Dear ALA Council,

As a former ALA Councilor I’d be very appreciative if someone forwarded my comments to the list.

I know through various sources, including talk on the Council list, that  Council is considering a resolution to require that ALA’s discussion lists be open.

Personally, I see no harm and only good from this resolution. Some of it ties into a post I wrote last year about why electronic participation needs to be legalized, not decriminalized.

I realize there is a de facto practice to keep open lists open (as in read-only), much as any member can sit in on a face-to-face meeting. I also know that in keeping with practices for face-to-face meetings, closed discussions are kept private (e.g. book awards). However, I agree this should be codified. ALA is light-years behind the rest of the world in “virtual sunshine” and we are long overdue for a change. This resolution would signal to our membership that we do have a commitment to electronic participation.

It certainly won’t hurt to make it clear (perhaps in an accompanying document) what “open” means: ALA members can browse, search, and read list traffic for all open discussion lists; lists are findable and announced by ALA. Lists should only be closed for reasons that ALA discussions are closed (state reasons, etc.). though really this can be elucidated in accompanying guidance.

Language for this resolution can be tightened as follows: make reference to ALA-managed discussion lists (which would exclude casual personal lists, such as Gina mentioned); exclude lists used for closed discussions (this has already been covered in discussion); and here’s a big hidden biggy: *ensure list archives are fully searchable.*

The last time I searched the Council list I ran into a retrieval limit; I was trying to retrieve posts I had written and I wasn’t coming up at all (I’ve served three terms on Council). I wrote ALA and was told that the search function was limited to how far back it can retrieve items; there also seems to be some configuration issues. This is just absurd—and of course such limitations interfere with how “open” a list really is. If you want to see this in action, try searching the Council archives for “schneider.” A basic search retrieves nothing, despite my, what, 8 years on Council?  Only by doing an advanced search month-by-month can you retrieve (some) results. Well, if you knew what month and year someone had said something you wouldn’t need to search the list.

I disagree that this resolution would affect small convenience lists set up by individuals for casual off-committee discussion, any more than two or three people talking in a hallway at a conference constitute an “open meeting”  that triggers all the rules that apply to such. In any event, you can’t ever really prevent “meetings outside meetings” — I’ve participated in one division where it was obvious all the real decisions took place earlier, in personal discussions — though ideally these casual discussions would find their way back onto the lists.

I know ALA is planning an upgrade to Sympa 5.3 in February. ALA ITTS should be able to advise whether that will address this problem.

It would be a nice goal to make ALA discussion lists OAI-harvestable, and I’d also like to see ALA’s new usability person, when hired, address the confusing Sympa interface, but let’s not go hog-wild.

Council may have a number of people available to help craft this resolution (and thanks to Mary Ghikas for her helpful input), but I volunteer myself, should assistance be required.

I am a member of the Task Force on Electronic Meeting Participation but am not speaking as such. (The chair and one other member have posted their own thoughts to Council list.) As I said on the task force list, it’s my opinion that the work in this area must take place on several fronts, and will happen piecemeal, incrementally,  and sometimes extralegally, and that a task force can ever only be part of that effort, and in some cases must follow the membership in the direction it is headed. I applaud Melora Ranney for taking this to Council, and encourage Council to support an amended version of this resolution.

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Friday, January 11, 2008

Arrive 11:30 a.m.

1:30 - 4:30 pm, Philadelphia Marriott Downtown, Grand Ballroom, Salon E-F - OCLC Symposium: New Leadership for New Challenges

5-8 p.m. LITA Happy Hour Cebu,123 Chestnut Street [depart 5:45]

6-8 PUBLIB Happy Hour

8 - Dinner with friends

Saturday, January 12, 2008

(At some point on Saturday or Sunday I’m hoping to spend an hour at the resume review center, reviewing resumes)

8:00 am Vendor breakfast

10:30 am - 12:00 Applying Social Networking to Your Library through WorldCat.org Pennsylvania Convention Center, Room 103C - or –

10:30 - 12:00 Primo in Action Marriott Salon F

12:15-1:15 Task Force on Electronic Meeting Participation PCC, 301

1:30 - 4 Exhibits (walking with friend)

4:00 - 6:00 LITA Standards IG MAR Salon A

5:30 - 7:30 Cocktails with ECITL, location TBA

5:30 - 7:00 p.m. Camila Alire Campaign Kickoff Marriott Hotel, Room 501 [6:00 - 6:45]

7:00- whenever Dinner with friends

11:00 p.m. ALA Midwinter After Hours, Moriarty’s Irish Pub, 1116 Walnut Street (tentative-that’s awfully late)

Sunday, January 13, 2008

8 - 10 a.m. LITA Top Tech Trends

10:30 - 12 LITA BIGWIG (stopping in as BIGWIG co-chair emeritus)

10:30 - 12 LITA Forum 2008 Planning Committee (stopping in as Forum 2009 committee member)

