Aaron the Librarian

In the course of perusing my social feeds on a day off (today), I ran across a link to an NPR story titled: “What’s New At The Library? Financial Advice“.  Having somehow missed any info on this program, most likely due to my use of the “Mark all read” feature in Bloglines after Midwinter, I asked the Council list and got loads of information.

In case you, like me, managed to miss mention of this program; here are some details and some links to more information.

ALA has partnered with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority’s (FINRA) Investor Education Foundation to produce “Smart Investing @ your library^®“.  The FINRA Investor Education Foundation (IEF) provides grants to “public libraries and library networks across the country, giving millions of library patrons and their families greater access to unbiased investing information and resources”.

“Smart Investing @ your library^®” is jointly administered by FINRA IEF and Reference and User Services Association (RUSA).

In 2008, 13 grants, totaling more than $853,000 were awarded to some great sounding programs in Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin, Wyoming, Massachusetts, Florida, California, Minnesota, Washington, Kansas, and Ohio.  

In 2009, 12 grants totaling almost $882,000 were awarded to more great sounding programs in Georgia, Virginia, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Arizona, Colorado, Oklahoma, and California.

Grant recipients will use the funds to implement a variety of programs and create resources designed to increase patrons’ access to and understanding of financial information. The programs target a diverse group of patrons—among them youth, adults, seniors, families, immigrants and low-income individuals.  The libraries will use a variety of technologies and outreach strategies, including traditional classroom formats and one-on-one education. The grantees will partner with community organizations including schools, universities, community centers and local governments to expand the impact of the services and resources enabled by the grants. Library patrons will be empowered to make smart financial decisions for both long-term investing and day-to-day money matters.

Program details for Smart Investing @ your library^®

This sounds like a timely initiative, I’m glad someone in my Association made this happen & wish I’d heard of it sooner (so I could brag on their efforts sooner).  Yet another reason I didn’t know to explain why I am a proud ALA member.

Yep, I’m running for a seat on the ALA Council again this Spring.

Why would I do such a thing? I answered a few similar questions in the video above; to sum up: I’m active, I enjoy the process (which is a little scary), I am given great ideas by you, my fellow ALA members, to bring up and discuss, and I really enjoy working to improve the Association for the membership and to recognize and support the work done by various member- and staff- groups within ALA furthering the mission of our Association which really is greater than the sum of its individual parts.

Proposals Sought for Grassroots Programs at 2009 ALA Annual Conference: Do you have a great idea for an Annual Conference program but don’t belong to a committee or other group that can plan and produce a program? As part of ALA President Jim Rettig’s “Creating Connections” initiatives…  See: http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/governance/officers/grassroots/grassrootsproposal.cfm

People are invited/encouraged to submit program proposals for ~10 program slots with a Feb 2009 deadline for proposals (which is an insanely short planning period for ALA Annual programs, the ‘official’ deadline for programs is something like September the year before the Conference)

The kicker, to me, is people who are not already involved within ALA groups are specifically targeted this opportunity. 

My social feeds communities are already off & running with some ideas for presenting cool stuff… you & yours (& ours, if we’re already hooked up) have a great opportunity — grab it and shake it for all it’s worth1

Straight from ALA WAC, there is a 44 page draft style guide (doc or pdf)for the ALA website making the rounds.

If you’re Section 508 compliance-proficient or if you’d like to lend your eyes for a readthrough and comment upon, please feel free.  Comments here or over on WAC Chair, Michael Stephens’ Tame the Web post or via email to the Web Editorial Board would be much appreciated.  [add:]Please feel free to use the ALA ITTS WebPlanning Wiki as a more central commenting board. (You’ll need to register to comment on this wiki, tho)[end add]

I, Michael, and the WAC (along with all the ALA webcontent volunteers) thank you for your effort.

So okay, I’m still working on several responses to the post on In the Library wth a Lead Pipe and I took a math detour while spinning my wheels on my regular day job stuff.

How much does it cost to go to a Library Conference?
(I’m using on-site registration $$)
CiL = $469 / 3 days of programs
IL = $449 / 3 days of programs
ALA MW = $300 non-member / $190 personal member / 5 days of working meetings and discussion groups
ALA Annual = $370 non-member / $260 personal member (no citation but I think this is acceptably close to accurate) / 5 days (with 300+ programs, plus committee meetings and other events)

But ALA Annual is *big* (freally big ~20K people) and ALA MW is about half that size (and still fvery large)

Are ALA conferences really that expensive?  Should presenters be givien a “bye” on registration?  Here’s where my (limited) math skills come in to play.

300 programs (some have only 1 presenter, some have 2, some are panels of up to 5 or occasionally 6) so I’ll use a multiplier here (pulling this out of my… ear) say average of 1.75 presenters / program.

300 programs * 1.75 presenters = ~525 “complimentary registrations”

525 comps * $260 for on site registration = wait for it… $136,000 or $68,250 if a special half-rate applies to presenters.

