ALA Council holds second session at Midwinter

Group agrees to revise accreditation standards for library schools

February 2, 2015

ALA Council’s second session at the 2015 Midwinter Meeting adjourned early, moving one new business resolution item to its next meeting, withdrawing one, and referring another to committee for further discussion.

Council passed a motion to revise standards for accreditation for LIS master’s programs (CD #10). Councilors also passed three action items put forth by the Policy Monitoring Committee (CD #17) that addressed communication to ALA members by ALA committees and Council committees; the lifespan of membership initiative groups; and the copyright interpretation of the Code of Ethics.

Council referred a resolution to revise the committee composition description (CD #27) back to the Committee on Organization for additional work, and after much discussion passed a recommendation from the Constitution and Bylaws Committee to place an amendment to the ALA Bylaws on the spring 2015 ballot that amends article XII to use Robert’s Rules of Order instead of Sturgis Standard Code of Parliamentary Procedure (CD #25).

Julius C. Jefferson Jr., president of the Freedom to Read Foundation (FTRF), presented his report (CD #22), updating Council on the litigation cases Antigone Books v. Horne and Arce v. Huppenthal.

Council then passed a list of FY2016 programmatic priorities (CD #13.1) but moved the resolution on the destruction of libraries and schools in Gaza (CD #32) to its next session. Also, Councilor Al Kagan withdrew his resolution on ALA divestment from Caterpillar, Hewlett-Packard, and Motorola Solutions (CD #34), and Council referred the resolution encouraging library directors to join their trustees to ALA and United for Libraries (CD #35) to the Resolutions Committee for further discussion at their third session on Tuesday.

ALA Executive Director Keith Michael Fiels reported that attendance for the Midwinter meeting as of end of day Sunday was 10,568.

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