Aaron the Librarian

Dialogue Notes

Per my previous post these are my notes from the Dialogue on Government Information meeting.

Summary:
While several participants had differing views on why we all assembled, good discussion happened. ALA has mostly good processes for moving issues to and through Council for offical comment, which can break when stressed by the need for both speed and expertise. Generally, these processes work fine for issues which affect small groups of interest but strain when several large groups of interest have opposing views on an issue needing a swift response.

Suggestions for smoothing the rough patches included: providing mechanisms for year-round, asynchronous, online communication; raising awareness of issues which affect parts of ALA subgroups; identifying which groups are doing what about an issue, and fostering collaboration among disparate groups with similar interests.

Several related problems were identified and some ideas for mitigation/routing around were offered. The impression I got from the participants at this meeting is that ALA needs to specifically acknowledge and encourage the online collaborative tools already in use by ALA subunits *and provide an excellent way to host services which allow for this.* (ALA Communities was indicated as “not acceptable” when mentioned as an existing tool)

Started out acknowledging the basics:

• ALA is a complex organization
• Many members = many points of view
• Hoary old line “ALA has been successful *because* it has been unable to move quickly” mentioned (received a marked lack of enthusiasm)
• Recognized that “newer” members also have points of view, willing to make contributions, and a tendency to not respond well to in-action on issues

Wide ranging discussion:

• ALA has a very strong process in place to handle “low-impact” issues; however when a “high-imapct” issue comes along, the process breaks down. “Impact” here is breadth of membership impacted — if some issue affects only one division or round-table the standard process works well; However, when more than a couple interest groups are affected the standard process is no wher enear adequate to do justice to all sides of an issue.
• ALA likened to “Democracy” and then to “Summer Camp” and then to “Rich Kids’ Summer Camp.” Generally everyone knows ALA members’ core beliefs, but we (”ALA and sub-groups volunteer leadership”) need to practice inclusion; need to make ALA less complex; need to make or encourage funding availability for remote, poor, and underheard library folks.
• ALA is lots of small, informed groups; we need to get related groups together to come to consensus and bring a broad view to issues.
• What “Dialogue” vs “Discussion” vs “Deliberation” are or can be seen as, and what tools might be usable to foster better communication between and among the various ALA subgroups.
• Discussed “self-reliance” and “cooperation” and “collaboration”
• Transparency: ALA process management hasn’t always been fully transparent, often transparency appears political.
• Policy, process, politics, and how a blend of this should/can be used
• Respecting minority opinions: Deliberations & discussions should be allowed to continue after a decision is made - to be sure decision is monitored and remains relevant. When a minority (quanitity, not ethnic/racial) view is not adopted, this does not mean the minority’s views are negated or ignored - it means there is an honest difference of opinion which can be talked through.
• Debate then Deliberate then Decide: “Debate” is where each side puts forth its views in the best/strongest argument. “Deliberate” is were each side discusses points made by all sides and works toward a common understanding. ALA often “Debates,” rarely “Deliberates.” The result, hopefully, should be a mutually acceptable (or at least not objectionable) decision about an issue at hand. Suggetsed reading: _Hearing the other side_
• Compromise, Consensus, and Common Ground (for Action) Handout: The group felt we should add: communication, inclusion, community, and outreach to this group of ideas to encourage within ALA. Determine when is it appropriate for member representatives (elected ALA leaders) to handle issues? When should full membership (of subgroup or of ALA in toto) be consulted? How should ALA/staff/subgroups determine what kind of expertise to rely upon? (personal, aggrigate, etc.) How should ALA/staff/subgroups determine what kind of voice to use to express opinions or make statements? (official, personal, on behalf of (whom)?) Who decides about these and how is what is decided? Need to have procedural path_s_ laid out and indications for when to use which path. Maybe need a decision-making grid.

So what is the problem?

• When ALA needs quick action to make an expert opinion/statement on issues that affect more than one or two subgroups — is often where things get bogged down
• How do we improve communications in and among ALA units, people, groups, etc.?
• Need to become aware of how to get things done
• Need a way to see where the issues are, which groups are following/impacted by an issue, and what is being done about an issue
• Where are the roadblocks to the various processes?
• Who speaks for ALA? (see policy manual for official answer)
• What process do speakers use to gather data nad opinions? to write policy statements?
• ALA has lots of structure, but very little navigational aids
• When ALA stuff happens across silos “we don;t play well together”
• How do we improve ALA cross-training and dialoguing?
• What can and can’t a Round Table do?
• Legislative Assembly is not as effective as it could be, need to get LegAssReps to report back to subgroup Boards and bring up items of concern to their subgroups at LegAss meetings
• Communications; who & how do we get the word out? who & how pulls groups together?
• mentioned in the communications piece, several people complained that ALA only meets twice a year; others proposed making activity year-round via asynchronous online tools that could/should be hosted by ALA.
• ALA often errs on the side of participation, at the cost of being quick & nimble

