As president of ALA during this critical moment in history, I get asked this question a lot. Libraries and library workers are both in the spotlight and under the microscope, and people want to know who we are and what we do. Maybe you’ve even asked this question yourself. One of the joys of this … Continue reading Our Shared Mission
ALA is a non-partisan, nonprofit membership organization that develops, promotes, and improves library and information services and the profession of librarianship in order to enhance learning and ensure access to information for all. ALA has remained committed to this mission since its inception in 1876, serving people of all demographic backgrounds and ideologies and becoming … Continue reading ALA Responds to Montana State Library Commission’s Withdrawal of Membership
In this fourth and final column introducing ALA’s newly implemented five-year strategic plan, I want to mine the connection between creating institutional belonging and facilitating the change management critical to organizational sustainability and impact. The first of these begets the second. In addition to the overarching goals of the new Pivot (or change management) Strategy, … Continue reading The Table and the Folding Chair
Lately, however, we have faced mounting external pressures against those core ideals. To name just a few: barriers placed on equitable access, a persistent lack of diversity and equitable mobility in the US workforce, proliferating attacks against intellectual freedom with increased challenges to LGBTQIA and antiracist content, the pandemic’s disruption to education and employment, and … Continue reading Membership as a Movement
Thanks to all who joined me last summer on the virtual “Holding Space” tour, a conversation series with libraries. I will forever remember you as faithful partners and travel companions as we faced seemingly insurmountable difficulties. Thanks in part to our advocacy, libraries secured federal relief funding of historic proportions. ALA staff and leadership managed … Continue reading Moving Forward
What do these events mean for libraries and the Association? Libraries and library workers had an important role leading up to the 2020 presidential election by encouraging and supporting voter registration, which led to more than 66% of eligible voters participating—making 2020 the most engaged election since 1900. No matter who you voted for, as … Continue reading A Place within ALA
Like other nonprofit, tax-exempt organizations, ALA exists because we seek to accomplish a mission, initially defined in ALA’s Constitution, “to promote library service and librarianship.” That critical social purpose was later more expansively stated in ALA Policy Manual, section A.1.2: “The mission of the American Library Association is to provide leadership for the development, promotion, and … Continue reading Reflecting on Our Mission
What plans do you have for retirement? My game plan is to get a studio and do some painting. I have put this aside for many years—maybe since grad school. Lately I’ve been doing a little bit of work in en plein air oils. I like to have an easel in the back of my car and … Continue reading An Interview with Retiring ALA Executive Director Fiels
For kids, a library card is often their first entry to membership in grown-up society as individuals who are independent of their families. Library cards represent belonging for adults as well. For new immigrants, a library card may be the first material sign of membership in their wider new community. Whether one is a first- … Continue reading Sharing Our Cities, Towns, and Natural Places
We also can’t leave out areas such as competitiveness within organizations for appointments and time, the question of whether one can make a difference in the profession through an association, and the need for one’s values and ethics to be in sync with those of the association. And then there is the inevitable query: Is … Continue reading Helping ALA Cruise to Success
