Comments on: Improving the American Library Association

By: AaronTheLibrarian

AaronTheLibrarian — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 14:36:39 +0000

Great points, Leigh. We (the ALA Improvers) could use more people with insightful ideas pushing the Association. I'll take the liberty of copying your points over to the Improve ALA wiki. I hope to see more ideas gel into something ALA Members can support and push for.

By: Leigh

Leigh — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 21:42:19 +0000

Aaron, what a refreshing move. The scattered focus and lack of meaningful responsiveness from ALA is the reason I, and others, don’t belong to the organization. Here are a couple of my pet issues to throw into the mix: 1)ALA needs to be doing something serious about LIBRARIES. I’d like to not hear anything more about what non-library political issues I should be concerned with from the ALA’s point of view. As THE representative organization for libraries ALA has the responsibility of leading and producing real change for the betterment of libraries and until that’s been done shut up and do the job the organization’s supposed to be doing. 2)I know pursuing diversity makes people at ALA feel like they’re good and caring people. If they really want to get minorities into the profession, then they need to do the things that need to be done to make it a profession that offers respect and reasonable income to its members–they’ll get all the minorities they could ever want then and we can all be proud to welcome them into a vibrant and alive profession. 3)I’d really like to have ALA stop acting like a amateur organization with a professional budget. If ALA was being run the way it is in a business environment it would have ceased to exist a long time ago.

By: lauren’s library blog » Blog Archive » links for 2007-06-20

lauren’s library blog » Blog Archive » links for 2007-06-20 — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 05:44:04 +0000

[…] Aaron the Librarian » Improving the American Library Association Good stuff here… will be interesting to watch as this evolves. (tags: ala ideas wikis todo) […]

By: The good things about ALA at Blisspix.net

The good things about ALA at Blisspix.net — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 01:05:18 +0000

[…] There’s been a lot of talk lately about reforming ALA (and I commented too), but having just finished my first year on two NMRT committees I thought I would reflect on that experience. […]

By: AaronTheLibrarian

AaronTheLibrarian — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 21:24:20 +0000

Hi Elizbeth, the “easy” way to join is have a meebo account to consolidate your IM accounts in a web based app and then hit this link: http://www.meebo.com/room/librarysocietyoftheworld/ while logged into your Meebo account.

By: AaronTheLibrarian

AaronTheLibrarian — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 21:21:14 +0000

Hi Kathryn, sorry to seem like I was pointing fingers at staffers (I was not intending any slights) or at ACRL (I broadened it to “the Divisions” for inclusiveness). The inefficiencies I see are from a more macro view than at the staff process level. Hopefully the macro discussion will better focus what ACRL/ALA/other ALA groups do and allow for better cross-pollination of ideas, expertise, and how the association addresses libraryland and the world around us.

By: Elizabeth

Elizabeth — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 15:42:34 +0000

Cool, a Meebo room! How can people join?

By: Kathryn Deiss

Kathryn Deiss — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 14:57:57 +0000

Aaron, this is intriguing and interesting; both from a member point of view and a staff member point of view. I would like to point out that the ACRL budget is managed much as a law firm manages finances: every hour (actually we count in 15 min increments) spent by individual staff members has to be billable to a project and we *have* to break even. If a project proposed does not indicate ways of breaking even we rarely, if ever, undertake it. We do time studies related to budget lines and projects and it is tight as a drum as far as I can see. This is not to say there could not be some efficiencies made. ACRL is open to change and to new ways of looking at ourselves.
I look forward to hearing a dialogue on your ideas within the ALA membership.
Obviously my comments are not representing ACRL but I am an ACRL staff member. I speak for myself here.

By: A little bit about everything » Blog Archive » Aaron Jumpstarts a Discussion about Improving ALA

Sat, 16 Jun 2007 17:21:13 +0000

[…] Improving the American Library Association “How’s this for a soundbyte? ‘ALA needs to focus on libraries and librarians, and we’re pledging to push the conversation where it needs to be.’ “ […]

By: @ Your Library needs a makeover « Library Nation

@ Your Library needs a makeover « Library Nation — Sat, 16 Jun 2007 14:17:06 +0000

[…] ALA is absolutely the correct place to collect, organize, and distribute marketing information and tools to libraries across the country. But there’s nowhere to talk about changes to the site/campaign or share tools that we find that aren’t created by ALA. Then I heard about Aaron Dobbs’ Improve ALA wiki (via David Lee King’s blog) and said “aha!” Let’s talk about how to change the @YL campaign on the wiki! So I added marketing to the list of “things to change” : […]