Take away comments / impressions:

• ALA processes mostly work, most of the time - unless more than two ALA subgroups are involved
• Need an ALA101 / Intro to ALA processes session or two
• ALA has been an effective voice over the past decade or so as a good, authentic voice for the public good

Observations

• ALA only “meets” twice a year; open, members-only, virtual participation would allow for asynchronous discussion and deliberation
• COL and COL Gov’t Info Subcommittee need to have balanced representation from the various government focussed groups, such as GODORT, the Divisional Legislation Committees, etc.
• The COL email list needs to have a read-only option like alacoun does

Critical factors which need addressed:

• Timeliness vs Inclusive — need to strike a careful balance between these
• Proactive vs Reactive

Deliverables?

• ALA Gov’t/Legislative issues wiki?
• ALA 101 Wiki? Intro to the association and how to navigate around it?
• ALA Council 101 Wiki? Intro to Council and how to get stuff done?
• Explore options about alternatives to “offical statements”? Maybe “interim statements”? (most folks didn’t like this one)
• “More tha twice a year” processes for legislation, COL, & Legislative Assembly activities?
• Strong interest in online asynchronous methods for participation
• Council orientation committee looking into streaming Councilor Orientation information
• How do we identify stakeholders on issues? (assigned to COL?)

It takes a leader to face the reality of change; especially to face it, embrace it, and look for fresh views from people who might have some insights on how things could or should be - instead of being focused on how things are and why they should stay the same.

A week or two ago, Jim Rettig — you know, the incoming ALA President — asked two sets of questions on NMRT-L.

Here’re the Questions:

Set 1:
What have your best, most rewarding experiences in ALA been?
What made them the best?
How can ALA offer opportunities for such experiences to all of its members?

Set 2:
If ALA didn’t exist today and we wanted to create a library association that would work on behalf of all types of libraries, all library users, and all library workers, what would it look like and how would it operate?

I responded once to set 1 and twice to set 2.
(I’d forgotten I’d responded to set 2 & got pumped up by some of the ideas expressed in the other responses)

Full Q&A after the fold…
See the pdf Q&A
(more…)

I hope this space doesn’t become an all ALA all the time blog, but here we go with more ALA stuff

[update1: this is the email I got from ALA which I mildly edited to sound like a more personal request]
ALA is in the process of redesigning ala.org and would like your input on some of the rough preliminary screens that they are referring to as wireframes.

If you had the opportunity to view the wireframes during Annual Conference in Washington, they would especially like your input, as they have made several changes to them based on feedback received from comments during the conference.

While viewing and evaluating the wireframes, ALA asks that you please keep the following in mind:

1. The wireframes you will see are rough early sketches that do not represent the visual design of the site, just an idea of the basic layout.
2. The wireframes provide only limited functionality. Links that are active are indicated by an underline & bright blue color. Things that may someday be links but are not active in this demo are underlined but are “grayed out.”
3. The wireframes contain very little actual content at this point. Many areas of the site simply provide placeholding text to indicate where content would be.

To start viewing the wireframes, click on this link: http://www.userworks.com/ala/ALA%20Wireframes%20v9-postconference.htm

After you have had a chance to explore the wireframes, please take a moment to fill out the short survey. To complete the survey, click on this link:
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=PESQdPbvg87AzFXlQge4Eg_3d_3d

Your feedback is extremely valuable, and will hopefully help make ala.org a more enjoyable and usable web site.

[Update2: this is where the email ends, my personal comments are below]
For what it’s worth, the wireframes deal only with the look & feel; the URL gobbledygook will shrink as content moves to the new “Collage” CMS and the URL gobbledygook can be further reduced by renaming folders which can be done by the Divisional Web Managers.

As mentioned previously, I am on the Reactor Panel for the Presidential Task Force on the Graduated Dues Study. My involvement pre-dates the Task Force creation from while I was a (physically present) “virtual member” of the ALA Membership Committee.