1:00 pm - 2:30 Meet QuestionPoint rep, lunch w/rep and Diane

4:30 - 6:00 Task Force on Electronic Meeting Participation

6:00 - 8:00 Jim Rettig Presidential Planning Task Force

8:00 - 10:00 Nightcap with friend

Monday, January 14, 2007
8:00 am - 10:00 am LITA Town Meeting Philadelphia Convention Center - or –

8:00 - 10:00 am OCLC’s Newest Membership Report: Sharing, Privacy and Trust in Our Networked World, Philadelphia Marriott Downtown, Grand Ballroom, Salon A-B

1:15 flight back to TLH

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Four or five years back I attended a “meeting” at an ALA conference where by the time my friend and I showed up, five minutes after start time, the meeting had been adjourned. The members had met online and made decisions, and the face-to-face meeting was the nominal show-time to validate what they had done.

Naïve us!

I’m not going to argue that we force people to meet face-to-face to conduct business — which, incredibly, is what some old-tyme ALA Councilors suggest. The horse is out of the barn, and good for ol’ Mr. Ed, at that: as I keep saying, let’s get the busy-work out of the way between conferences so we can use our hard-won money and time to show up to network/learn/share/par-tay. Some meeting work still needs to be done face-to-face, but please — not the bulk of it.

What I am suggesting is that civil disobedience — which I promoted in an earlier post — is an interim step.

As Christopher Harris notes in his comment, functionally, it’s not as simple as saying “let’s just ‘do it’.” The biggest problem is that if we simply condone virtual participation, we don’t address the problem that crept in while ALA was pretending nobody worked this way, illustrated by the example that opens this post: we don’t have methods in place to ensure that ALA business is truly open.

We have a long, proud tradition of openness in ALA, and that’s a Good Thing. Some of that tradition is very hard-won. It was not always so: in the late ’60s there was a sort of revolution in ALA. It had been an insider’s organization with unfair rules privileging the insiders, and a lot of members worked hard to change that.

Some of those members are on Council today, and in their minds an “open” meeting takes place twice a year at a conference, where it is listed in a published paper bulletin and people gather in a room. (As I write that, it sounds almost quaint.)

Yet interestingly, the ALA Policy Manual doesn’t actually define what it means by open. From this rather dry extraction of ALA documents comes the sum total of Policy 7.4.4:

All meetings of the American Library Association and its units are open to all members and to members of the press. Registration requirements apply. Closed meetings may be held only for the discussion of matters affecting the privacy of individuals or institutions.

In my head, online committee work is potentially far more open than a meeting that requires all the hurdles of face-to-face participation. But it’s not open if you don’t know about it. Time, place, manner: these are the facts our members are entitled to.

In some ways I’m advocating a return to the Good Old Days, or at least to that twenty-year period when openness meant a meeting you knew about and could attend. That’s why it’s just not enough to break the law; we also have to remake it.

Caution: I smell the incipient lust of the ALA policy types: how they would love to spend years diddling with definitions, best practices, proposed policies, proposals to the proposals, nit-picking, quibbling, debating, postponing, referring to other committees, and every other tool used to throw roadblocks in front of change. Please let us not diddle this to death. It’s really simple! Give each committee a wiki page, tell them to advise members how to follow their discussions and to announce incipient actions, advise ALA members to subscribe to the feeds, and we’re done. Take note of the ten-day notice for final votes; it’s fair and reasonable.

We don’t even have to wait for a policy change; sunshine could precede legalization. That’s how I understand it went down for the ALA reformers of the early 1970s, whose practices set the standard for the organization.

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A collection of ALA policy applicable to issues related to virtual membership.

ALA Policy 6.3.2 Policy Functions

As noted in the ALA Constitution, Article VI, and the Bylaws, Article VII, three bodies — Council, the divisions, and the membership — have authority to determine and act for ALA in matters of policy.

ALA Policy 4.5 Requirements for Committee Service

With the exception of virtual members, members of all ALA and unit committees are expected to attend all meetings. Failure to attend two consecutive meetings or groups of meetings (defined as all meetings of a committee that take place at one Midwinter Meeting or Annual Conference) without an explanation acceptable to the committee chair constitutes grounds for removal upon request by the chair to and approval of the appropriate appointing official or governing
board.

6.16 Virtual Members

1) Definition of Virtual Members:

Virtual members of committees or task forces have the right to attend meetings, participate in debate, and make motions. Virtual members are not counted in determining the quorum nor do they have the right to vote. [An “average Joe” member can attend all open meetings, so being a “virtual member” is not a huge bump up from general rights and privileges.]

2) Appointment of Virtual Members to Standing Committees of the Association:

Virtual members of standing committees of the Association are appointed in accord with the provisions of the ALA Bylaws, Article VIII, sec. 2(a)(i). Inclusion of virtual members on a standing Committee of the Association requires the recommendation of the Committee on Organization and the approval of Council. No more than one third of the membership on a standing committee may be virtual members. [This reminds me of this tidbit from military history: prior to the 1980s, the U.S. armed forces capped female enlistments at 2%. Of course, an argument in favor of the one-third rule is that virtual members can’t establish quorums or vote — but that’s like the kid who kills his parents and then pleads for the court’s mercy because he’s an orphan.]

