Greetings from your ALA Councilor,

My trip to Dallas for ALA Midwinter was a busy one as usual. Here are some of the issues which I feel you should know about. If you’d like more information about these issues or other ALA topics, please do not hesitate to contact me. The more I get to know ALA, the more I am impressed, so I would enjoy speaking with you about your concerns.

Resolutions Passed

There were two significant resolutions passed by the ALA Council. The first was a Resolution on Publishers and Practices Which Discriminate Against Library Users. It stated that ALA opposes any discriminatory policies of publishers and distributors that adversely impact access to content by library users; and that the Working Group on Digital Content in Libraries be directed to review the situation and recommend appropriate action and/or appropriate parties who should be informed of this resolution.

While this resolution might sound like a no-brainer, there was some debate both in Council forum and on the floor. Some were concerned that the resolution, if too strongly worded, might offend the publishers with whom ALA is scheduled to meet next week. In the end, the Council stuck with the original, forceful language and the resolution passed.

The second was a resolution condemning the restriction of access to materials in Arizona schools following state legislation that led to the elimination of a Mexican American studies program in the Tucson Unified School District. While it took some time to sift through the numerous layers of the controversy and identify the real culprits, the resolution passed. For more info, contact me or visit any number of websites including http://www.oif.ala.org/oif/?p=3157, http://saveethnicstudies.org, http://nyti.ms/yd6mfp, http://huff.to/xm4AHq.

ALA Fighting For Libraries, Librarians and Library Patrons

Elsewhere in the Association, a great deal is happening. As I referred to above, leaders of ALA will be meeting with top executives from Macmillan, Simon & Schuster (S&S), and Penguin publishing houses, (which all do not allow libraries to circulate their ebooks,) on January 30^th,January 31^st and February 2^nd to voice the concerns of the Association. For more info, read this article from LJ, http://bit.ly/zr9qS8. In addition, the Working Group on Digital Content and Libraries (http://connect.ala.org/node/159669) will be meeting frequently throughout the year to study the issues and develop advocacy strategies.

The entire organization is also working hard to raise awareness of the White House Petition on School Libraries, http://wh.gov/Wgd, which asks that the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) provide dedicated funding to help support effective school library programs. 25,000 signatures are needed by February 4, 2012, in order for this petition to reach the desk of the President. We are more than halfway there, but time is running out!

A few other advocacy initiatives/resources to be aware of are:

1. The updated “The Small but Powerful Guide to Winning Big Support for Your Rural Library,” http://www.ala.org/offices/olos/toolkits/rural,
2. “Keeping Public Libraries Public: A Checklist for Communities Considering Privatization of Public Libraries.” http://www.ala.org/tools/outsourcing.
3. Advocating in a Tough Economy Toolkit, http://www.ala.org/advocacy/advleg/advocacyuniversity/toolkit.

A whole host of additional advocacy tools can be found on ALA’s Advocacy University website, http://www.ala.org/advocacy/advleg/advocacyuniversity/.

I could go on, but I’ll stop for now. Please let me know if you’d like me to come speak with your library co-op about ALA. I’d be happy to try and do so.

Respectfully,

Steve Butzel, NH Chapter Councilor on the ALA Council
skbutzel@cityofportsmouth.com

Greetings from your ALA Councilor, Steve Butzel. Here is my report form the 2011 ALA Annual Conference which was held in New Orleans, LA this past week.

Given the numerous Council and Chapter meetings I am required to attend, I didn’t get to many programs at Annual, but I did enjoy attending the General Opening Session which was keynoted by Dan Savage. Also at the opening session, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation announced they had donated $300,000 to the ALA Spectrum Presidential Initiative which raises money for ALA’s national diversity and recruitment efforts. More info available here, http://spectrum.ala.org/. Of the $300,000, $100,000 will be used as matching funds.

There were four resolutions that came forward to Council in advance of Annual.  All four were eventually passed. The four resolutions were:

1. Resolution to Recognize ALA Conference Services and Gale Cengage Learning for Providing Shuttle Bus Service Accommodating Attendees with Disabilities

• I voted in favor of the resolution.

2. Resolution on Out of School Time Library Programs

• This resolution called for support from national and local government bodies (as well as funding) for library programs designed to continue the learning opportunities available to youngsters beyond the school day. I voted in favor of the resolution.

