ALA Personal Members will qualify for:

•20% off all in-store purchases, excluding café purchases
•10% off our already discounted online prices at www.booksamillion.com/ala
•Free shipping on any order over $25, including large quantity orders for libraries
•Individualized service from a dedicated staff ready to serve you

Throughout the year as you’re shopping for your library ALA Organizational Members are able to use a library purchase order to place an order online, via phone by contacting Books-A Million’s Business 2 Business Department at 1-800-201-3550 x 3 or via email at business@booksamillion.com and B.A.M. offers a quote service at no charge.

Dear Colleagues:

The weekend of September 11th, a group comprised of the ALA board members, division leaders, roundtable representatives and senior staff met in Itasca, Illinois, to begin the development of ALA’s new strategic plan. The new plan’s goals and objectives will set the association’s strategic directions for the next five years to 2015. (ALA’s current plan goes through 2010.)

For the last six months, work has been underway to gather member input and information on the changing environment for libraries, librarians and the association. To date, 15 member forums have been conducted at state chapter meetings, and another 20 are planned for this fall and early spring of 2010. A member survey of ALA programs and services, their importance, and the association’s performance in each area was conducted, with 9,000 members participating.

In addition to the survey and forums, an Environmental Scan has been created on ALA Connect, containing articles, reports and other information on the social, educational, economic, political, and technological environments within which we will operate, as well as issues and trends specific to different types of libraries. (To see the Environmental Scan, surveys or forum reports, go to ALA Connect, log in, and click “My Member Communities” and then “ALA 2015 Environmental Scan.”)

In mid-October, ALA board members will meet with a larger group of division leadership and roundtable representatives in Chicago to continue working on draft goals and objectives. Following this meeting, we will then circulate a draft plan for discussion by ALA councilors, committees and the membership as a whole. It is our hope that those members attending Midwinter will schedule discussions of the plan as part of their meeting agendas, and we are looking to schedule a working session on the plan for Council as part of the Information Session at Midwinter.

Again, following Midwinter, ALA groups and individual members will be invited to share their thoughts and suggestions which will be considered for incorporation into the document as we prepare for review and approval by the Board in April. The document will then go to Council prior to Annual Conference for Council’s final approval at Annual Conference.

When we developed the current 2010 plan, we received over 2,500 comments from ALA groups and individual members. These comments were aggregated, analyzed, and ultimately incorporated into the plan as it moved forward over the course of its year- long development. We look forward to the same high level of member involvement as we move forward on our 2015 Plan.
Thank you for your help in this process.

Camila A. Alire
President
American Library Association

ALA is pleased to announce a new digital supplement to American Libraries Magazine for the International Library community: "Global Mission, Global Membership". Published in digital format only to coincide with IFLA's 75th World Library and Information Congress taking place this week in Milan, Italy, this supplement takes readers through the opportunities offered to members and the wider profession by the American Library Association. You can view, print and share this digital issue of American Libraries by visiting http://viewer.zmags.com/publication/b9badc6a.

Over 30 pages of information include an introduction by Michael Dowling, Director of the ALA International Relations Office, an overview of recent publications from ALA Publishing, details on participating in or exhibiting at ALA Annual Conference and the Midwinter Meeting, a discussion of the enhancement to committee work through ALA Connect, news from JobList on employment in the States, plus additional information on North American MLS/MLIS programs, ALA rights management, and a run down of member benefits.

This digital supplement is ideal for long-time international members to share with colleagues, newer members to acquaint themselves with everything ALA has to offer the library profession abroad, and for domestic members to learn more about the scope of ALA's international activities. Please feel free to share this link - http://viewer.zmags.com/publication/b9badc6a - widely.

Contact Michael Dowling at mdowling@ala.org or John Chrastka at jchrastka@ala.org with comments or questions.

Main issues: ALA budget, economy/advocacy, accessibility, Health Care reform, Sec 215 of Patriot Act, electronic participation, organizational dues, Intellectual Freedom/Judith Krug, ALA-APA

Report:
The governing Council of the American Library Association continued its longstanding tradition of considering a wide variety of issues of concern to ALA members. This year the selection included ALA’s budget woes, how to increase member participation in ALA activities, effective advocacy for libraries in troubled economic times, accessibility of library websites and other electronic services, healthcare reform, intellectual freedom statements, and Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act.

