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.]