3. Resolution to Protect Library User Confidentiality in Self Serve Hold Practices

• This resolution generated the most discussion both in Council Forum and on the Council floor. Debate centered around the tension between theory and practice. The Intellectual Freedom Committee (which brought the resolution forward) listened to feedback and accepted a lot of input from the Public Library Association. As a result, a revised version of their original resolution passed with only a few dissenters.  I voted in favor of the resolution.

4. Resolution on Revised Guidelines for the ALA Intern Program

• I voted in favor of the resolution.

There were a few resolutions that came from the ALA Membership Meeting to Council.  Two resolutions dealt with WikiLeaks, and a third was a related resolution on Bradley Manning.  The first resolution was rejected by a close vote, and the other two did not come to an official vote because quorum had been lost.

An important report was given to the Council by the ALA Presidential Task Force on Equitable Access to Electronic Content. The report included a series of action items including allocating $200,000 to sustain staff efforts to address issues surrounding promoting equitable access to electronic content. The need for urgent action on this issue prevailed in discussion and in the vote, and the report was referred to ALA’s Executive Council.

ALA Executive Director Keith Michael Fiels reported to the Council that on June 1, 2011, ALA held its first Virtual Town Hall Meeting which drew as many as 530 attendees from across the country and from around the world.  Questions submitted by attendees and a polling feature helped make this an interesting and successful virtual meeting.  Fiels indicated that Virtual Town Hall Meetings will become a regular feature of ALA.  He also warned that ALA will be dealing with the trend towards privatization of public libraries and developing initiatives to discourage this move away from public governance of libraries.

Finally, although attendance was lower than that of many other conferences in more heavily populated sites such as Chicago and Washington, it was markedly higher than the New Orleans Conference of 2006 and gave witness to the restored confidence in the City five years after the devastation of Katrina.

Please contact me if you would like more details about any of this, skbutzel@cityofportsmouth.com

Thanks,
Steve

Hello from your ALA Councilor, Steve Butzel. As the New Hampshire Chapter Councilor on the ALA Council, I recently attended the 2011 ALA Midwinter Conference. Today I’d like to give you an update on the report councilors received from Roberta Stevens, President of ALA.

At the ALA Council/Executive Board/Membership Information Session, President Stevens provided a brief overview of her complete report to the Association.  In particular, she highlighted her presidential initiatives, which you can learn more about at her website, http://www.robertastevens.com/initiatives.html. The first initiative she discussed was “Our Authors, Our Advocates”, which is an effort to enlist well-known and beloved authors to speak out for libraries through video and audio PSAs and quotes.  Authors who have participated to date include Laurie Halse Anderson, David Baldacci, Carmen Agra Deedy, Sharon Draper, Sara Paretsky, Scott Turow, and Mo Willems.  More have been contacted and are expected to confirm their participation.  Visit www.ilovelibraries.org/ourauthorsouradvocates for more information.  

She next reviewed her Frontline Fundraising initiative.  This initiative will provide librarians with tools and skills needed at the local level to supplement their budget regardless of the size and type of library. An online toolkit will be launched in February and will provide information on developing a fundraising plan and online giving, establishing a planned giving program, and conducting an annual fund drive.  

Finally she reviewed the "Why I Need My Library" Contest for teens, which will be soft-launched in January. This contest is intended to use young people to communicate why libraries are needed now more than ever. The initiative takes immediate-past-President Camila Alire’s member-driven, grassroots advocacy and Jim Rettig’s experimentation with social networking a step further with the aim of adding to the arsenal techniques for frontline advocacy and engaging a new constituency in supporting libraries. The products will be short videos by children and young adults made available on YouTube and the ilovelibraries and @yourlibrary websites. The winners will identify either their school or local public library as the beneficiary of cash prizes for the best videos in the contest.

Overall, I was very impressed with President Stevens throughout the entire conference. She did an excellent job facilitating what can be contentious Council sessions, and proved herself to be knowledgeable and enthusiastic about a wide range of ALA initiatives.

I’ll share more about the conference in future blog posts, but feel free to send me any questions you may have about the Midwinter Conference or about ALA in general. The more familiar I get with ALA’s numerous sections, roundtables, task forces and professional staff, the more I am impressed.

Thanks,
Steve Butzel, ALA Councilor, skbutzel at cityofportsmouth.com