Council III

Three new members of the executive board were elected - a school, academic, and public librarian. They will serve a three year term starting at Annual Conference in June.


The treasurer, Rodney Hersberger gave his report, and he highlighted 4 of the programmatic priorities this year, which include (1) school library advocacy statistics inititative. (2) Diversity (3) advocacy for rural and for tribal libraries. (4) State/Chapter online network - provides 25 chapters with capwiz an online program that allows ala and the chapters to work together and mobilize grassroots support.



COO reported and introduced three motions.

(1) Establish a Council committee to work with the Advocacy office

(2) Have the president-elect report to council some demographics on the make-up of the committee on committees

(3)Restrain candidates from participating on a committee or board that could advance or appear to advance his or her candidacy.

The committee has also inititiated two groups: one on Library Assessment and and one on Gaming.



The Constitution and Bylaws Committee put forth a resolution that ALA accept the Seminar on the Acquisition of Latin American Library Materials as an affiliate, which passed. The second resolution that passed indicates that ALA accept the On-Line Audiovisual Catalogers as an affiliate. The third resolution called for an amendment to the constitution, which would allow the executive board to be charged with appointing a new officer should the elected officer not be able to serve. The fourth resolution that passed changed the constitution so that all officers and elected members of the board shall serve until the adjournment of Annual Conference.



The Intellectual Freedom committee had no action items. Trends that were reported included:

(1) NSL - 43 states have confirmed that.

(2) Censorship and Book Challenges - Alms for Jihad - an example of "libel" tourism. Settlement was out of court. The press called on libraries to pull their copies of this title. OIF put out the call that we have no obligation to do this, and most academic libraries did not do this.

(3) The Golden Compass. It reared its ugly head because of the movie. The Catholic League protested this. There was a large increase in the censorship of this book. ALA President made a timely and strong response and prevented a lot from happening.

(4)The Use of Obscenity Laws to censor literature. Teachers can be charged in court for providing "obscene" literature to their children. Parents are going to legal outlets to get charges against the teacher, and the teacher will lose their job.

(5)A Festschrigt to honor Gordon M. Conable.



New Projects

(1) They are planning a national conference on privacy as an American value.

(2)A revision of the Intellectual Freedom Manual

(3) Banned Books week was a huge success. OIF has moved into Web 2.0 through Faceback, MySpace and Flickr.

(4)The Intellectual Freedom Manual is putting together a three part series that address intellectual freedom.

(5) Lawyers for Libraries has been very successful. Over 400 lawyers trained. Colorado held this workshop in November as a pre-conference at CAL.



Committee on Legislation asked Council to pass six resolutions including one to commending the FBI "whistleblower," Bassem Youssef, for exposing abuses in the use of exigent national security letters. They were all supported. Others included a resolution to have accessible workstations available at conferences (voted for); a Resolution to end the violence in Kenya (abstained); a Resolution on the Confiscation of Iraqi Documents (voted for.)

This is the conclusion of my second Mid-winter conference, and it is truly an honor to be a part of ALA. I would encourage you to be a member and get involved. Please contact me if I can be of assistance.

ALA Council II

A report from the President of the Freedom to Read foundation was given. The Freedom to Read foundation marks its 40th anniversary celebration in Chicago. A new category of membership has been established - membership now brings in $40,000 into the treasury.

The Executive Board needs to develop guidelines concerning the endorsement of ALA Presidential candidates by divisions, round tables, and other units of ALA.

BARC is studying the feasibility of shortening Council sessions so that they can end on Tuesday instead of Wednesday. Although most Councilors would like this, there are problems with other committees getting their reports to Council on time as well as already established contracts with conference venues.

Policy Monitoring Committee Report: 4 action items were passed on wording changes for the previously passed resolution, Resolution on Principles for Digital Content. This resolution can be found at http://www.ala.org/ala/washoff/oitp/digtask.cfm#prin

Recruiting Councilors: Joseph Eagan spoke to various means that would encourage more members to run as councilor including a podcast and website with FAQs. A motion was made to conclude all council business by Tuesday.

