Maine Library Association

The next deadline for applying to the ALA Emerging Leaders (EL) program is July 31, 2009. The EL is a leadership development program which enables newer library workers from across the country to participate in problem-solving work groups, network with peers, gain an inside look into ALA structure, and have an opportunity to serve the profession in a leadership capacity. It puts participants who are either under 35 years of age or who have less than five years of experience working in libraries on the fast track to ALA committee volunteerism as well as other professional library-related organizations.

Participants commit to participating in all aspects of the program.  Participants may be offered an opportunity to serve on  an ALA, division, chapter, or round table committee, taskforce or workgroup as well as other library-related groups upon completion of program.

Full information along with links to applications forms are available at http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/hrdr/abouthrdr/emergingleaders.cfm.

At the ALA conference, there have been a number of sessions on privacy, government secrecy, and surveillance of those in the U.S. Librarians are, of course, strongly committed to privacy in general and patron privacy, in particular, as well as to open access to government information.

The ALA President’s program at this conference featured Thomas Blanton of the National Security Archives at George Washington University (http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/) discussing “The Secrecy Hangover.”  Government secrecy, in Mr. Blanton’s opinion, not only erodes confidence in government, adversely affects those of us who live under it, erodes the ability of citizens to make informed decisions, it also actually can reduce security instead of enhancing it.

Another panel was entitled “Privacy in an Era of Change: Privacy and Surveillance Under the New Administration.” Government secrecy seems to be at an all time high and the promises of President Obama about increasing transparency in government are yet to be put into action, and, according to at least one of the panelists, state secrets claims of the previous administration are being carried over to the new one. Video and audio of the panel discussion will be available online at the Privacy Revolution web site.

Privacy is of such concern to the ALA that the association has designated May 2-10, 2010 “Privacy Week” and has set up a new Privacy Revolution web site at http://www.privacyrevolution.org. Part of the purpose of this web site is to stimulate a national conversation on privacy and its place in our current information culture, and to encourage libraries to be active catalysts in that discussion. The web site will offer resources for libraries that wish to promote discussions about privacy in their communities.

There were aisles and aisles of exhibitors at the ALA conference. Among them were some who were trying to increase usage of their free databases. Here are a few that might be of particular interest to Maine librarians and their patrons.

The FamilySearch database (www.familysearch.org), as its name implies, is a genealogy database that aims to have a billion records in it this year. It is produced by the Mormon Church. Over time, the site will contain the microfilmed records of the Church’s extensive genealogy files, indexed and searchable. Over 100,000 volunteers are reading the data in the microfilm images of birth, death, and other records and typing in the contents so that the data will be searchable. The site is also gathering birth and death records from local and state agencies and putting those records online. Maine records are not yet done and the site is interested in hearing from libraries, historical societies, and other genealogy resources to build up the scope of the site.

If you have patrons that are deep into CSI-type television forensic programs, you may want to point them to www.ncstl.org, the web site of the National Clearinghouse for Science, Technology, and the Law located at the Stetson University College of Law. The site is “a collection of thousands of bibliographic records for forensics and criminal justice related resources,” funded by the U.S. Department of Justice.

The turmoil at the libraries of the Environmental Protection Agency seems to be quieted at last, and the department is promoting use of its Online Library System. It offers an index to tens of thousands of EPA published documents in whatever format. It represents itself as the most comprehensive listing of EPA produced work available anywhere.

All of these resources are free and web based.

Here are a few points from the first session of the ALA Council that may be of interest:

ALA Budget situation:
- overall revenues are over 2 million less than budget
- expenses are down over 4 million to compensate

- ALA Connect is a new professional networking site for ALA members. People who are not members can sign on with some limits on participation. It’s available at http://connect.ala.org.

- There are over 27000 attendess at the conference – 21k members and over 6k vendors.

- Sylvia Norton from Maine was nominated from the floor to serve on Council Committee on Committees.

- For those seeking funding as part of the Broadband funding recently approved by Congress, it is useful to note that any applicant (whether an ISP or another organization) will receive an extra 5 points if they include libraries as part of their applications. This could be an incentive for including libraries in applications to extend broadband access, especially in rural areas like Maine.

- One of the issues that has been discussed at length in Council is how to increase transparency of Council activities to members who are not able to attend meetings in person. ALA is looking into the costs and policy issues involved in providing complete transcripts, audio files for download, or even video streaming. This will be an ongoing issue. Stay tuned for updates.

The American Library Association (ALA) Annual meeting is going on in Chicago from July 9-15. I am attending as the representative of the Maine Library Association. In addition to providing information about some highlights of actions taken at the Council Meetings themselves, this blog will offer some highly idiosyncratic observations about items that might be of interest to MLA members and to Maine libraries.

Here is a quick explanation of what the ALA Council is and does, taken from the ALA web site:
“The Council is the governing body of ALA. It delegates to the divisions of the Association authority to plan and carry out programs and activities with policy established by Council…Council determines all policies of the Association and its decisions are binding unless set aside by a three-fourths vote at any meeting of the Association membership or a majority vote by mail held upon petition of one percent of members and requiring a minimum of one-fourth of the membership voting.”

The Council is made up of At-Large members elected by all ALA members, as well as Councilors elected by various ALA Divisions. It also includes what are called Chapter Councilors who represent state library associations such as the Maine Library Association (MLA). In the case of MLA, the Chapter Councillor is elected by the membership for a three year term.

So that’s the context for the ALA meeting and why I am here. More later.

Jim