brought up a point about a lack of
controlled vocabulary which seemed a swipe at the meta data crowd. I'm hoping he will
blog further about it.
That's about it for news, looking through notes and handouts both here and elsewhere I
would like to make the simple statement that 'branding' is officially an over-used word
and really has little power or effect unless its a brand for the top or upper most levels.
Monday June 26, 2006
ALA-APA Council
Like I said in the previous post, I showed up early for the Membership Meeting only to find
I was late for an ALA-APA meeting. Just as they were arguing about a resolution to endorse
the Employee Free Choice Act, which I know zip about but apparently its legislation that comes
up occasionally in Congress that is supposed to guarantee unions as a right. Sparanese once
again tried to downplay this as something that wasn't a major issue for ALA but still
important. The plan being that once it passes it then gets used as a bat for other union
related issues that come up. Someone said they don't consider unions to be a right and
Rosenzweig quotes the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights which apparently says that, in fact,
unions are a right. He then said that it could no longer be questioned. Nobody bothered pointing out that its the American Library Association,
not the United Nations Library Association and questioning is what we do. But a communist wouldn't get that anyway.
This almost didn't pass. It did but an unpleasant paragraph had to be removed:
A little too confrontational for the library group.
Certain members continue to question APA's budget. There was some question about APA relying
on grants that haven't come in yet. Keith Fiels said the budget was too small and too tight
to risk spending money they didn't have (he may have said that in the Exec. Board Meeting,
don't recall). I did have one counselor tell me the APA budget numbers "were as good as
Confederate money." Comforting, seriously, APA needs to go away.
Membership Meeting
There was a quorum but just barely. There were a number of standard resolutions that
recognized past ALA members who had passed on.
Then there was a last minute surpise resolution on the Darfur Genocide. I'll skip the
"whereas" nonsense, here's the resolve:
In the end the only hand raised to vote against was mine (I'm pretty sure).
I got up and spoke twice. First to say that speaking to a specific issue like this when there
are so many other dire situations around the world is not effective. Or something along
that lines, its hard to take notes when your the one talking.
An older gentlemen got up and said that genocide was a special situation and went on to
complain that it didn't go far enough in speaking towards the root causes. Sparanese
got up to say that there were levels of ignorance in the public and they needed to be
informed because they just didn't know enough.
I got up and replied that there has been and will be genocides and if the organization wants
to inform on that issue as a whole maybe that's something to work with. I also pointed out
the irony of certain people talking about levels of ignorance when the same people supporting
this refuse to acknowledge independent librarians in Cuban prisons. That got a laugh but
I don't think in a good way. Oh well.
One person acknowledged to me after that I was right and we shouldn't be issue specific.
Another came up to 'catch my name', saw my badge and said "Oh, *you're* Shush. Well, we
need all kinds." And then walked off. That was good for a chuckle, its an
interesting experience being seen as a pariah.
Its late, I'll talk about Executive Board tomorrow, not that exciting. Night
I didn't much care for the online event planner for ALA but I'm liking it less and less.
If I can't think of a meeting then it basically doesn't exist. So since I showed up early for
the Council I meeting on Sunday I was actually late for a Executive/Council/Membership
meeting. Luckily it was just informational in nature so no major activity. Today I was going
in early for the Membership meeting and was late for an ALA-APA Council meeting. Almost missed
some important stuff. Anyway...
Executive/Council/Membership Meeting
As I said just informational, budgetary stuff that crops up in various other places.
ALA Council I
This started out as an ALA-APA information meeting.
I've spoken many times about ALA-APA and its disastrous Library Director certification
program (its an insult). Councilor James Casey, whose politics are opposite of mine, is one
of a handful of people who vigorously question ALA-APA's purpose and budget. He's not against
it he just does a good job of demanding accountability. In terms of "Why APA?" the answer
is usually tax purposes but Casey's main point on Sunday was that so far APA hasn't done
anything that ALA doesn't already do. Executive Manager Keith Fields' answer was that ALA
cannot certify individuals. To which I want to know "why should they?" Many states have
certificate programs for librarians, why is ALA trying to horn in as APA?
My next big question concerns the budget. APA is supposed to start earning money by selling
a salary survey to librarians to use to improve their, well, salaries. This issue about
data gathering is going to come up again and the question is what is ALA for if not to collect
information about libraries and librarians for us to use? And why the hell isn't it for free?
That's was dues are for. Before any pet project or overpaid speaker comes along ALA should
be investing in its members and supplying us with solid information about our profession.
Its outrageous that we should have to pay extra for this kind of knowledge.
At this point the ALA-APA Council magically turned into the ALA Council.
Under budget news ALA has retired its debts related to CIPA (Children's Internet Protection
act). Just a reminder, CIPA was a failure. It cost individual libraries money, either through
filtering all computers, not just kids', or having to give up federal money directed towards
online access. If ALA had negotiated with congress they might have kept filters off adult
stations, a reasonable compromise. ALA blew it big time.
It was announced that another set of letters went out on
the 65%
solution. A resolution was passed at MidWinter (I believe) requiring letters to be sent
to politicians on an annual basis concerning the issue.