Without having access to the ALA Council III session transcripts I have no idea how this effort was reported to Council; transcripts would be so nice to fact check myself. However, blaming only me for misstatements and errors, from the meeting of the Task Force I attended, in my capacity as a Responder, I recall the following tidbits of information:

• ALA has spent the staff-time equivalent of ~$60K to determine feasibility of Dues study
• ALA is preparing to do a study the feasibility of a member dues structure based on salary or other structures
• Salary-based was one of several models
• Benefits-based tiers (names supplied in this post by me — I forgot what these were really called)
• basic membership=$=a member, only standard discounts on services/publications
• advanced membership=$$=a member, with extra discounts on services/publications
• premium membership=$$$=a member, receiving all services/publications desired at no extra charge
• Keeping the structure we already have (flat fee)
• Others were mentioned but I do not recall how they were described
• The financial hit to the Association of the Study
• Not known how much the individual pieces of the study will cost
• RFI to go out Summer 2007 (probably end of July)
• Consulting teams can bid on all or parts of the project
• If whole project is out of single-year financial feasibility, parts will still be done
• Some prognostications on costs
• I’ve heard numbers bandied about *for the whole project* which come in at ~>$600K
• The history of the project as I know it
• This project is a “member driven initiative”
• It came out of a Membership Meeting where there was a quorum (50+ members, I think)
• I’m told the major sponsor of this program (in the Membership meeting where it was passed) is SRRT
• Council told the ALA Membership Committee to explore this
• Membership Committee (when I was on a few years back) originally sent a report back to Council suggesting that the cost would be prohibitive
• Council told ALA Membership Committee to plan the study anyway
• The project turned into a BARC/Membership Committee Joint Task Force
• Which then turned onto a Presidential Task Force (by ALA President Burger, I believe)
• The Reactor Panel and the Task Force members have finalized the pieces of the project
• The RFI should be announced in late July/early August

Would the outlay of this kind of money be beneficial for the Association?  I’m not sure; I feel more data is better than no data. The question for me is how would this affect the dues for the most people?  I suspect there won’t be all that many people suddenly paying *lower* dues, and plenty of people suddenly faced with higher dues if ALA moves to a graduated dues structure.

A couple of points to remember about this project, the Association staff are not doing this to try to maximize dues revenue; this project is a direct result of a “member initiated initiative;” the timeline for this started at a Membership Meeting right after the quorum requirements had been lowered to a mere 50 people.

Would I like to see a graduated dues structure replace the current flat rate (with exceptions for students, financially challenged, retirees, support staff, trustees, and the other exceptions I’m forgetting)?  I’m not sure.  I feel that if, for the most part, everyone is paying the same rate we all feel like equal partners in the efforts of the Association.  I would not want to see a class-based system based on perceived financial contributions to the Association.

We’ll see how this shakes out.

Just feeling the need to vent a little at my fellow ALA members…

Remember how we were *all* invited to review the look and feel, visual appeal, and all that jazz of the proposed new
ALA.org (<- link is to current sad state of affairs)
website?

Guess how many people (of the tens of thousands at Annual as well as the tens of thousands not at Annual, but on the web) submitted comments?

Go ahead.  Pick a Three. Digit. Number.

I’ll give you the first one: “1″

Did you guess higher than that?  Me, too; silly us.

The total number of survey responses received was One Hundred. Ninty. Four.  (yes, 194)

/vent

(aside: this number gives me a flashback to Snape in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban: “Turn to page three-hundred-and-ninety-four.” But, nevermind)

If you’re an ALA member, watch your inbox for another email from ALA with links to a revised (per those 194 comments) mock-up.  If you have suggestions (such as fixing those horrible URLs) make sure to include them in your responses to this opportunity.

If you have nothing else to say about this iteration of new site, please do the survey anyway *and mention that the URL structure needs fixed as often as it seems relevant in the survey*

Those of us who care about that sort of thing (like me) will thank you.

As alluded to in previous posts, the ALA Office for Information Technology Policy has released a magnum opus, the Public Library Connectivity Project: Findings and Recommendations, (153 pages long, 57 pages of report and 96 pages of appendicies) which was commissioned by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (I hope this will help guide their future library funding efforts). The report builds upon the findings of the Public Libraries & the Internet Reports (PLIP) and numerous site visits, interviews, and questionnaires conducted over the course of this project.

Grab a beverage, this summary/teaser is long enough to warrant it.  If you plan on digging through the full report, you may want to order in some sustenance, too!
Spoiler alert!
Highlights from the Public Library Connectivity Project: Findings and Recommendations below the fold… (more…)

The ALA Washington Office, Office for Information Technology Policy is looking for a few good volunteers to learn and earn the moniker “Copyright Scholar” on the Copyright Advisory Network.

Here is their announcement (pasted from email and re-formatted)
[begin quoted text]
Call for Copyright Scholar Nominations

The ALA Office for Information Technology Policy is seeking individuals interested in serving as a Copyright Scholar for the Copyright Advisory Network.

The Copyright Advisory Network (CAN) is a Web site (www.librarycopyright.net) and network forum where librarians discuss copyright dilemmas and concerns online. Since 2005, eight librarians have served as Copyright Scholars on the forum. It is time to recruit a new batch of librarians who are keenly interested in copyright and want to volunteer their time to the Network.