3) Appointment of Virtual Members to Standing Committees of Council:

Virtual members of Committees of the Council are appointed in accord with the provisions of the ALA Bylaws, Article VIII, sec.2(b). Inclusion of virtual members on a Committee of the Council requires the recommendation of the Committee on Organization and the approval of the Council. No more than one third of the membership of a Council committee may be virtual members.

4) Appointment of Virtual Members to Committees of Round Tables and Divisions:

Virtual members of division or roundtable committees are appointed in accord with each respective division’s or roundtable’s appointment procedures for committee members. No more than one third of the membership of a round table or division committee may be virtual members.

7.4.11 Purpose of Midwinter Meetings

[An important paragraph to study. I find the “assemblies of groups of individuals” an interesting clause. How could we use this?]

The ALA Midwinter Meeting is convened for the primary purpose of expediting the business of the Association through sessions of its governing and administrative delegates serving on boards,committees, and Council. Programs designed for the continuing education and development of the fields of library service shall be reserved for Annual Conference except by specific authorization of the Executive Board acting under the provisions of the ALA Constitution. Hearings seeking membership reactions and provisions for observers and petitioners at meetings of Council, committees, and boards are to be publicized; programs of orientation or leadership development to Association business are encouraged; assemblies of groups of individuals for information sharing vital to the development of Association business shall be accepted as appropriate to the purposes of the Midwinter Meeting. (See ‘‘Current Reference File’’: 1989–90CD #30.)

7.4.10 Membership Meetings

A membership meeting shall be held during the first two days of the Annual Conference, excluding days when pre-conferences are held, and at such times as may be set by the Executive Board, Council, or by membership petition, as provided for in Article II, Section 4 of the Bylaws. Agendas of membership meetings shall provide priority to discussion of membership resolutions. Memorials, tributes, and testimonials shall be introduced at the beginning of the last Membership Meeting. [These f2f membership meetings are typically grossly underattended–even though at present, as the policy stands, they have a very low bar for establishing a quorum; approximately 75 members “count.” More on these later if anyone’s interested.]

Bylaws, Article II

Sec. 2. Special Meetings.

Special meetings of the Association may be called by the Executive Board, and shall be called by the President on request of not less than five percent of the voting members of the Association as of the previous July 1, such request to be filed with the executive director at least ninety days before the proposed meeting. At least one month’s notice shall be given, and only the business specified in the call shall be transacted. [I assume this means of the entire association–like an additional conference.]

Sec. 4. Membership Meetings.

A membership meeting consists of the voting members of the Association with authority to act as set out in Article VI, Sections 4(a) and 4(c) of the Constitution. A membership meeting shall be held during the annual conference and at such other times as may be set by the Executive Board, Council or by membership petition as provided for in Article II, Section 2, of the Bylaws.

ALA Policy Manual

7.4.1 Meeting [defined]

A meeting is an official assembly, for any length of time following a designated starting time, of the members of any board, committee, task force, commission, etc., during which the members do not separate except for a recess and in which the assembly has the capacity to formalize decisions. Conference calls, Internet chat sessions (and their equivalents), and in-person meetings are recognized as meeting subject to the open meetings policy (ALA Policy 7.4.4). (Asynchronous electronic discussions by electronic mail or other asynchronous communication methods do not constitute meetings because they are not an official assembly with a designated starting time.) [It’s puzzling that ALA policy recognizes work can be conducted electronically, but finds so many means to limit it.]

7.4.2 Meetings Outside of Annual Conference and the Midwinter Meeting

Notice of meetings held outside of Annual Conference and Midwinter Meeting must be announced ten days prior to the meeting and the results of the meeting must be made public no fewer than 30 days after the meeting’s conclusion. Reports of meetings held outside of Annual Conference and Midwinter Meeting should convey a summary of the discussion of each item considered by the assembly and the decision made. [A single web page for announcements would satisfy this need.]

7.4.4 Open Meetings

All meetings of the American Library Association and its units are open to all members and to members of the press. Registration requirements apply. Closed meetings may be held only for the discussion of matters affecting the privacy of individuals or institutions. (See also ‘‘Current Reference File’’: Interpretive Statement on Open Meetings Policy.) [Note that the definition of “open” is left, well, open.]

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In terms of changing ALA, particularly in the area of virtual participation, I am personally committed to working along multiple tracks:

• Supporting others who want to work inside the belly of the beast: that would include my strong, hearty endorsement of ALA Council candidates Aaron Dobbs and Chris Harris
• Participating as a member of the ALA Task Force on Electronic Meeting Participation
• Writing and speaking about the advantages to ALA to lead change in the area of virtual participation
• Advocating civil disobedience, by encouraging ALA committees and other functional units to ignore ALA policy that prohibits units from voting between conferences, requires voting members to attend face-to-face meetings, and ignores virtual members in establishing quorums

I see these as complementary methods. It’s important that we get enough ALA reformers to understand the workings of Council. Personally, after three terms on Council I feel far too familiar with ALA’s plumbing and think I should run for Council only when we get a critical mass together to run as a slate, vote in our own Executive Board, and expeditiously change the organization.