Either related to the 65% Solution or not but there was a little discussion about the lack
of details concerning the dissemination of letters. Which is really what a lot of this
crap comes down to, ALA doesn't want a professional voice its wants a political one.
There was a resolution calling for the support of a Single Payer Universal Healthcare Program.
Ann Sparanese of Michael Moore fame introduced the resolution and tried to minimize its purpose
saying it wasn't meant to be the focus of ALA. Though she mentioned that a related resolution
was passed at MidWinter so obviously she doesn't wasting a lot of ALA time on it. Some
councilors complained about not knowing much about the issue and not having any knowledge
about healthcare systems, or not being experts in. No duh. Sparanese had the gall to complain
that there was no legislative subcommittee in order to deal with 'other' issues. In other
words, non-library issues. Again, No Duh. It ain't the American LIBRARY Association for
nothing.
Thankfully this was referred to the Committee on Legislation (to eat up more ALA time,
energy, money).
*Chuckle* To finish off the meeting there was a lovely free-for-all concerning who gets to
decide who the keynote speakers are. Its handled by the Conference Committee and a new addition
is the President-elect will get some say (since they are President by the time the speaker
comes and they do the introductions). The Con. Comm is working one formal criteria and
guidelines. There were 3 criteria, the first was longish but came down to "of interest to
ALA" which is wide open. Second, effective speakers which means they've probably given a
few speeches by now. And third, name recognition, meaning they actually want people to show
up.
The guidelines were no politicians currently on the election trail, no official from a labor
union (tax status thing), within ALA budget, and consult shortlist with President-Elect.
Rosenzweig was not amused by the no-labor-union-people bit. He complained, a lot. It was fun.
Leslie Burger announced who she hoped to get... Jon Stewart. Not that he wouldn't be funny
but you and I know why she wants him, not because he's funny but because he's anti-Bush.
President's Program
When I think about Librarians and what we are supposed to be I like to think of us not as
some kind of feel-good religion but still as disciplined and as committed as monks in a monastery
(well, not *that* committed). I think Gorman gets that, politics aside. Its what made
his program very enjoyable and I'm glad I went. His guest speaker
was Kevin Starr. A safe choice after
the Codrescu debacle. The theme was 'Reading: The Essential Skill'. I'm going to share
my notes as best I can but transcripts will be available online at
mg.csufresno.edu sometime in July. A lot of the words,
I think, listed are ones used, I'm just not always sure of the exact sentence or phrase so
you won't see many "" quotes.
Gorman started with a short speech, talking about literacy not as a one-time hurdle but as
a continuous journey, not just about reading complex text but also from that to be able to
express oneself clearly. He made an interesting point about having a materially prosperous
underclass that is open to exploitation. Not sure how much agree but there was the added
context of people just being shells, everything on the outside, nothing on the inside. He,
himself, went into religion on talk about the Bible saying "In the beginning was the Word",
and how religious people were called "people of the book" though he preferred "people of the
text" which implied a more active involvement with the Book.
Kevin Starr, a bow tie man, has a good voice for speaking (he could make good money doing
audio books of hard-boiled detective mysteries). He started by stating that librarians have
been bullied from the dawn of the digital age, being told that a paperless society would
be inevitable and that libraries would be simply pieces of history. Meanwhile today he
feels we live in a golden age of local writing and advanced writing in national publications,
plus a golden age of publishing of histories, biographies, novels, and nonfiction in general.
The digital age has intensified the printed word.
He talked a lot about the "Age of Orality", the spoken word, and all the
different vocal
ways we receive information right up to the joke about the millions of personal talk shows
we're subjected to by people with cellphones. He was clear to say that orality is the friend
not the enemy of the printed word, talking about the "power of storyhour". He had a fine
line to walk, also saying the silence of reading is "not to be abandoned". Overall an
excellent and invigorating talk.
The third part was Q&A with cards filled out by the audience answered by both Gorman and Starr.
Some surprising answers form Starr.
Q1: impact of media sound bites
Q2: blogs helping or hurting language?
Q3: not sure of the subject, it was something about the language experience approach to
learning a language.
Q4: what can librarians do to stimulate college reading.
Q5: rising about political decisions in a literate content (?)
Q6: epidemic of written fraud
Q7: backlash to hiphop and the nature of its language
Q8: if a teen asks "why should you read?"
Q9: suggest one essential book
Q10: graphic novels
Q11: critical thinking and TV vs Reading
Q12: last card and it was a sour note to end on, the writer wanted to thank Starr for
staying on topic unlike Codrescu. Gorman reveled in it and that was a stupid thing to do.
There was one thing that distinguishes Codrescu from both Gorman, Starr, and probably
the person who filled out the card. Codrescu grew up in communist state, he knew what he
was talking about and he knew why it had to be said.
Other then those few minutes of silliness, excellent program.
After that I was done for the day but got bored and wasted a few hours on Bourbon Street.
Which is why this is a day late. That place is a pit or a paradise depending on what you
can blow on a breathalyzer. It was sad seeing parents with kids walk down through it and
bizarre watching a female dominated profession walk up and down something that could
easily be called Misogynist Avenue. Oh well, we're all stupid in our own special ways.
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