Council III Memorials and Resolutions

By Amy Carlton | January 12, 2016

On Tuesday morning, ALA President Sari Feldman called the final Midwinter Council meeting to order at 9:30.

Council members rose as Feldman read memorials for Shereen Marx, Kuang-Hwei (Janet) Lee-Smeltzer, Richard C. Fyffe, Billy Charles Beal, Allene Farmer Hayes, and Linda Waddle. A tribute was read for Barbara Blosveren.

Kent Slade, chair of the Council Committee of Tellers reported the election of three ALA Executive Board members. Karen E. Downing and Andrew K. Pace were elected for three-year terms, 2016–2019. John C. DeSantis was elected to an immediate two-year term to succeed Gail A. Schlachter, who passed away April 27, 2015.

In the Intellectual Freedom Committee (IFC) report (CD#19), Pamela Klipsch introduced the new director of ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom, James LaRue, and announced the launch of a new journal, In Libris Libertas: A Journal of Intellectual Freedom and Privacy, to replace the Newsletter on Intellectual Freedom.

IFC also proposed the resolution User-Generated Content in Library Discovery Systems (CD#19.2), which was carried over from the 2015 Annual Conference with significant revisions and feedback during Council forum. The motion passed overwhelmingly.

A resolution presented jointly by IFC and the Committee on Legislation (COL) (CD#19.1 and CD#20.1), Resolution for Restoring Civil Liberties and Opposing Mass Surveillance, also passed overwhelmingly.

In COL’s report (CD#20), Chair Ann Dutton Ewbank thanked members for the more than 10,000 messages sent to Congress on behalf of the Every Student Succeeds Act. She thanked the ALA Washington Office for a decade of advocacy on getting the bill passed.

COL also proposed CD#20.2, Resolution Honoring James H. Billington, Librarian of Congress Emeritus, which passed.

In new business, resolutions concerning accessibility of ALA conferences and meetings for people with disabilities (CD#31), replacing the Library of Congress subject heading “Illegal Aliens” with “Undocumented Immigrants” (CD#34), and supporting the 2015 Advocacy Implementation Plan (CD#35) all passed.

ALA Executive Director Keith Michael Fiels announced final registration at 7,183 attendees and 3,622 exhibitors, for a total of 10,805, just over the Chicago 2015 total.

The meeting adjourned at 10:17.

Tagged Under

3h

Many members know Bill Ladewski as executive director of the Reference and User Services Association, an ALA position he has held since 2019. In early September, Ladewski added another title to his CV: director of Member Relations and Services. In this role, he and his team are charged with providing service and information to the Association’s nearly 50,000 members. Ladewski answered our 11 Questions to reintroduce himself to the ALA community.

AL: The Scoop, Nov. 19
23h

John Warner writes: “I understand what people mean when they invoke the term ‘institutional neutrality,’ but I don’t know how it’s workable in today’s world. Higher education institutions are built upon a foundation of actual values, values that are, by definition, not neutral. The Kalven report, the Rosetta Stone of institutional neutrality produced by a faculty committee at the University of Chicago in 1967, is not a call to make all work emanating from an institution ‘neutral,’ but is instead a call to make the atmosphere for scholarly inquiry and debate as free as possible.”

Inside Higher Ed, Nov. 15
1d

Angela Hursh writes: “Ever wondered how your library’s email performance compares to others? Benchmarks help you understand how well your emails perform in key areas and identify opportunities for improvement. They also allow you to compare your email marketing performance, set goals, and stay on top of trends. However, the lack of industry benchmarks for email marketing metrics specific to libraries has been bugging me. Metrics from similar industries don’t fully capture the unique aspects of promoting a library. To help libraries accurately measure their email effectiveness, we’ve created the first-ever library email benchmark report.”

NoveList, Oct. 22
2d

Rachel Hendrick writes: “Students and library vendors are pushing artificial intelligence (AI) adoption in higher education, but there are very few resources that help librarians and scholars separate the wheat from the chaff. Luckily, we here at Choice love a good assessment rubric. (In fact, we made a PDF of our assessment rubric.) Even the least tech-savvy of us can use a very simple AI literacy framework to think critically about whether an AI application is worth your time.”

Choice 360 LibTech Insights, Nov. 13
2d

Rowana Miller writes: “In my experience, many young library-goers identify as storytellers but not writers. These are the kids who draw Captain-Underpants-style cartoons, who craft meticulous Minecraft universes, and who plot elaborate Dungeons and Dragons campaigns, but who believe that ‘writing’ is limited to five-paragraph essays. But when children draw the connections between their natural storytelling proclivities and the written word, they can become self-motivated to develop the communication skills that will help them for the rest of their lives. Libraries, I believe, are uniquely positioned to help children make this connection.”

ALSC Blog, Nov. 15
3d

ALA has reopened its search for an executive director in partnership with executive search firm Isaacson, Miller. A committee of ALA member leaders will oversee the search. The selected candidate will succeed Interim Executive Director Leslie Burger, who was appointed in November 2023. “We are excited to embark on our search for a new executive director,” said ALA President Cindy Hohl. “This leadership position is critical as we navigate the years ahead. We seek candidates who have knowledge of the library community and the urgent issues we face.”

ALA Communications, Marketing, and Media Relations Office, Nov. 14
3d

Emily Weak writes: “Something I always hear from hiring managers is that they want to build a resilient, diverse workforce. Sometimes we say we want a resilient workforce, but what we mean is that we want staffers who are willing to go above and beyond, or to do more with less. These concepts are deeply entrenched in librarianship, but I think we’re beginning to see how they can cause problems. Instead of trying to hire people who will do more with less and who will thrive amid adversity, let’s think about resilience as an organizational feature.”

American Libraries column, Nov./Dec.