As for the Task Force, this is the fourth time I’ve served on a unit dedicated to changing ALA in the area of electronic participation. My contribution so far has to been to draft a survey; the task force appears to be on hold for now. How ironic if we did the bulk of our work at conferences. I’m starting to worry this is a pyramid scheme: in the end, we’ll make recommendations that lead to the creation of another task force.

The writing and speaking is self-evident. It is the civil disobedience I have yet to posit as a parallel strategy.

In March, 2004, my partner and I were married at San Francisco City Hall. Several months later our marriage was invalidated, and it may be a long while before we see same-sex marriage legalized in California. But this civil disobedience changed many attitudes — not the least of which, our own. We went from seeing ourselves as outside the institution as people who could indeed marry. In that sense, civil disobedience appears to change the outer world but in truth, may be most useful for changing those who rebel.

My recommendation is that ALA units come out of the closet and into the streets. For committees, openly recruit “virtual” members and make it clear their participation counts; announce pending votes and conduct them electronically, by email, chat, Second Life, whatever works; make it a record of the minutes that quorums were established using virtual members; conduct ALA business as you do in real life. I would ask that electronic activities have plenty of strong sunshine — votes announced in public venues, archives and forums open to ALA members — to demonstrate that the most “open” meeting is the one that truly everyone can attend, whether or not they can spend thousands of dollars to fly cross-country.

This will probably ensure I never again chair a committee (particularly one superficially devoted to changing ALA on e-participation, though if I’m smart I’ll start to refuse those assignments), but if I were to be appointed chair of a unit, I would be ostentatious about conducting work online; I would insist on it. My goals would include getting most or all of the busy-work out of the way so the ALA conference could be about the things we can’t do electronically as well as we can face-to-face: network with colleagues, attend programs (and un-programs), explore vendor exhibits, see product demonstrations, attend great speaking programs, catch up with people we haven’t seen in a while, have some fine nibblies in an interesting location, and just enjoy being en masse in our librarian self-hood.

I’m hoping we get more, not less, of these opportunities, not just through massive f2f conferences but also through more online opportunities. As for our strictly-virtual colleagues, it would not surprise me if the loose ties created through their participation led them to find ways to attend face-to-face and virtual conferences.

ALA is afraid that if policy changes, and we loses the midwinter meeting as it now functions, it will lose revenue. But this syllogism is false, because it assumes that ALA policy is protecting us from change. My take on change is that it happens whether you wish it to or not, and the thin cardboard of an ALA “rule” isn’t going to protect ALA from the future. We can choose to shape change, or be driven by it. Whether ALA as an organization is around in thirty years depends on the road we take. A national association that meets two times a year, with one meeting dedicated to “conducting business” (you can’t even conduct a program at Midwinter), had best be reconsidering its route.

The weird part is ALA is convinced it can “save” its twice-year conference schema through policy enforcement, but in reality, the policy gets in the way of what we most need in our fractured society: a way to connect with one another. Eventually library directors will ask, “why do you need to attend a meeting twice a year? Why can’t you conduct work the way the rest of us do?” What will the answer be?

Of course, many ALA units un-ostentatiously conduct work online. They have to. ALA “rules” are designed to prop up the Midwinter conference because it’s a revenue source — there is no other rational reason — but it doesn’t mean those “rules” actually lead to best practices.

In fact, the weakness of ALA’s rules is most evident on Council itself, whose agenda is overwhelmed with hastily-written resolutions on whatever topics seemed urgent the month prior to ALA, while conversely, key issues happen in LibraryLand in between conferences and Council — the governing body of ALA — is unable to comment. Like having a one-year presidency (and yes, I understand the economic reasons for this), it enforces the ALA permanent bureaucracy as the real government of ALA. I don’t begrudge them all the work they do, but you should be aware how little say we the membership have in our organization, and how much that is a byproduct of our rules.

In any event, if you chair or sit on an ALA unit, I suggest you follow the slogan of a previous ALA president — “be the change you want to see in the world” — and engage in some ostentatious civil disobedience. Once the spluttering dies down, someone may someday thank you for saving ALA.

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Earlier I observed that in one part of its policy manual ALA attempted to redefine “meeting” in order to include some virtual functions, but that the definition was too literal.

(Incidentally, there is a truism floating around that it takes “two votes of Council” to change policy. No, that’s only true for changes to the constitution and bylaws; policy changes take one vote — and there are ways to route around Council. More later.)