Is the potential draw for comp’d speakers going to at least come close to covering this amount?  I wouldn’t hazard a guess, but I would hope so.  Various sub-units of ALA have differing practices on this - I’d love to see BigALA go this route, but I doubt it would fly.

If you had the chance, how would you restructure ALA’s conference finances in a revenue-neutral way?  Feel free to blog it somewhere (Jason did a long while back) or post your thoughts to the Improve ALA wiki at: http://improveala.pbwiki.com/

Thinking back to Emily’s 3 tiered pyramid

Tier 3:  the dues-paying, insanely active committee serving members
Tier 2:  the dues-paying, conference attending and sort of active members
Tier 1:  the dues-paying yet not really active members

I’d like to bring attention to two other “groups”

The “former members who decided to not renew” and the “potential members who have never joined”

Not to start a gripe-fest, but:
Why did the former members lapse?
Why have the potential members not joined?

Without knowing why people have left or not joined in the first place, how does a very large and very diversely interested association (re-)appeal to people who are not members?
What are the strengths of size/diversity?
What are the weaknesses?

Without completely ignoring the folks outside the pyramid, how can the Association appeal to the Tier 1 members to become more involved?

ALA is working to provide an online meeting space for members to organize their activities; ALA Connect - it’s in beta right now.  I suspect this may be the best start in this direction ALA has yet taken.

imho, one of the keys to the success of this endeavor will be the ease in which members can share out their activities in their myriad social feeds and draw in more interest and participation. I hope to see this work well for the association

Membership was one of the themes Emily mentioned over in her post on In the Library with a Lead Pipe

Q: What do you (the reader) get out of your membership in ALA?
A: Sorry, you’ll have to answer that one for yourself. *grin*

Q: What do I get out of my membership in ALA?
A: I personally feel one gets out what one puts in.  I put in ~$350 in membership dues (ALA, ACRL (CLS+ULS), LITA, RUSA (BRASS+MARS), GODORT, LHRT, NMRT) plus my personal time for serving on several committees (OITP Advisory and ALA Council, currently) and other initiatives (I volunteer as an ACRL Legislative Advocate and am doing some ALA Web Advisory Committee activities, on the side, too).  I’ve been an ALA Committee Intern (OITP Advisory Committee) and an ALA Committee Virtual Member (ALA Membership Committee) in addition to “regular” committee memberships.  I get loads of positive feedback as well as self-approval for my activities in ALA.  Sure, I would rather not have to pay the dues to do this; but our dues support so much more than what we individually do.

Q: What do libraries (and librarians, all library employees, and library patrons/users) get out of our membership in ALA?
A: My perception is “LibraryLand” (encompassing everyone listed in this Question plus everyone these folks interact with in the course of the day) gets huge benefits.  and now I’ll switch to bulleted list format for brevity:

• ALA Washington Office

The ALA Washington Office is a tremendous asset to LibraryLand as a whole. With a relatively small staff, the WO really provides more bang for the buck than most of the Divisions.  The WO provides a needed focus for LibraryLand voices as well as spearheads our efforts to affect and effect public policy on behalf of all of us.

• ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom / Freedom to Read Foundation / etc.

How to sum up what OIF, FTRF, and all these other programs which tirelessly advocate for our rights to free inquiriy, to privacy of circulation and purchasing records, to teaching people to read, and everythings else they do?  They do the stuff I feel is important but for which I have not the time or energy to spare. My dues (plus other donations) go toward their efforts for which I wish I had time.

• Consolidated administrative / overhead costs for areas each of us find [most interesting/most important]

Contrary to some folks, I figure the Divisions actually get a good value for the dues they don’t have to charge their members.  “BigALA” takes the flack for high dues and the Divisions can focus their dues income into projects deemed worthy without really having to worry about full-time funding for all the positions “BigALA” provides.

• Feel connected

Connection to a very large group of people who put their money where their mouths are, supporting member and Association activities which further the advancement of “library” and thereby “public good” issues and which aim to thwart agendas which do not serve the public at large

That last bullet is really loosey-goosey and wide open to interpretation, of course.

In my view Information Policy is a vital battleground these days and libraries/librarians/library employees/library users all need to be engaged with protecting users’ rights to use what we have legally acquired in digital format.  We also need to be in the forefront of protecting the rights of future users of today’s created-digital content.

In other members’ views our attention should be on best practices for reference, or the future of cataloging, or data modeling, or a host of other valid concerns.

The beauty of being an ALA member is: at the macro level your dues go toward supporting all the above and more; plus everyone’s dues go toward supporting people acting upon your personal concerns.  On a micro level, hopefully you are one of the people taking action on your concerns, if not your concerns might not be fully addressed.  I’m in there advocating for changes I see are needed, many others are in there advocating for the changes they feel are important.  More people advocating for and supporting results which benefit all of us means a stronger voice for our collective concerns.

More members = louder voice (we just have to be sure our collective voice is focused on promoting the services we can, do, and could provide for the public good)

Over at In the Library with the Lead Pipe Emily Ford posted a nice long detailed post on ALA & Membership. She described a 3 tier model to describe members’ participation in pyramid form which is a good conceptual framework on which to hang ideas and discussion points.

