Councilor's Report for ALA's Midwinter Meeting, San Diego 2004

Carolyn Caywood, IFRT Councilor

Of the issues that had preoccupied Council before Midwinter, it took no action on RFID (Radio Frequency Identification/Identifiers). Plenty of information was available, and the Intellectual Freedom Committee (IFC) discussed the issue, so it would appear Council is willing to wait for advice, for now. Also, the upcoming online election and the brouhaha over the vendor critique on the Reference and User Services Association (RUSA) website, were alluded to, but not addressed.

After trying to tweak the Resolution on the Policy on ALA Election Endorsement and Use of Funds, Council gave up and defeated it. Current practice is affirmed which means that IFRT can, if it chooses, publish lists of member candidates, questionnaires and position statements, and even endorsements if the Board so votes, as long as the vehicle of communication is an existing one – newsletter or email list.

Awkward wording in the Resolution on Proposed Amendments to the USA Patriot Act also frustrated Council till Jim Rettig finally came up an editorial improvement that we were able to pass: “That the American Library Association supports proposed legislation currently in Congress that will amend those sections of the USA Patriot Act that abridge historic rights of library users so that those rights will be restored in full; that the American Library Association opposes any further initiatives on the part of the United States government to constrain the free expression of ideas or to inhibit the use of libraries; and that the American Library Association urges the United States Congress to oppose legislation, regulations, or other initiatives that threaten or further abridge the rights of inquiry and free expression.” Another different resolution on the USA Patriot Act was withdrawn.

The news just before the conference that a Jenner & Block lawyer was defending divine, Inc (previously RoweCom/Faxon) energized our past president, Mitch Friedman, who proposed a resolution that would require the ALA Executive Board to review its choice of counsel whenever that counsel took on a client ALA disliked, not just when there is a genuine conflict of interest. The resolution also instructed ALA’s Jenner and Block lawyer Paula Goedert to go home and pass our outrage on to her boss. The resolution was divided and the policy part was referred to the Budget Analysis and Review Committee (BARC) so we can expect to see it reappear in Orlando. I pointed out that the Executive Board had just reviewed its relationship with Jenner and Block in September and hardly needed Council’s permission, to no avail. The instruction for Goedert to convey our outrage was defeated.

Karen Schneider dropped her resolution on Cuba in favor of a proposed amendment to the IRC/IFC report, “…and calls for their immediate release.  ALA….”  The paragraph in the report would then have read: “ALA joins IFLA in its deep concern over the arrest and long prison terms of political dissidents in Cuba in spring 2003, and calls for their immediate release.  ALA urges the Cuban Government to respect, defend and promote the basic human rights defined in Article 19 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights.” My perception was that the IFRT Board did not want to support Karen’s resolution because it contained some inaccuracies and because the Board felt that the report of the joint IRC/IFC committee represented the best compromise we could expect. Karen’s change to a short amendment addressed her inaccuracies but not the negotiation that went into the report. Nevertheless, I could not in all conscience vote no to a simple plea to release political dissidents, so I abstained on the amendment, which was defeated. The joint report, ALA CD#18.1, International Relations Committee and Intellectual Freedom Committee’s Report on Cuba was adopted.

In other actions, Council:

            Agreed to put a new $35 membership category for support staff on the next member ballot. This could open a whole new field of potential IFRT members!

Agreed to accept ALA CD#20, Committee on Legislation (COL) Report, which included the Principles on Government Information rather than accept or adopt the Principles on Government Information themselves. COL was insistent about its need for some kind of official imprimatur but Council, as IFC had predicted, refused to be stampeded into adopting policy.

Agreed to a new charge for the Website Advisory Committee:   "To develop, review and recommend to Council, Association policies for the ALA Website. To recommend editorial or structural guidelines for the ALA Website.  To provide advice to the ALA Executive Director responsible for implementing such policies and guidelines.  To provide an ongoing channel for member communication by working closely with other units, committees and offices of the Association. To make recommendations concerning technical issues or changes to the ALA Website, including evaluating, testing and implementing Web-based products and services used by Association members or by the public. To advise the Association on priorities and strategies that promote utilization and continued development of the ALA Web site."

Revised the charge of the Orientation, Training and Leadership Development Committee to read:  “To plan and coordinate training and leadership development for member leaders at all levels across the Association.  To inventory training and orientation modules in divisions, round tables, and other Association groups. To provide orientation for chairs of ALA and Council committees.”

Added a non-voting liaison to the Committee on Education, from the membership of the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) Community and Junior College Libraries Section’s Library Technical Assistant Education Committee. This engendered some grandstanding about support staff, but Council endorsed its committee’s recommendation, which had been based on discussion with all the stakeholders.

Fixed the ALA Constitution Article VIII.  Officers and Committees, Section 2. so that a Treasurer vacancy can be filled without waiting for a ballot.

Set up a task force to be appointed by the President of ALA to develop and implement, expeditiously, a proactive action plan to seek the reversal of the closure of the Clark Atlanta University School of Library and Information studies and to determine the strategies and procedures necessary to ensure that ALA is better positioned to detect warning signs of similar closures and take appropriate preventive actions; and to report its actions and recommendations at the ALA 2004 Annual Conference.

Opposed H.R. 3261, the Database and Collections of Information Misappropriation Act; and encourages its members to ask their legislators to oppose H.R. 3261. 

Refused to rescind the ALA motto, “The best reading, for the largest number, at the least cost. (Adopted 1892; reinstated by ALA Council, 1988) Some found it flexible and efficient while others saw it as patronizing and didactic.

Elected Janet Swan Hill and Nann Blaine Hilyard to the Executive Board.

See Council actions:

http://www.ala.org/ala/ourassociation/governanceb/council/councilactions/MW2004councilactions.htm