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Saturday January 22, 2005
Day 1: Executive Board Session I con't
The topics covered at Executive Board are wide-ranging
to say the least. One of the first issues on the table was discussion about
guidelines for partnerships and sponsorships. There was mention of current
partnerships with Wells Fargo and the controversy over the Walgreens partnership
that involved Medicare
information. The point was made that there will always be
those oppose any "joining with commercial enterprises" but it was suggested to
seek out input from the some of those extreme quarters to help decide which
enterprises actually should be avoided.
From there they went on to advocacy and the "@ your
library" program. I've heard a complaint recently that the "@" phenom was getting
old but conversation here said otherwise. They are recommending it be continued
for another 5 years. It was felt that it was bringing recognition to libraries as
well as money. I think that's probably true but that 'creeping inside your
consciousness' kind of campaign is decidedly a corporate America tactic. Shame
Shame.
From here a representative from the infamous
Washington Office joined in to give a report. They are hearing form the Hill that
this will be the worst budget year in memory. The office is tracking the chairs of
the different appropriation committees and they said they are hearing from people
inside that there are cracks developing in the Republicans over the Social
Security issue. Anything is possible but I have my doubts about their sources.
Anyone talking to ALA these days isn't going to be from the conservative side.
There was the typical anti-Bush comments about this
time. He had made a speech a day or two before and had commented, promoted, the No
Child Left Behind Act, making a joke of his wife being a librarian and his lack of
the use of one during college. They had a chuckle over that.
The office brought up and then the Board agreed to
sign on to the Supreme Court case involving Sibel
Edmonds. She was a translator
for the government who blew the whistle on another translator who wasn't working
in the best interests of the country. The whistle blower was fired and now that
she is suing all material relevant to the case has been retroactively classified.
ALA will be filing a brief alongside the ACLU. ALA's argument will be
that the retroactive classification of information is a no-no. It sounds like a
slam dunk. What bothered me most with this was how in bed the organizations seemed.
The ACLU had given them a heads up and the Washington Office was supposed to get
back to them by Monday.
They went on to talk about the new Patriot Act Survey
of staff and patrons to investigate the "chilling impact" its had on library
patrons. Apparently there are those in Congress interested in the results, hoping
to use it during the debate on the sunset provisions. Its a double blind survey.
That means if anyone does respond then no one will know who they are which means
no one will know whether the information is accurate or even true. So its possible
some Congressman will be standing up there beating the Patriot Act down with a
study based on nothing but innuendo. Talk about chilling.
The board heard from the Office of Research &
Statistics, Dr. Wiegand on the ALA/Beta Phi Mu Distinguished Lecture Series, and
the Congress on Professional Education. I didn't find out until later that copies
of all the handouts they were working form were available at one of the tables so
I was flying blind during some of these talks.
Near the end there was discussion concerning someone's
suggestion about creating a 'thinktank' (though discussion on that word pointed
out that probably wasn't the word they wanted to use) on core competencies of the
profession. Apparently SLA has made some headway in supplying library schools with
certain criteria that they are looking for in special librarians. So there was
hope that maybe this could be done in other areas. What was funny was the board
had "The Conversation". You know the one. Its the one me you and every other
librarian in the country has had on the issue of defining a librarian. They had a
good laugh over it, so did I, its an old conversation. Keep this point in mind,
because it sums up the entire conference experience quite well.
Thursday January 20, 2005
Day 1 (Friday): Intro
I live in Lowell, MA and was able to take the train
in everyday. It worked out pretty well, an hour commute each way. I had a copy of
A Deep Blue Goodbye, the first of the Travis McGee novels. I finished it on the
final trip home on Wednesday. I've read a couple in the series already, I look
forward to reading the rest. Not for the faint of heart and a definite pre-feminist
movement attitude.
Its January in Boston so of course it was close to
60 degrees and pouring rain. Its a short walk from North Station to the subway but
the Hynes Convention Center is a couple blocks from the subway stop. I made my big
arrival soaking wet.
It was a madhouse in the registration area and the
exhibits didn't officially open until that night. I strongly recommend early
registration whenever possible. Not being an ALA member yet I had to hop from line
to line until I got straightened out with membership and registration. I'm now an
official member of ALA and LAMA plus a couple round tables including the Social
Responsibilities Round Table and the Intellectual Freedom Round Table. That should
be interesting.
With a little help from an ALA regular I was able to
get a good idea of where I wanted to go for meetings. The only one for Friday was
Session I of the Executive Board, about an hour away still. The top floor of the
HCC is very large and open and actually very quite so I spent the free time
working up a serious case of the nerves. The two of the most uncomfortable moments
of conference was asking the torture question and walking into the Executive Board
Meeting Room and sitting down for the first time. But once it was done everything
else was a snap.
Day 1: Executive Board Session I
I had the pleasure of meeting two members of the
board already at NELA, the current President, Carol Brey Casiano, and Michael
Golrick, a scholar and a gentleman if ever there was one. Sitting and waiting for
the meeting Nancy Davenport, another member, came up and introduced herself. (Some
people have that ability to introduce themselves to strangers for no reason other
then to be friendly, I don't.) The main reason I mention this is that she is also
President of the Council On Library And Information Resources and we had a quick
talk about an ongoing project of CLIR's which involves taking people without a
graduate degree and putting them through a "library boot camp". I hope to learn
more about this and share it here as I do, it sounds promising.
Mr. Gorman was there, obviously, as President-Elect.
I should probably confess something up front. Before leaving for Christmas I sent
Mr. Gorman an email, one that he hasn't replied to. I hadn't been aware until the
Fall of this year that Mr. Gorman wasn't born in the United States and a question
had been nagging at me for a while so I sent him an email asking him if he was an
American citizen.
I realize that there is something insidious about
asking that but I also realize that Mr. Gorman has been very upfront about his own
political views and since he didn't come to this country until adulthood I felt it
was important to know. I just bring it up now because I didn't go out of my way to
introduce myself to him or vice-versa and that's certainly a possible reason.
To be con't...
Sunday January 16, 2005
Due to some bad time management on my part I'm crashing
at home today. I'll be back in the mix tomorrow. I didn't get home Friday night until
after eleven and because of the train schedule I had to be on the 7am Saturday morning.
I didn't get home last night til after midnight. I'll type up all the details later.
I sat in on the ALA Executive Committee on Friday, an
ALA-APA meeting Saturday morning *and* the Presidential Candidate forum where the
candidates took questions from the audience. There was someone typing the script of that
last one to show on a couple large screens so I assume it will be made available
sometime in the future. There were a number of very good questions from people and
I managed to get one in of my own:
As I said the answers verbatim should be available in the
near future. Christine Lind Hage voted against the resolution and said that while she
supported the content she felt it was a personal issue and that it was "not part of the
mission" of ALA to deal with such issues. Leslie Berger had voted for the resolution. She
described us as "citizens of the world" and that there are times when ALA's 64,000
members should be used as a unified voice of influence. She also said that it should be
considered on a case by case basis, if that doesn't raise red flags I don't know what would.
I wish I had been better at taking notes but frankly I had
the shakes so bad when I was waiting to ask the question focusing on the answer was a
difficult task.
I have other notes concerning other questions that I
will get together after the conference is over. Just thought I'd share a little bit of
what I've been up to. I also have some opinions about the candidates and the election
in general but I'll write up a separate piece later on once voting has started.
Its been interesting so far, some people have been very
generous, others avoid me (in some cases probably fairly so). Its been interesting to
see so many people live that I've read about or talked about in the past. 3 more days
to go.
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