Yet the policy elsewhere contradicts itself. 7.4.1 says a meeting can take place electronically, but 4.5 says that for the sake of committee work, only face-to-face attendance counts:

With the exception of virtual members, members of all ALA and unit committees are expected to attend all meetings. Failure to attend two consecutive meetings or groups of meetings (defined as all meetings of a committee that take place at one Midwinter Meeting or Annual Conference) without an explanation acceptable to the committee chair constitutes grounds for removal upon request by the chair to and approval of the appropriate appointing official or governing board. (ALA Policy 4.5 Requirements for Committee Service)

Intriguingly, the ALA Executive Board — the actual governing board, to which Council delegates control of the association — conducts much of its work electronically; it couldn’t do its work otherwise. (Its primary technology is called the telephone, though I wouldn’t be surprised to learn they also use email.)

So 4.5 isn’t about the ability to conduct committee work through other means than face-to-face meetings; it’s about forcing people to meet face-to-face — which is about protecting Midwinter, a crucial revenue stream.

Elsewhere, Jason Griffey takes an interesting stab at reverse-engineering Midwinter costs and revenue; I think he needs better budget data, but it’s a good start at tackling the premise that ALA has to meet face-to-face twice a year in order to survive, an assumption that needs close examination from a wide swath of the membership.

Personally, I’d prefer an ALA conference that was much less enforced-meeting and far more human networking, meeting with vendors, useful programs, inspiring speeches, and interesting cities (here we can pause to reflect on the idea of flying to Anaheim next year — a conference location with all the class of microwave popcorn). I’d pay more to attend a great conference once a year than to schlep myself to two places twice a year. I know a few folks say conferences are “too expensive,” but we’ll always hear that.

Reality check: ALA conference fees are extremely low. I wonder if we raised conference dues 50% or more, made Annual the only face-to-face conference, and monetized virtual activities (including finding ways for vendors to peddle wares) if it wouldn’t be much more profitable for ALA and better for the rest of us.

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For some time I’ve observed that ALA’s rules about virtual members box us into face-to-face meetings for the “work of the association”:

Virtual members of committees or task forces have the right to attend meetings, participate in debate, and make motions. Virtual members are not counted in determining the quorum nor do they have the right to vote. (ALA Policy 6.1.6)

However, while diligently plowing through ALA’s policy manual, constitution, and bylaws, I was reminded that the definition of committee work — embedded in the definition of a “meeting” — creates its own issues:

A meeting is an official assembly, for any length of time following a designated starting time, of the members of any board, committee, task force,commission, etc., during which the members do not separate except for a recess and in which the assembly has the capacity to formalize decisions. Conference calls, Internet chat sessions (and their equivalents), and in-person meetings are recognized as meeting subject to the open meetings policy (ALA Policy 7.4.4). (Asynchronous electronic discussions by electronic mail or other asynchronous communication methods do not constitute meetings because they are not an official assembly with a designated starting time.) (ALA Policy 7.4.1)

This policy in its earliest form was no doubt born at a time when it was inconceivable to imagine conducting work other than face to face. As time went by, other ideas were awkwardly shoveled into the policy to attempt to address modern work behavior. It’s not a malevolent policy, but (along with how we define “virtual membership” and “open meeting”) it is anachronistic.

In fact, you could rewrite that policy section all day and all night and it would continue to fall short of the mark, because what’s missing is the idea that committee work can be continuous and incremental — and conducted by email, among other media — and yet observable and open.

The all-important “sunshine clause” in ALA policy is in another section:

Notice of meetings held outside of Annual Conference and Midwinter Meeting must be announced ten days prior to the meeting and the results of the meeting must be made public no fewer than 30 days after the meeting’s conclusion. Reports of meetings held outside of Annual Conference and Midwinter Meeting should convey a summary of the discussion of each item considered by the assembly and the decision made. (7.4.2, Meetings Outside of Annual Conference and the Midwinter Meeting.)

If we changed “meetings” to “active work” and “votes,” we’d have all the sunshine we really needed — and section 7.4.1 becomes almost superfluous. In fact, modifying 7.4.2 would be an improvement on how we do things now, because so many ALA units are conducting committee work electronically — but because this work isn’t recognized for what it is or included in the narrower idea of “meetings,” these committees they have no means (and for that matter, no incentive) to advise ALA members that they are conducting work or making decisions.

I’m hoping to address more of these “change ALA” topics over the next week or so. Anyone may copy this content anywhere useful (e.g. a wiki, mailing list, etc.).

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I wanted to do a lavish long post on this, but I’m whaling away at my workshop material for this coming Friday, as I really need to finish getting it together today and tomorrow, so that on Monday another person from MPOW and I can drive to Atlanta for a NISO meeting on NCIP, which I now refer to as a “standard,” quotation marks intentional.

Where was I? Oh right! Every ALA president establishes a task force to help him or her “implement” his one-year reign (we’ll just call him Jim of 365 Days — though actually he gets a 53rd week, due to some scheduling magic… I love ALA math).

As you can see from this Flickr picture, we had all the ingredients found in modern-day meetings:

• Large pieces of paper
• Adhesive dots in random colors
• Markers

Ah, ALA… going from the Defrag conference to 50 East Huron was like stepping back fifteen years.

