WLA Chapter Councilor's Annual Report

Please note: the formal report is followed by informal notes taken during the session for a bit more detailed coverage. I'm always glad to respond to comments or requests for further information.

Washington Library Association

ALA Chapter Councilor's Report, Annual Conference 2008

Jonathan Betz-Zall, jbetzzall@yahoo.com

The only dramatic incident at ALA's annual conference this year took place at the very tail end of the last Council meeting, as two councilors who had felt duped by the Friends of Cuban Libraries stood to apologize to ALA for having sponsored a resolution that Council would have soundly rejected. Otherwise this was a very routine gathering, with the usual opportunities and difficulties.

Meeting in Anaheim across the street from Disneyland, 22,000 ALA members and exhibitors enjoyed the heat and bright sunshine typical of Southern California summers as they attended thousands of individual workshops, meetings, programs and informal gatherings, as well as a large exhibition hall. This was ALA's first meeting in Anaheim, and things went so well that conference organizers plan for a return visit in the future.

There were no major intellectual freedom incidents this year, though the Freedom to Read Foundation reported on some legal developments, including their monitoring of the North Central Regional Library System case, which they decided not to join.

Financially, ALA is breaking even, though revenue sources are flat and members are talking about environmental measures that may affect conference revenue. Many conversations took place over whether a proposal to shorten conference by one day would cause exhibitors to regard participation in ALA as less of a good investment than in the past. ALA seems to be paying more attention to Socially Responsible Investing; the slide illustrating that portion of the financial report featured wind power machines. There are some concerns about how the “graying” of the profession will affect dues and other financial support. In identifying other ways for ALA to support itself, the treasurer noted a potential untapped market for ALA’s “brand” in continuing education. The initiatives for increased participation [discussed below] involve electronic technology; building this capacity will cost a lot of money. AL Direct has been a big success: much more information distributed at little additional cost, but other services e.g. online meetings will encounter capacity constraints. Eventually we’ll have to spend big bucks for more computers.

ALA-APA: ALA’s Allied Professional Association, which promotes the interests of librarians and library workers, reported some financial troubles but programmatic successes. At least seven people have now received certification as Public Library Administrators with twenty-plus more taking the courses. The main difficulty has been finding content providers to train them.

Internal issues: ALA is working hard to empower members to participate via electronic technologies. A Task Force on Electronic Member Participation, chaired by Janet Swan Hill, one of the most well-respected councilors, presented a report that nearly everyone supported except for some who grumbled about the loss of humane values in depending so heavily on technology. We debated this point in WLA twenty years ago, and it’s still a problem. The Task Force hopes to have recommendations ready for the Midwinter 2009 Meeting. If you are interested in this issue, the preliminary recommendations are due in October, so online discussion will begin then. Let me know if you’d like special notification of them.

The Resolution Committee [on which I served] proposed a new method of submitting resolutions that, while not officially taking effect until Midwinter 2009, was employed early by several submitters, including me. The committee chair crowed with delight to see the immediate success of the committee’s ideas.

Several questions arose about how ALA could “green” its conferences. I asked why there were no recycling bins provided anywhere in the conference center; conference management claimed that they were separating the trash to retrieve recyclables. I will press further on this issue, as this claim is too easy to make and too difficult to verify.

ALA adopted two organizations as affiliates: the Association for Rural and Small Libraries and the Association of Bookmobile and Outreach Services.

Other issues of interest:

The resolution on the return of historical documents to Iraq that I helped to craft at Midwinter 2008 was updated. During debate, councilors expressed their wishes that the resolution could even more strongly demand the return of the Iraqi documents from the Hoover Institution to the people of Iraq. ALA’s web page on this issue http://www.ala.org/ala/iro/iraq.cfm has not yet been updated; contact me if you would like more information.

[the next two items are from the ALA Washington Office briefing, thanks to Jim Casey’s report]

Fair Use: ALA is involved with the Library of Congress’s Working Group on Section 108 of the Copyright Law, examining “Fair Use” of copyrighted material. Jim Neal, ALA’s representative, commented that “fair use” is not “civil disobedience”; we should be ready to fight for it in the years to come. LC has a website on copyright issues: http://www.loc.gov/section108

Congressional appropriations for libraries: LSTA was approved at an unexpectedly high level.

And in conclusion:

Thanks very much to the members of WLA who have supported me in my role as Chapter Councilor. I have very much enjoyed the many opportunities to involve myself in library affairs at the state and national levels, but I strongly feel that it’s time to give someone else an opportunity to serve WLA and ALA as Chapter Councilor. Therefore I have told the WLA Board that I will not stand for re-election next year. I will be happy to provide information on the joys and challenges of this form of service.