Selected individuals will attend an all expenses paid 2-day orientation meeting in Washington, DC, train with the Copyright Scholar class of 2005, and help craft new improvements to the Network. Once you become a Scholar, you agree to devote a small amount of your time (estimated 2 hours a week) responding to copyright queries posted to the Network.  You can decide how long your commitment to the Network will last but it must be for at least one year.

Qualifications for interested applicants:

Expertise in US copyright law and its application in libraries and educational institutions
Excellent writing skills
Flexibility in scheduling time to serve on the Network
Experience working in teams
Permission from your institution to participate

All applicants must be ALA members.

To be considered, send a letter expressing your interest in becoming a Copyright Scholar. Tell us of any special training or expertise you already have that would make you a good candidate for the job.  The Copyright Advisory Committee will select the lucky applicants from the pool of letters received.

Send your letter or any questions you have to Carrie Russell via email at [crussell @ alawash.org].  Deadline for applications is August 31, 2007 (deadline extended).

[End copied text]

If you regularly work with or are at all interested in copyright, please consider submitting yourself for consideration.

Well, lookit what I found!

While searching for ALA pages about the Graduated Dues Study Task Force, to flesh out my upcoming post about it, I found a page which references a page I wish I’d seen a long time ago: [ ALA | Council Actions ] lists ALA Council actions from 1997 thru the present.

Lots of data in there, no time to peruse at leisure and pull out juicy tidbits.  Anyone else want to have a go at finding good stuff in there?

Hi, Blogging from your ALA Council II Session - on trying to make Our Association better.

For those readers who are not aware, I have been an ALA Councilor at Large Candidate for the last two years (I got 2901 votes and lost by ~100 votes last year [2006] and got 2458(?) votes and lost by ~250 votes this year [2007]). I attended Council II, as is my usual practice; while there, I found I had something substantive to add to a long discussion about the format of the Membership Meetings.

Councilor-at-Large Heidi Dolamore stood for me (with coaching on parliamentary procedure by Councilor-at-Large Michael Golrick) and asked the moderator to suspend the normal rules of debate to allow me to address Council on this issue being discussed.

The moderator asked for the indulgence of Council to allow me to speak and a bunch of councilors shouted “Why?!” A fair few hands went up to support my opportunity to address council; however, a larger portion of voting councilors chose to
Shush me.

I do not know why a majority of ALA Councilors would not want to hear from a Member on the subject of the format of the Membership Meeting — however, that majority succeeded in shutting out the individual voice of an Interested Member from direct involvement.

Which leads me to my Wiki effort to Improve ALA from the ground up, http://improveala.pbwiki.com

In addition to my efforts to improve ALA from the grassroots, I have been nominated to run for Councilor-at-Large (again) on the Spring 2008 Ballot. In addition to running for Council and trying to improve ALA from the grassroots, I am looking for like-minded people to run as a slate dedicated to moving ALA forward. If you are interested in joining me in trying to implement possible suggestions many of which are on the Improve ALA Wiki, please add yourself to the Improve ALA Slate.
Thank you for your efforts and may I please have your vote for ALA Councilor at Large?

OITP/OGR Telecommunications SubCommittee
Sunday 24, 2007 @ 4-6pm
WCC 209A

1. Welcome and Comments
Bob Bocher, Lynne Bradley, Rick Weingarten

Rick:  Gave overview of OITP efforts
(link to oitp & telecom pages & atl posts)

2. Gates Connectivity Project Update (will blog it when I get a copy)
Rick Weingarten

The research part is done and the report is mostly written - OITP will release in a few weeks.

3. State Telecommunications Policy preconference
Report and next steps

Educate some state-level actors or interested parties to watch for and advocate for library inclusions in telecom discussions

4. Discussion of Telecommunications
John Windhausen

– Rural Utilities Service in the Department of Agriculture is a loan program to develop broadband in rural areas.  The funds are not being disbursed, as many applicants don’t show financial ability to pay back loan.  Plus broadband providers are squaking that too much money is being disbursed which fund their competitors.  Language is being proposed by ALA to modify this program to enable libraries to participate in this program.

– Universal Service Fund in FCC is a grant program funded by traditional telecom companies. ~65% goes to hich-cost rural telecom companies, ~35% to E-rate.  Many wireless companies are recipients of this funding.  Wireless satrtups oppose proposed caps, established, traditional telecom companies want the caps.  FCC Chairman is likely to approve the caps, to protect the Universal Service Fund.

Poo, I have to go if I’m going to be able to get to everything else today - I should have driven in this morning (sorry)

5. Legislative / Regulatory Update (OGR)
Current legislation
Key Issues
Recent FCC filings

6. Update on Public Library Net Survey and State Data Tool
Mark Bard

7. Pending Agenda for 2007-08

Had to leave 2/3rds oif the way through