Jim’s task force is very good group: active and vocal, funny and forward-thinking, not afraid to rant at the Man, and by this I do not mean Jim (who I variously call El Jefe, El Presidente, Boss, or Chief, just to annoy him), but ALA itself. I posted some bon mots on my Twitter feed… not all of which I’ll repeat here…but perhaps my favorite was everyone snickering at the title of one ACRL report: a “White Paper on Diversity.”

The top stuff to take away is that Jim cannot change a lot of things, and wisely pushed some things off his agenda — he’s not going to change the architecture of ALA in one year — but he can move the needle, even if slightly, toward a more inclusive, user-centered ALA that has much broader appeal to newer librarians: more unconference opportunities, more “author of your experience,” more collective voice, less of the sage-on-the-stage model. Or to quote Genevieve Owens: “The member is not broken.” (Has a nice beat. You can dance to it!)

I have a much, much longer post percolating about ALA’s policy on virtual membership, and how that won’t change until ALA sees that this works to its benefit as an organization (which may take a few retirements).  I’m starting to think that instead of trying to change ALA policy, members should simply consider it censorship and route around it. Many do that already.

Anyway, ALA having one-year presidents means that fundamentally, the organization is run by its full-time bureaucracy. (Social studies majors will observe that the Executive Board technically has political control, but…) Changing ALA is a slow, iterative process. If Jim can change even one thing for the better, that will be pretty damn good stuff.

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So I’m on the ALA Task Force on electronic member participation, and one of our tasks is to survey the members about e-participation. I volunteered to spearhead the task, and a few other folks are chipping in. You can see the really early it-could-go-in-entirely-different-directions rough draft.

What questions should we ask? What do you wish you could tell ALA about e-participation and how would you frame the question in a survey?

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“I don’t know which is the greater task: to decentralise a top-heavy civilization or to prevent an ancient civilization from becoming centralised and top-heavy. In both cases the core of the problem is to discover what constitutes a good civilization, then proclaim it to the people and help them to erect it.”

Over on Pattern Recognition, Jason Griffey shares some frustration with LITA’s powers-that-be over their reaction to the recent successes of BIGWIG, the blogging-and-related-stuff interest group. Fellow BIGWIG’er and LITA Top Trendster Karen Coombs echoes her concerns.

Meanwhile, in other corners, I have heard rumblings that BIGWIG should become a LITA committee. Why, I asked? Because, I was told, it acts like a committee: coordinating across LITA groups, launching initiatives, etc.

I have some suggestions for LITA.

BIGWIG is doing a great job; be careful not to turn them off. Yes, a little more LITA branding would be helpful. But librarians are finding LITA through BIGWIG, not vice versa: BIGWIG, not LITA, is the lure.

I was less concerned with the message you were trying to deliver — which is that you’d like to hitch LITA’s wagon to BIGWIG’s star, a wise move on your behalf — as the way it was delivered, with a perfunctory “good job” followed by a list of transgressions. Folks, these are volunteers. There are really only two words you can ever say to good volunteers: thank you. Anything else you say — advice, suggestions, whatever — better sound like “thank you” as well.

As for the notion that LITA “acts like a committee,” we only wish LITA committees acted like this IG. It’s 2007 and LITA is just barely scratching the idea of online education; it took Herculean, multi-year efforts to pull one publication out of a decade-long serious funk; and the word-of-mouth about some committee meetings — well, I would have turned in my twinkly LITA necklace for good had I been there.

As for turning BIGWIG into a committee, this is a profoundly misguided idea. You observe that BIGWIG is effective, that they accomplish a lot, that they garner attention and attract members, that they know how to collaborate and communicate. But that’s because BIGWIG isn’t a committee; it’s an entrepreneurial meritocracy of self-selected, highly-motivated librarians. BIGWIG isn’t effective because of its charge or its chosen activities; it’s effective because of who’s in it and how they do what they do. You can’t bottle that and turn it into a committee.

As Joe Janes observed on our innovation panel at ALA, committees, as a rule, are short on initiative and change-making, and for many reasons, some specific to the organization that births them. (This is not to say that committees are never useful: at best, the characteristics of committees — small-c conservative, small-d democratic, focused on a specific task — make them excellent incubators for some purposes, such as book awards or analyzing issues. But I agree with Joe Janes that people, not committees, are the source of innovation.)

Divisional committees — which unlike interest groups, are not self-formed but are filled with the anointed and appointed — tend to be overpopulated with chair-warmers who are there to put the committee on their c.v. (or who need a committee to justify conference funding), leaving the grunt work to an overworked few who scrap big dreams to do the best they can with one or two people rowing the boat. (Again, there are notable exceptions, but every ALA newcomer has had the startling experience of attending a “meeting” for a committee that was clearly little more than a trip visa so its members could attend ALA.) This is hardly conducive to excellence, let alone innovation.