[Formal report ends here]

Informal Notes:

Council info session

BARC report: careful monitoring of budget trends, buying building for Choice, YALSA no longer subsidized, COLA for staff, round tables improving financial support, advising units on how to compile and use budgets, budget targets met within 1%.

Endowment trustees: challenging year. endowment still over 30 million. portfolio down 1.7%, market average 9+. no exposure to subprime problems. Long-term focus. SRI highlighted with slide of windmills. STudy learned that investment incomes will be lower, risks higher. Long term strategy is where the real money is. Development office, promote planned giving to increase the endowment. Benefits of actively managed portfolio. SRI: taken time to learn and know the vehicles that are there, watching them closely, looking at other vehicles.

Core Competencies of Librarianship: long term development since 1999, rephrased existing document rephrased into knowledge goals. Common knowledge, not exhaustive list. Phrased in terms of outcomes, nothing about process. Planned to be adopted in Denver, next Midwinter.

New president concentrated on committee appointments.

ALA-APA Information Session: workplace wellness activites at conference, certification CPLA has 7 graduates, having trouble finding programs because programs are concentrating on master's students, "strenghtening professionalism in the public interest" meeting, finances: revenue targets not being met: 11,000 less than budget

Council I:

adopted new procedure for resolutions

socially responsible companies list expanded to about 70, 1200 identified. adopted protocol for responding to requests for ALA position on issues

accessible workstations--developed permanent process for ASCLA & conf services to work together to expand accessibility & public notice of accomodations available

crisis in Kenya, received appreciation from US ambassador

treasurer: ALA needs 600-750K in new revenue each year just to stay even, ALA has a de-facto 2 year budget cycle because of alternating division conferences, 2009 is last year of dues increase, need for new revenue sources. Conferences & membership dues are "mature", publishing might not be. Economic slowdown affecting state/lcaol budgets & library funding, travel to conferences, purchases of ALA products & services, less advertising revenue. Lower rates of return on investment. Graying of profession will challenge membership retention & growth, technology costs, healthcare benefit costs. Financial plan: efficiences, collaboration/reduce redundancy, new revenue generating sources, outside support, increased dues. May be untapped market for ALA brand in continuing education. Choice building in Connecticut working out financing. Increased participation involves electronic technology (costs). AL Direct has been success. addressing issues: capacity constraints.

APA: revenues fallen short of projections, 07 were higher because first year of non MLS salary survey, which sold very well then. Didn't sell so well this year.

Council II:

Current Reference File: going back to the 1970s, background information with original document creating policy and some interpretations. Need to be digitized. Discussion of whether it is archives or for current use.

TF on Electronic Participation. Encouraging people to experiment with electronic decision-making.

Restructuring Corporate Membership into two-level dues structure

Finances: investments took a loss of 228K, life member dues down 71K, budgetary ceiling 68 million.

Freedom to Read Foundation: challenges to Harmful to Minors laws in Indiana and Oregon. Individual memberships dropped over the last year. Urging people to join.

Resolution CD 56 on funding for cataloging and bibliographic control—LC positions left open as catalogers retire. Calling on ALA to advocate for more funding for LC training of bibliographers and bibliographic control work at LC.

ENDA—putting protection for gender identity and expression back into civil rights legislation.

Passed sweatshop resolution.

Attendance 21,817

Council III:

Affiliation of Assn for Rural and Small Libraries. New ass'n but effort of Ctr for Study of Rural Librarianship, first conference planned for September, 85% of libraries serve pop of 25000 or less.

Affiliation of Ass'n of Bookmobile and Outreach Services.

IFC: Libel tourism, using foreign libel laws to attack American authors. Privacy for all initiative received Soros grant, privacyrevolution.org

banned books week: Sept 27-Oct 4 2008

IF manual: proposed revisions of “ALA's most important document”.

Adding gender expression to LBR

adding reading level to school library media access

diversity in collection development

evaluation

expurgation

free access to libraries for minors includes reference to “guardians” as well as parents

International relations Cttee: supporting IFLA membership for latin american national library associations that are not already members.

Iraq replacement resolution passed unanimously Members want more action to get Hoover Institution to return documents!