Just as it has affected all of our libraries, the economic downturn has pinched ALA’s ability to carry out its mission. Headquarters staff has struggled to maintain services while having to lay off a few staff and asking everyone else to take unpaid leave, reduce accrued vacation, and otherwise economize. The results include a smaller budget deficit than expected for this year but also slower service in a number of areas, including answering the telephone when people call. The Executive Board also dipped into reserves, a move they hated to make. However, Council was able to agree to a “budgetary ceiling” of $64.4 million with no major programs eliminated.

For some time, a high-level, high-prestige task force led by ALA’s finest policy wonk has been studying “electronic member participation”—a broad concept covering a wide variety of issues. The resulting report, which I discussed in my Midwinter 09 report, won wide praise; now many units are working out how they will implement their portions of the recommendations. One of the major responses was the establishment of “ALA Connect”: a place for members to connect with all of their responsibilities in ALA. For example, on one website I can see all of my committees, the people with whom I most frequently communicate, organized into virtual “communities”, and even store and share documents with other members. This was launched in March with little fanfare but has already been adopted by LITA and numerous members. LITA people spoke of “flattening” their organization for more efficiency and connectivity.

Several states reported severe budgetary problems, perhaps the worst being Ohio which threatened to close most of the smaller library systems in the state and Michigan where the State Library is being threatened by a liberal Democratic governor [as nearly happened in Washington a few years ago]. Late in the conference one of the chapter councilors proposed to put ALA’s staff in full crisis mode on this issue, to which the Executive Director replied that they already are implementing a crisis management plan. It turned out that what the councilor really wanted was for ALA to try to meet with President Obama; the staff agreed to request such a meeting.

ASCLA, the ALA division that represents librarians serving people with disabilities, has been working for several years to urge libraries to conform to Federal regulations regarding the accessibility of electronic services like websites, catalogs and databases. If these are designed too “visually”, blind people can’t use them. ASCLA people obtained the co-sponsorship of several other major ALA units including the Intellectual Freedom Round Table to assist the passage of two resolutions strongly urging libraries to follow the Federal regulations: one on accessible library websites and one on the purchase of electronic services from outside vendors. The IFRT Councilor very effectively stated that access issues are closely tied to intellectual freedom—without access, people with disabilities are not free to enjoy the services that should be available to everyone.
Four years ago, ALA went on record supporting the concept of “single payer” health insurance as a way to rein in costs and equalize benefits. With the new administration in Washington there is a new push for health insurance reform, some councilors wanted ALA to reiterate our previous stand in the hope of influencing the debate. However, the resolution was watered down to replace “single payer” with the much broader term “universal coverage”. After strenuous debate the term “with single-payer option” was reinstated and the resolution was adopted.

The Freedom to Read Foundation had a difficult year with the death of Judith Krug. In recognition of Ms. Krug’s dedicated service to IF across the nation, chapter councilors spontaneously organized to have each state chapter adopt a memorial resolution for her. These were collected and present it to her family. In IF news, the Obama administration decided not to appeal the Appeals Court decision on the National Security Letter gag order. The burden of proof of necessity of a gag order is now on the government. FTRF has taken on a new case: balancing the “value” of speech versus government interest. The videos in question portray animal cruelty which is illegal everywhere, but the case was brought over distributing those videos for profit. Allowing the government to regulate content is the violation of intellectual freedom. Ongoing cases being monitored include the “Vamos a Cuba” book in Miami, “Bradburn vs. North Central Regional Library” in our state (no position taken), a meeting room policy in Contra Costa County, Calif, and violent video game rentals. FTRF has formed a new task force to study diversity concerns with respect to IF issues. They have just begun to offer free one-year memberships to graduating library school students.

IF advocates disagreed over strategy while discussing “dueling motions” on the expiration of Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act at the end of this year. Assuming that the section will be reauthorized, the Committee on Legislation advocated a series of specific reforms, but the Intellectual Freedom Committee called for the government to “sunset” the section (allow it to expire). After discussing how to combine these efforts, Council agreed to a public statement calling for the sunset while advising the Washington Office staff to advocate the reforms if it becomes clear that the section will be reauthorized.
As usual, there was also considerable time and attention given to internal matters, including training on professional ethics. A surprisingly fierce debate took place over the selection of a specific training firm took place, with the committee chair becoming visibly upset when someone called the committee’s actions “unethical” and Council rejected the Ethics Committee’s main proposed action. I expected such drama to arise elsewhere, not on this issue.