The largest group, the bottom of the pyramid, are Tier 1; people “who pay dues and who have minimal investment in ALA as a professional organization.”  A smaller group, the middle of the pyramid , are Tier 2; people “who pay dues, attend conferences and are nominally to marginally involved in the organization.” The smallest group, the top of the pyramid, are Tier 3; people “who pay dues, belong to divisions and serve on committees.”

I have a lot of not easy to summarize thoughts on many of the points there & plan to post my responses in several posts which will hopefully make sense in the end.  Wish me luck and feel free to suggest things for me to take back to ALA in the form of discussion points and/or recommendations.

After much [seemingly “behind the veil” to non-task-force-members] researching and discussions, the ALA Task Force on Electronic Member Participation has developed some questions needing answers.  Question One concerns “Open Meetings.”  See the ALA Council List archive for the full message sent out to Council. (excerpted below)

If you have comments you would like me (as your Councilor at Large / vocal proxy) to make officially (whether on your behalf or in the aggregate) regarding this request for comments, I’ll be watching and participating in the comments below as well as in my various aggregated social media feeds.

So, some history and then the request (note the N.B. below the request) ::

The Open Meetings Policy originated around 1970 because the “library press” (I wonder which ones?) wanted to attend ALA Executive Board meetings.  “Open” and “Closed” are not defined in the policy and are not addressed in any “interpretations.”  No goals and/or reasoning for or against is provided by available historical documentation.  “However, there have always been limitations to the “reach” of the Open Meetings Policy, deriving from physical, logistical, and financial factors.” The Open Meetings policy has never been applied to between-meeting correspondence of any kind which is/was part of “regular work of the association“.

…the Task Force has concluded that expansion of electronic participation in association governance requires not a new policy, but a new Interpretation of the existing policy.

(which, to me, seems appropriate)

…the Task Force is asking for input from Councilors about what they believe the benefits of open meetings to be, what we should hope to achieve by having open meetings, and, if it is impossible at this time to implement “the purest form” of open meetings, what the nature of “open” means in an online environment, and what kinds of access to what kinds of information would be sufficient to satisfy our desire for openness in Association governance.

N.B. these caveats:

Specifically, this request for input is addressing “providing a mechanism for people who are not members of particular governance entities (committees, task forces, boards, etc.) to know what those entities are doing.”

Specifically *not* about electronic participation by members of these entities and *not* about electronic access to “non-meeting activities” of those governance entities.

Finally deciphered my notes from the *one* “continuing education” session I was able to attend in my otherwise jam-packed ALA Committee(s) (over)work schedule at #ala2008.

The OCLC Symposium: “The Mashed Up Library” (teaser and write up at It’s All Good)

Great introduction with a mental-state-setting creative exercise:
1. What is your Greatest Resource?
2. What is your Greatest Challenge?
3. What if… (dangerous ideas)
*We stopped cataloging?
*We participated fully with the FBI? (Sienfeld’s Library Cop)
*We mashed up Connexion with WoW = WorldCat of Warcraft
—
Keynote:
Innovation =
conversion of novelty to value
(novelty to whom? & value for whom?)
means to an end
is not what innovators offer -> it’s what clients/customers/patrons adopt
(from creation of choice -becoming-> value from use)

Mashup =
Interoperability between datasets, between institutions, between library services

Ask users “What is the most innovative thing you think we do for you?”
(put on thick skin for the usual answer: “Library” does not equal innovative in users’ views)

What is (and/or what should be) the most important product of the library?
What institutional innovations and adaptations best get the library to the goal of the most important product of the library?

Competition, like innovation, is a means to an end
it’s about perceived value from choice

How do [users/user communities] brand the library as a competitor?
Who are the library’s competitors?

Learn from the “lead users”
Who are our lead users?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead_user
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Participatory_design
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User-centered_design

With whom do we want to collaborate to create value? & Why?
With whom *should* we collaborate? & Why?

We should market our “best” internal disagreements
Make the users part of the discussion, market and make all points of view available for further discussion

Establish a “librar-atory” that attracts talent and inspire hypotheses
Publicize our R&D efforts

Success will come from taking the path of maximum advantage.
—-

That’s the extent of my notes, I haven’t taken time to reflect on the main message, but I did find a streaming video of the session via David Lee King’s writeup (*sigh* have to use IE from this page to get the video) — which I’ll review when I can get out of my hamster wheel — to help me draw some conclusions.

Mostly it’s a set of questions we, library staff, faculty, and users, should answer or at least discuss. I think the discussion is the more important activity; answers would be nice, but “answers” implies a static state which I don’t expect to see in libraries for a long time

PS I wrote this up for a quick presentation at the staff meeting this morning & asked folks to do the creative exercise questions on paper — I’ll combine everyone’s responses (and share the aggregate after I ask the library faculty to do the same in our 1st faculty meeting of Fall Semester)