COO

Cttee on accreditation: composition of committee revised to reflect current practice, discussion of “public members” of COA—appointed by president-elect

Cttee recognizes role of more informal groups in ALA, wants better procedures for recognizing them. Membership interest groups allowed to petition for longer existence.

Cttee on Legislation: chapters encouraged to appoint representatives to legislative assembly. Action alerts important, please respond. LSTA state grants need advocacy.

Support Nat'l agricultural library

E-Government act to support public distribution of electronic documents

Sound recordings: need to bring recordings made before 1972 into public domain so they can be preserved.

Definition of Digital Preservation & preservation policy:

Resolution to study how to make council proceedings transparent

discussion mostly enthusiastic about broadcasting proceedings but hesitations over legal issues, costs. Inspiration is a two-way street. Predictably irrational—book about decision making

Cuba machinations denounced—deception by Friends of Cuban Libraries, targeting new councilors. ED will send letter of remonstrance to R Kent et al. Council Orientation Committee apologized for not doing a better job of letting new councilors know this might happen. Also notify speakers that they might be harassed.

Final attendance: 22.047

What does ALA do?

My colleague Diedre Conkling, from coastal Oregon, has posted a very useful document on her blog, along with numerous other documents from ALA's Midwinter Meeting. If you're at all curious about ALA and how it works, please check it out.

WLA Chapter Councilor's Midwinter Report

The American Library Association's Midwinter Meeting is the association's primary business meeting, with very few informative programs except for a couple of inspiring speakers.

My primary activity was participation in the business of ALA's governing Council, representing the Washington Library Association. Although employment-related obligations delayed my arrival until Sunday, I did attend all formal and informal Council related meetings and spoke several times on behalf of WLA.

Before I arrived, ALA’s Washington Office reported on current lobbying efforts, primarily broadening the No Child Left Behind act to require schools to employ qualified school librarian media specialists and to retain language in the current Farm Bill (HB2419) to expand broadband connectivity for libraries in rural areas. ALAWO urges: “Library supporters should contact each of their Representatives and Senators to ask them to push conferees on the Farm Bill conference committee that will meet when Congress returns in January and ask them to keep the ‘library connectivity amendment’ Sec. 6302 of the Senate’s version of HR 2419 – ‘Telemedicine, Library Connectivity, and Distance Learning Services in Rural Areas.’”

ALA continues to expose the shortcomings of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s activities. Bassem Youssef, Supervisory Special Agent for the FBI, had been scheduled to give a lecture reflecting on some areas where the FBI’s performance in combating terrorism could be improved. However, Mr. Youssef’s supervisors at the FBI had ordered him only to answer questions from the audience and not to give a presentation. Youssef complied with this order, but appeared with his attorneys, who provided most of the information relative to the FBI’s recent practice of issuing National Security Letters and gag orders without previously established evidence that exigent circumstances are present to justify the bypassing of regular legal channels for executing searches without a warrant. They noted that Agent Youssef had expressed his concerns about this practice to his FBI chiefs and in answer to questions posed by a Congressional Committee. This action, which was well within his responsibilities, had led to the threatening restrictions placed on him by the Agency. The attorneys and questioners among the audience expressed concern about the bypassing of Constitutional rights by FBI chiefs and amazement at their practice of failing to utilize FBI agents with knowledge of Arabic languages and understanding of Middle Eastern culture following the attacks of 9/11/01. Mr. Youssef was born and raised in Egypt, came to the U.S. in 1972 and had been a distinguished (decorated) FBI agent since 1986. The standing-room audience strongly supported Mr. Youssef’s stated belief that our country doesn’t need to sacrifice Constitutionally protected liberties and rights in order to wage an effective war against terrorism, and Council subsequently commended Mr. Youssef for his stand.

In Council meetings, a great deal of time was taken up with internal association business, including the structure of dues, budgeting, determining the institutional structure for campaigning for office, etc. But on the final day, President Loriene Roy appealed to councilors to think of the good of the organization as a whole and activity focused much more on issues of substance. We ended up making considerable progress on several issues and informing ourselves on several others.

For several years, ALA members have agitated for a graduated dues structure based on salary levels. Two years ago a special task force was set up to decide how best to study the issue, taking into account a variety of views on the topic. That task force finally issued its report last fall to the Budget Analysis Review Committee, whose job it is to analyze any proposal that might have fiscal implications for ALA. The Task Force recommended a very high-cost course of action ($600,000), involving numerous studies of ALA membership and the best practices of similar associations. Naturally, BARC refused to endorse the entire package, recommending that ALA undertake only the first step, a demographic study of ALA members [which has never been done]. The Executive Board endorsed this approach, but there was a lot of grumbling from councilors who wanted more action. [I was one of the initial agitators, reasoning that the graduated dues scale that works well for WLA and numerous other state associations should also work for ALA. But other points of view have considerable merit. For example, the range of salary levels is much greater nationwide than across our state, so higher-paid library staffers in places where costs of living are higher might pay more than lower-paid library directors elsewhere.]