ALA-APA continues to advocate for improved library salaries as well as to provide certification and research on related issues. The Certified Public Library Administrator program has found its market in small to mid-sized libraries, and the Support Staff certification program is on track to begin in January. The ALA-APA Council adopted a resolution supporting changes in labor regulations to recover overtime protections for workers who were redesignated as “professionals” by the Bush administration.
I am attaching my notes which will provide more detail on these and some other issues.
Having served as ALA Chapter Councilor since 2003, I am now stepping down from this office. I thank the members of WLA for having confidence in me all these years, especially those of you who commented on ALA activity, either critically or supportively. It’s been my honor to serve you and I’m confident that my successor, Cher Ravagni, will find her own way to do so effectively.

Chronological Notes

Sun July 12

Council/Exec Board Membership Information Session
BARC: economic uncertainty, revenues down but expenses down more, investments are turning around, plans to be presented later. Considered prioritizing web code cleanup and accessibility review. Very involved, complex, rigorous, consultative budget process. Looking at electronic participation—high impact on budget. BARC is a council committee, reviews budget in line with strategic plan, annual priorities, budget assumptions.
Endowment Trustees: last half of 2008 “extremely volatile”, lost a lot of money, but turnaround early in March. Recovery will likely be slow, steady over a number of years. Endowment increased, overall return of 5.8% compared to benchmark 3.7%. Building up fixed income funds to be a larger proportion of funds. Rebalancing—review holdings to maximize performance, this is the value of active management. Has generated 2.5 million in earnings, 1.1 million more than passive management would have.

ALA Connect: replaced online communities with open source software Drupal, launched in April. http://connect.ala.org
Goals:
1. Collaborate workspace for every group to centralize dispersed activities, so all committees are entered into database.
2. Provide profiles for members to tell more about selves, build professional networking, not facebook for librarians, no status updates, personal pictures. Will be there when you need it, not constantly demanding attention. Entered all 60K members: name, picture, workplace, affiliations (automatically; you don’t have to update). Nobody sees contact information unless you make it available.
3. Allow members to create their own communities without some of bureaucracy. Prepopulated with 190 discussion and interest groups within divisions. Members have created more than 80 communities. Yesterday someone created GIS across ALA, public service issues across all types of libraries.
Various features: roster for each group, already being used by divisions, committees. LITA has flattened org by creating a public forum. GODORT steering committee went ahead and created community. BIGWIG voted to move all activity into Connect. Use has been steady.
If you want to participate, turn on email notices to get updates from site.
Future plans, integrate continuing education clearinghouse to notify of events of interest. Profile will be like an online CV, historical contributions, document career with ALA including who you worked with. Add grassroots advocacy tools. Allow people to come together around issues as they come up.
No one right way to use Connect—make it valuable to yourself and use those pieces.
Designed site to allow interaction with people outside the group one piece of content at a time if desired. Discussions can be private (within group) if desired. Can have categories just for your group.

ALA APA Information Session
President visited 14 chapters, asked how many were aware of APA, found peak at 10%, urges active members to bring attention to APA and its work on behalf of all library workers. CPLA value should be trumpted. 2009 Salary Survey results are now available, higher response rate this time. Available in print and database form, one version for public libraries and one for academic libraries available at lower price online from ALA store.

Council I
President’s report: US President Obama’s “United We Serve” provided opportunity to promote libraries.

President-elect reports: initiative on advocacy, frontline rank & file workers, preparing & empowering them to be advocates at their comfort level with the people they know the best, also advocacy for literacy. Working group looking to five ethnic group affiliates for resources/projects/products that might be useful for outreach and service. Young Turks advisory group grew out of concerns for recruiting/retaining younger librarians. Listen, get advice on what it will take to keep them in profession. Fundraising initiative: spectrum scholarship advisory group of past presidents.
KM Fiels report: lots of activity. Research grant from Gates Foundation extended through 2012 will allow collection of financial data from libraries, sustainable connectivity as part of library budgets. I Love Libraries project http://www.atyourlibrary.org/ directed by Leonard Kniffel, outreach to public, exciting and inspiring, e.g. vacation planning. Trying and experimenting. Including libraries as core community institution gets communities extra points when applying for federal stimulus funds. Weekly conference calls for libraries on how to get involved with this. Book Links will be fused into Booklist as quarterly supplement.