I know this goes to the heart of one of our most cherished institutional beliefs — that for every action, there must be an equal and opposite committee — but please, for the sake of LITA, BIGWIG, and librarianship writ large, do not kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.

It may well be that some initiatives of BIGWIG can be broken out into new activities. But be careful in assuming that a Committee on Recording All LITA Sessions will henceforth Record All LITA Sessions, and will not simply meet twice a year so its members can discuss how they might, in some remote decade, go about doing this, and who will ultimately launch this activity just about the time the rest of us are beaming conference sessions from chips in our foreheads.

Better yet, piggyback on BIGWIG’s think-tank-style leadership and ability to improvise and experiment, and simply advise LITA units they should record sessions whenever possible and point out that it’s not much harder than plugging a $50 mike on an iPod. Ask Joe Fisher: he recorded the innovation session without muss or fuss.

LITA, I’ve been there. Fifteen years ago, the Internet Room Steering Committee had similar problems. We subverted the committee paradigm; we too were a meritocracy; and we too stuck in a few craws. But we never could have done what we did through the traditional committee structure (in fact, I am pretty sure that we formed as we did because the committee structure served our project so poorly).

It is absolutely true that someday BIGWIG’s rocket will fizzle back to earth. That is to be expected. But funneling it into an existing structure that serves innovation poorly if at all won’t stop this from happening, any more than pressing a flower keeps it fresh in the vase. What matters is that they are effective here and now.

Instead, let BIGWIG be BIGWIG, and learn from its example. For at bottom, we have a classic example of an organization thinking it needs to remold a new, upstart group in its own image, when it is the organization that needs to change. The question is not how LITA can take what BIGWIG is doing and funnel it into the traditional LITA way of doing things. The question is how LITA can adapt how it does things to encourage more BIGWIGs.

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For decades (if not longer), the ALA conference meeting schedule has remained unchanged. For six months the pupae lie dormant. The week prior to the conference, they begin wiggling in their pupal cases, responding to the faint clarion call of hotel room reservations and vendor cocktail parties. The ALA creatures emerge all at once, and before their wings are even dry they are in flight, driven by instinct toward their new homes.

Then, for the next week, they do what is known as the work of the association.

If you talk to some of these creatures — and I have been one — they will tell you how busy they are. Busy, busy, busy! So busy, in fact, that they will take pains to tell you that they don’t go to exhibits or even most programs. Sometimes they are double- and triple-scheduled, and will show up mid-meeting with a triumphant air. Whew, amazing, you managed to attend two meetings at the same time at opposite ends of the city! Applause, followed by a quick recap of the last three hours. Ad infinitum.

But what is that work to date? It is, as Jane at Wandering Eyre points out, the sort of stuff that much of the rest of the information-privileged world now resolves between conferences. Because the rest of the world understands that meetings are for the most part about administrivia, which can be handled via email and so forth, with a quick face-to-face to wrap things up, while conferences are about human networking, personal growth, and vendor SWAG.

I gripe a lot about ALA Council, and certainly it is fertile territory for criticism. But one reason ALA Council meets as late as it does, with its last, longest, and most productive meeting held a full day after everyone has gone home (and forgive me if you have heard this from me before) is that its meeting schedule is in part a function of every other major meeting in ALA. For the most part, Council is waiting for committees, and boards, and task forces to finish their work.

Not only is a lot of this work completed in real-time at the conference, a lot of it is started at the conference, and some of it has the bitter taint of make-work. When I was last on Council, one Roundtable was particularly egregious about churning out “resolutions” that put ALA on record for positions that were nominally important but completely insignificant as presented in these hastily-composed first drafts. All of these needed to be reviewed by the resolutions chair, placed on Council agenda, mulled over at Council Forum, and duly considered and voted on.

ALA: how it puts the “fun” in dysfunctional!

The only way to understand what I’m describing is to experience it. At ALA Midwinter, pick a division, ALA-level committee, Executive Board meeting, session of the Intellectual Freedom Committee, or some other top-level group; sit through as much of it as you can. Then — keeping in mind that Midwinter exists as a “meeting,” and strictly speaking, does not even offer programs — ask yourself how much of what you hear could have been accomplished without flying cross-country for half a week — or at least, having done that, sitting in a room for several long hours.

I’m a little tired from a marathon-writing day, but I feel there is something here to be worked into Aaron Dobb’s evolving wiki on changing ALA. I keep wondering if we should continue waiting for ALA to approve virtual meetings or just hold one and then push the issue legislatively.

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I’ve been explaining for years that ALA Council is broken, and even suggesting how to fix it. If Council is too darn busy to hear from a member on an issue he knows something about, that just underscores everything I’ve been saying.

Aaron Dobbs has run for Council twice, and lost. I look at some of the people who won, and I am sorry, it must be said: it is time to move aside and let some new voices be heard. Aaron has established a wiki to change ALA, and he is planning to run for Council again. I endorse his candidacy for ALA Council and only wish I could run with him.