The ALA-APA is slowly developing more products and services to benefit the profession. [This group, which is legally separate from ALA but governed by the same Council, provides certification for various classes of library employees and advocates for higher salaries for library workers.] They earned a small net revenue last year, which will go into paying back the initial loan from ALA. The Certified Public Library Administrator program had its first graduate, who will be recognized at this summer's conference. The Workplace Wellness Survey had 2500 responses: library workers' top priorities were Employee Assistance Programs, flu shots, and work release for continuing education. Human resource officers, take note! The next National Library Workers Day will take place on April 15. ALA-APA encourages libraries to nominate “star” employees and conduct local celebrations. They are selling buttons that say “Libraries Work Because We Do” but they were too expensive for me to buy any.

One element of internal business that may interest WLA members was an extended discussion, starting on Council's electronic discussion list, of opening all of ALA's discussion lists for ALA members to have read-only access, so that members can be better informed. ALA has an open meetings policy, and any gathering that makes decisions, even if electronic, would be considered a meeting. This became quite contentious, as several unit representatives said that they couldn't predict when sensitive subjects might arise. For technical reasons lists cannot switch back and forth from open to closed. The matter was referred to an existing task force on member electronic participation. That task force has begun its process of review, which is expected to last 16 months. Its own discussions will be open to ALA members on a read only basis.

Financially, ALA is running “in the black” but the Treasurer expressed concern that dues revenue is not growing to cover future increases in costs, particularly staff salaries. ALA’s Endowment Fund is doing well, with an increasing (though still small) proportion invested in Socially Responsible Investments.

Keith Michael Fiels, the Executive Director, reported that the graphic design for the new website was to be reviewed at Midwinter. (It's definitely an improvement over the present one.) ALA intends to continuously improve the site rather than declare it complete at some point. ALA received a large grant to study use of electronic gaming in promoting literacy; examples were on display. ALA put 500,000 more into the Spectrum Scholarship fund, allowing the award of several more scholarships to help diversify our profession. Drawing on the good precedent of cost saving from the purchase of the Washington, DC, office building, ALA purchased office space for Choice magazine in Connecticut.

Council discussed at length the possibility of moving conference schedules earlier in the week to allow Councilors to leave on Tuesday rather than Wednesday. Committee representatives pointed out that this would crunch their already-tight schedules unless other conference activities started earlier, so there might be no net shortening of conferences. The Council Orientation Committee had discovered that potential candidates were being deterred from running by the length of time they would have to commit at each conference, but the proposal to shorten the sessions was referred to BARC for study of its fiscal implications.

ALA's Office of Diversity has a new director, Karen Letarte. They are thinking about forming a broader coalition (with other library organizations) on diversity related issues.

Council held a spirited discussion of ALA's policy on unit endorsement of candidates for ALA office. The Executive Board's report claimed that ALA units had never endorsed candidates, but several speakers said this was an error. It's unclear what ALA's official policy is right now; the EB says that such endorsements are illegal but there's no record of a decision by Council.

The Freedom to Read Foundation continues to advocate on our behalf. FTRF joined the brief of Valerie Plame's prior restraint case. Her book was redacted after publication through a US Justice Department suit even though the offending information is available to the public on US Government websites! They continue to litigate against the improper use of National Security Letters and against censorship in various venues, including the notorious “Vamos a Cuba” case in Florida. There the School Board overruled its own review board in demanding that a series of books for preschoolers include political information about Cuba. They foresee more cases of censorship, possibly involving the content of licensed databases.

Finally, no ALA report would be complete without a mention of the resolutions adopted by Council. They included a commendation for FBI whistleblower Bassem Youssef, a directive to provide accessible workstations for those with disabilities at ALA Midwinter Meetings and Annual Conferences, a call for an end to the violence in Kenya (focusing on government repression of press freedoms), and a call for the US and British governments to return the documents they took from the Iraq National Library.

If you would like more detailed information on any of these topics, please contact me at jbetzzall@yahoo.com

[Thanks to James Casey (Oak Lawn, IL) for information on events that occurred before I arrived.]