Implementation of recommendations of Task Force on Electronic Participation
Council Transparency: need for survey to gauge member interest in governance activities. Examined options for making council operations more transparent—range from simple to complex. Costs high but coming down. Captioned transcripts can’t be posted because of inevitable errors. So options include transcriptions by court reporter or cleaned up version of captioning. Also audio recording of sessions 1.5K, real time streaming audio webcast $11K, real time audio/video webcast: $55K per year! Because of contracting arrangements with convention center. Discussion: transcript raises issues of liability: individual remarks could be taken out of context in a variety of legal problems. Worry that someone would try to harm ALA by doing so. Individuals’ remarks might be taken as representing the whole association. Do we need real time or would recordings suffice? What about detailed minutes?—requires a certain level of trust that minutes actually reflect the proceedings. Are that many people really interested in the details of running the organization?

Monday, July 13, 2009
ALA-APA Council
Exec Director report: reduced revenue resulted in reduced staff, shifting staff to ALA. Support Staff certification rolling out, hope for enthusiastic reception as public library administrator program has been. Divisions have approved standards for certification, if Exec Board approves will be field tested in the fall, supported through IMLS. Providers being signed up.

Treasurer’s report:
Focus on certification, advocacy, reports/analysis
APA can’t charge dues so much rely on revenues. Reduced revenues but management hopes for improvement in the last three months. Shortfall 19,000, expect to pay 11K interest but no principal repayment.

2010: CPLA program, Lib support staff certification program beginning January 2010
Next year will repay 25K of principal.

Certified public library admin program: mostly mid-sized libraries, lower than expected enrollment. Lack of awareness, encouragement by supervisors, variety of expectations by states on CE. Belief that people already have adequate management skills, fewer states and library schools can offer mgt training. Graduates and enrollees are spreading the word, chapters are promoting CPLA.

Cttee on Salaries & Status of library workers
Pay equity bibliography is complete. Conference programs. Union 101—how to start a union.
Overtime pay protection: APACD#8.3 In 2003 US Dept of Labor weakened Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, exempting “white collar” workers, up to 6 million people, including library workers. Resolutin regarded as unclear, referred to special session.
Salary and status related policy statements: needs improvement.
28,256 attendees, almost 1000 more than Wash. DC.
Question about financial impact of increased attendance on budget, not laying off staff.

Membership Meeting
In economic stimulus, libraries and communities colleges were among few “callouts” in bill—funding specifically for broadband. US is one of few countries that does not have a national broadband plan. Other countries have plan and funding: importance for education, literacy, economic development. US falling behind our international rivals. Orgs called for significant funding, got 7 billion, we need to make it work. Libraries are a big part. Money divided between two gov’t agencies: commerce and agriculture. Ag focuses on rural, residential funding. NTIA priority 3 identified community anchor institutions including libraries. But in rules, anchor institutions did not receive priority. But gov’t officials want to fund anchor institutions, so libraries should apply. Computers, wiring, connectivity. Great opportunity to get funding to support initiatives. Help transform capability to serve communities. Resolution on libraries and continuing wars adopted.

Council II:
Policy Monitoring Committee report: Removed policy that hasn’t been used for 30 years but was developed to address censuring racist institutions. Current reference file guidelines.
Membership Committee: increasing organizational dues
Cttee on Professional Ethics: reason for code of ethics. Celebrated 70th anniversary of adoption, programs presented and planned: ethics in a digital world, Q&A will be posted on ALA webpage. Initiative for ethics education, involving Institute for Global Ethics Questioning of designation of specific supplier. Do we trust our committees to fully investigate? Voted down selection of firm.