I have some other comments about ALA this-and-that but I’m waiting for a report back.  I also have a conference “best and worst” post, but today I was working on deadline, and it had to wait. Soon, soon!

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i has interliberry loan

Originally uploaded by freerangelibrarian

Note: I had another article published today, in IT Manager’s Journal. You may recognize some of the IT managers!

I’ve written about the cone of confusion before. I see other uses cited on the Web, and have no reason to disbelieve them, but the definition I was taught in the Air Force is the one used in Wikipedia: it’s that mass of noise that happens when you fly directly over a radio tower.

Today I must wrest a number of books from the paws of my cats and get them to the library for renewal or return (I can renew online… just not when they are, ahem, overdue); finish a Techsource article; participate in two teleconferences; make, edit, and upload a short video; drag my body to the Y for aerobics; print out e-ticket and make sure I have maps; do the pre-conference laundry round-up; and defuse whatever unscheduled, unanticipated missiles will thud into my office before I head to ALA.

Then I get to fly to DC and just Be There, moving from one preordained event to another, so close to the radio tower that it blots out response.

I remember when LITA first started blogging and some people said, “Well! I certainly don’t see a lot of posts going up during the middle of the conference!” That would be correct. Most people don’t waste their precious conference time (experienced in dog years, if not fruit-fly years) editing and posting their reports. They’re too busy flying by the seat of their pants. I don’t lug my laptop around during the day if I can help it; I have my Treo for communication (phone, email, and IM).

So Friday through Monday will be quiet on this blog… but explosively busy for me.

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I’m pasting in Karen Coombs’ announcement of a Social Software Showcase at ALA Annual (already linked here and there on the Web), which is the epitome of all that is epitomizable, and in which (as I have not yet resolved that unable-to-be-in-two-places-at-once issue) I will participate in via a YouTube video which I have yet to make because as Steve Lawson notes, I don’t know what my topic is yet.

Well, I have two topics but it all depends on whether one of the proposed participants can make it, in which case he has my first topic. Kapeesh? Then, since it was all a Surprise, planned by others, I was unaware of the social software angle, and I had vague plans to talk about LOCKSS, and find myself somewhat stumped on the issue of digital preservation and social software… though actually, it’s quite an interesting issue, if you think of it. Where do chats go to die? (Do they dry up like a raisin in the sun?)
I’m ashamed to say that I’m more worried about the wardrobe issues for my video; shall I be simple-yet-elegant, shall I wear one of my Halloween costumes… or what about a feathered cap?  What about backdrops — a fake city center, a plain wall, or (so you all know I’m very smart) my bookshelves? (Every time I do a bookcase backdrop for a photo I find myself wishing I were a foot taller, so my head could be poised against the really erudite stuff, and not a section that is half-travel, half-miscellany.)

Anyway, kudos to Karen, Michelle, Jason, and everyone else involved in the Showcase. Karen C.’s explanation follows.

This is the surprise that I’ve [as in Karen Coombs] been talking to people about for months now. A full description of the Showcase is available on LITABlog and there will be a lot more to come on the official Showcase wiki.

The Social Software Showcase, in some ways, has been a long time in the making. The PTBs at BIGWIG (myself, Michelle, and Jason) haven’t necessarily been happy with the conference format or planning process at ALA for some time (both as participants and organizers). The policies and procedures for the conference planning process don’t work well for creating innovative and responsive programming on technology. They also disenfranchise ALA members who can’t attend the conference in person or whose conference schedules are jam packed due to face-to-face meetings where the business of ALA is conducted or giving conference presentations.

Projects like HigherEdBlogCon and 5 Weeks to a Social Library have shown that virtual conferences can work and for some people can be a more rewarding experience than traditional conferences. So why not show the world of ALA that a virtual conference can be done and bring different people, ideas and conversations to the table? Beyond that the Showcase is a way for us to reach out to librarians (and maybe even library users) and get them involved in conversations about social software without making a massive personal financial investment.

The Showcase is above all an experiment and a demonstration of social software in action. It was planned and executed using chat, Google Docs, wikis, Twitter, and probably some other tech I’m forgetting to mention. That in itself is worth taking notice of. So is our list of presenters which include some creative, thought-provoking, and unique voices in the library world. The presenters, other organizers and myself are looking forward to your participation in this program.

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Ninety-five percent of ALA is stuck in the antebellum period, but Jim is communicating by YouTube. Gets it. Seriously. Knows getting it equals doing it.

Vote for Jim!

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(erm on Mar 5, 2007 5:48 PM) utube is too slow. but fastforward can be useful :-) -from ca, the land of horror [sung to the tune of that 80's Men Without Bats hit] [interesting. laissez-me tried swipedragging "vanilla" to the challengebox. but the mouse select 'jumps' off "vanilla", but can ctrl+c while still holding down mouse button.] ____________ "...the volume [ratio] of junk to gems is 100:1" uhoh :-)

(Phalbe Henriksen on Mar 11, 2007 2:15 PM) Which bellum?