Presidential Task Force on the Graduated Dues Study. This task force identified 5 components to study this topic : survey, trends (now being done through an LSTA grant with UPENN), Due modeling, stakeholder review, and revenue impact analysis.) The full cost of all the tasks would have topped $500,000 so it was decided that they would recommend only the first step of the process, which included an in-depth membership survey. Executive Director, Keith Fiels indicated he would find the money within the current budget to accomplish the current component.


Committee on Professional Ethics. A motion to make the proposed changes on the statement of ethics was discussed. These changes are mostly grammatical, with the exception of one paragraph. (I will include a link here to the document.)

ALA/APA Council Meeting - Monday morning

This is a brief 30 minute meeting. The Treasurer's report was given. APA is now paying back its loan to ALA starting with $25,000/year. The report from the Committee on Organization was given. Their first Certified Public library Administrator Program person was introduced. She was the first person in 5 years. They are going to extend the providers, do more marketing. She spoke highly of the program CPLA. Please spread the word. Lot's of work with PLA but ASLCA and LAMA need to step up on this. Committee on Salaries and Status of Library Workers. There is work going on to start a program for para-professionals (Nancy Bolt is working on this through an LSTA grant.)

The ALA store sells buttons "Libraries Work Because We Do". APA is working with AFL-CIO to open a lot of doors. National Library Workers Days is Tuesday April 15, 2008.

ALA COO (Committee on Organization): The ALA Office for Advocacy is headed by Marci Merola. Marci came to CAL Annual and held a pre-conference on Advocacy. COO voted to recommend the formation of an ALA Advocacy Committee consisting of 13 members. Separately, it was reported that the new website redesign has been placed on the web for comments with the hope that it will be released in June 2008. Starting at Midwinter 2009 (in Denver!!) ALA will require that members seeking ALA assistance in finding hotel accommodations have already registered.

ALA Council 1

This meeting approved minutes from the ALA Annual in Washington. Nominations for the Council Executive Board and the Tellers Committee were announced. The final vote will be tallied and announced at ALA Council 3.

BARC (Budget analysis and Review Committee) reported that the Association finished another year in the "black". A report from the Presidential Task Force on Graduated Dues Structure (GDS) revealed that the thorough study required for assessing the implementation of GDS would cost over $500,000. There were several portions to the study. One will go forward - $45,000 for survey of members.



Reports from ALA President, Loriene Roy, President-Elect, Jim Rettig, Executive Director's Report, Keith Michael Fiels including a review of executive board actions since the 2007 Annual Conference, and implementation of the 2007 ALA annual Conference Council Actions. Any of these documents are available from me in hard copy or electronic copy.



Keith highlighted:

• The graphic design for the new website is available to be reviewed, and they are looking for feedback. There is a new web usability office to help members find information, and rollout will be at annual.


• They just received a Verizon literacy and gaming grant. There is a real value in promoting literacy through gaming.


• ALA got a lot of press on the Patriot Act.

Highlights of Executive Board Actions

• Approval of funds from the future fund to the Spectrum Scholarship Funds.


• Board approved office space for Choice Magazine in Meddletown, CT. This would save the Assocation money.


• There are exploring a change in the hours that vendors are here. The conference is shifting from Tuesday to Friday.


• A policy concerning fairness in campaigning in regards to the costs of running for the president.

Annual Conference Document Updates. Highlights include:

• Follow through of council resolutions will be more transparent.


• An establishment of a taskforce on member participation

New Business:

• A Resolution on member access to electronic lists of the ALA was supported in principle by most Councilors. Discussion on whether appropriate closed lists (like awards) are addressed in this resolution. The Chair of the Resolutions committee agreed with the writing of the resolution. However, the resolutation was referred for clarification. Melora Ranney Norman was the author of this resolution.