[LM_NET] You and ALA

[Cyndi Phillip <cphillip_56@YAHOO.COM>]

I cannot help but make a comment or two on the latest issues and discussions about 
ALA. I hope you all will look carefully at my columns in KQ this year. If you are 
not an AASL member yet you can still see the columns and some of the issue contents 
at KQWeb. http://www.ala.org/ala/aasl/aaslpubsandjournals/kqweb/kqweb.htm
   
  Being a practicing school librarian who is currently serving as AASL President I 
have focused on how WE are the national organization. ALA as an organization is 
primarily made-up of volunteers as are all the divisions of ALA. There are paid 
staff that are in place to facilitate the work of the volunteer leadership. 
Speaking for myself, as one of the volunteers, I do scan and listen to my fellow 
librarian's needs and concerns and I take that forward to the national level. What 
I am hearing is that some of the frustration with the national organization is that 
those of us in the trenches do not feel we are being heard or being represented. 
Diane's message was more detailed than mine but you should understand that you can 
step forward and let your voice be heard. At the ALA site and the AASL site there 
is contact information to anyone you would like to voice a message. Yes, we can 
make a difference at our local levels more easily than we can at a national level. 
But the
 national organization is there to help make a difference at the national level. We 
need our national organization and we need to support the existance of that 
organization. 
   
  I will take forward your concerns from this list, but next time you might take 
into consideration the advice I learned from my parents, when you have an issue 
with someone or something take your issue to the source.
   
  Cyndi Phillip, AASL President
   
  Paula Yohe <paula_yohe@YAHOO.COM> wrote:
  I somehow missed Peter's comments -- but this is a marveloous idea.
I finally quit paying dues to ALA -- the only thing it did for me was give me a 10% 
discount....
Over the years I have written letters to ALA concerning school libraries.
When I was in grad school working on my degree in administration the textbooks had 
nothing about libraries. I wrote to publishers as well.

Unitl we advocate for ourselves and let people know who we are -- we will not 
succeed.

What people that I know who are not in the library field -- if you mention ALA and 
they have heard about it --
it is usually in the context of Internet filtering and book banning.

And let's face it -- folks want to feel their children are protected in school.
ALA's message -- seems to promote the belief to parents that ALA thinks porn should 
be in school libraries.

Not a good message for school librarians ....

Food for thought....

Paula


Melissa Techman wrote:
What if we started a new group - something like TLA - Teacher Librarian Advocates - 
and our focus was solely advocating for our profession? We could still belong to 
ALA (or not), we could still be leaders in our schools, and we could still be doing 
excellent jobs. However, we would not be relying on (or should that be waiting 
for?) ALA to tell the public who we are and what we do. We could have low dues and 
they could initially all go to pay for the big PR message that needs to be on TV 
and in newspapers, etc. "If you know how to judge what's valid and what's hype in a 
world of information overload, thank a Teacher Librarian", for example.
For all the good things ALA is and does, there is one important area in which it 
has never excelled: promoting the importance of librarians to the public in a way 
they understand. Advancing the profession in a way that leads to better salaries, 
more opportunities and a well-understood "brand" seems to be beyond ALA's 
abilities. 
Several of my professors mentioned this problem in my MLS program in the early 90's!
When my father started an early version of distance learning for economists and 
govt. ministers in Eastern Europe (late 80's? early 90's), he hired someone with an 
MIS degree to manage the delivery of information - he didn't know he had other 
choices!
When I was in the public library and I heard of a state's "Educational Media" 
organization, I thought it was an industry group that produced instructional videos!
I think that low salaries, mystified consumers, library closings and budget cuts 
all point to the fact that the important message has yet to be conveyed.
Grassroots movements, super collaborators, spokespeople/practitioners, curriculum 
writers, etc. are necessary but not sufficient to produce the results we need.

Until we have a big, clear message that reaches the public in a big way, I bet we 
will be revisiting this whole topic again and again and again.....
And the ALA website will still be telling us how to speak up in our own little 
ponds and how to contact legislators and if that was all that was needed, it would 
have worked by now...


Melissa Techman, MLS
Broadus Wood Elementary School,
185 Buck Mtn. Rd,
Earlysville, VA 22901
434-973-3865
mtechman@k12albemarle.org

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Paula Yohe
Director Of Technology/Library Media Center
Dillon School District Two
405 West Washington Street
Dillon, SC 29536
Phone: 843-841-3604 Fax:843-774-1214
paula_yohe@yahoo.com

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   Cyndi Phillip, Library Media Specialist
2006-07 AASL President
http://www.ala.org/ala/aasl/aboutaasl/aaslgovernance/aaslpres/presidentspage.htm
Grand Haven Area Public Schools 
Grand Haven, Michigan
cphillip_56@yahoo.com

  
  



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