Freedom to Read Foundation: difficult year. Death of Judith Krug. Successful gala. Gov’t decided not to appeal decision on National Security Letter gag order. Burden of proof of necessity of gag order is now on the government. New case: balancing “value” of speech versus government interest. Videos of government cruelty being sold. Ongoing: Vamos a Cuba book in Miami, Bradburn vs. NCRL (no position), meeting room policy in Contra Costa County, Calif, video game rentals. New task force to study diversity issues with respect to IF issues. Free membership to graduating library school students.
Treasurer’s report: Revenues down, 1.6 million budget gap. Rod doesn’t expect public economy to recover until 12-18 months after private economy does. 2011 may be no better than 2010. Programmatic priorities, Shortfall in indirect cost recovery applies only to expenses. Revenues and expenses both down. Use of board reserves 436,000. ALA employees had to take 5 furlough days. Structural adjustments required but we don’t know how bad the economy will be. Revenue projection 27.3 million. Expect dues to thold steady, last year of increase. Both major conferences on east cost, more attendance, but all 3 in FY 2010. Publishing modest increases. General fund needs 28K to break even. Assumptions: must cut costs without killing programs. New business development: moving forward. Build projects and structures, mergers, outside opportunities. Gen Fund 25M, Divisions 25M, overall ceiling 64.432,034. Question on layoffs: mostly in publishing, combining Booklist and Book Links, call center, conference services. Weeklong furlough 250K savings, having some impacts on services but staff has been just great. Suite is a meeting room with bed attached. Exec Bd expenses have been reduced 5,000. Membership renewals were down in May—maintaining memberships will be a challenge. Down 2.6%, just under 2000 members, 65,500 approx. total. Question on scooters—advance notice of fee not given. Budget presented does not include hiring freeze or furlough, makes assumptions about factors over which we have no control.

Civil marriage resolution: dealing with government regulation of marriage. Mostly strong support.

Afghanistan war resolution: defeated. Most speakers either asked for support of troops or ALA focus on libraries. Dismissed membership meeting adoption.

Council III
Memorials, etc.

APA resolution on protecting overtime pay. Revised, adopted.

Elaine retiring because of not wanting to fly & cause more global climate change.
Reminder: new councilor orientations, mentoring program

Constitution & Bylaws: working on non-in-person voting. 1. Clarifying how votes may be taken, allowing simple majority. SRRT objected to electronic voting by Council. Adopted. 2. Allowing evotes. Adopted.

Cttee on Legislation: Library Legislative Day cancelled in favor of rally during ALA Annual conference in June. Website on Broadband support under stimulus act is being extensively used. Successful forum on government information. Google Book Search settlement—need for continuing assessment of its impact on ala members and member institutions: call for ALA wide representative group for ongoing vigilance. Full funding for Gov’t Printing Office. Public access to research by federal employees or funded by gov’t. Digitization of gov’t documents. Concern for preservation of paper records: changes in electronic technology. Preserving American Historical Records Act.
Reauthorizing Sec 215 of USA Patriot Act. Should we only call for sunsetting or specify improvements we would accept?

Intellectual Freedom Cttee: new interp of Library Bill of Rights, access to digital information, importance of information to IF, labels & Rating systems, Minors & internet interactivity—all adopted.

International Relations Cttee: over 400 librarians from 85 countries. Receptions, programs held in Chicago. US Committee on the Blue Shield established 1996. ALA has about 2000 international members from 113 countries.

Cttee on Organization: change name of Continuing Education round table to “Learn”. Round Table Coordinating Assembly expansion.

Resolutions:

Intergeneration day means libraries: support intergen programs during the week of October 4
Accessibility for Library Websites: urges libraries to comply with Federal regulations (sec 508), & calls for federal/state funding to support

Purchasing of accessible electronic resources: strongly recommends that libraries require vendors to guarantee that products and services comply with Sec 508 regulations.
Endorsing legislative proposals for single payer/universal health care. Amended to call for “universal” health care, including single payer option.

Action plan to remedy current library budget crisis: develop a critical crisis management approach, create an action plan to lart legislators, stakeholders and constituents to action through all media and interpersonal channels available. ALA staff already doing this. Adopted after adding transmission clause.

Expanding electronic participation: provide access to proceedings of governance sessions of Midwinter 2010. Too costly? Means of assessment? First step Council. Worry about opponents of IF taking quotations out of context. ALA is moving aggressively on program related components, still thinking about governance related components. Adopted.l
28,941 final attendance, about 500 more than Washington DC.