3/30/07 ALA Midwinter Conference Report 2007
By Pam Hickson-Stevenson, OLC ALA Councilor

January 19-24, 2007

For the first time in many years, ALA met in Seattle, WA for its annual business meeting. What follow are the highlights of the meeting.

ALA Council Actions

At the Midwinter Meeting, the ALA Council:

• Passed a resolution affirming the role of libraries in providing e-government and emergency services and encouraging continued research that documents library needs and capacity to provide effective e-government and emergency response/recovery services, and to develop best practices and train staff to deliver these essential services.
• Passed a resolution opposing “any legislation that infringes on the rights of anyone in the USA (citizens or otherwise) to use library resources on national, state, and local levels.”
• Did not pass a resolution to advocate ending funding for the Iraq War.
• Did not pass a resolution to call for the impeachment of President George W. Bush.
• Referred a resolution to the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC); this resolution called for all ALA units to follow ALA policy and “suspend all affiliation with the Boy Scouts of America National Council until such time as the Boy Scouts of America [BSA] ends its exclusionary policy on the basis of a person's religious beliefs or sexual orientation…”; ALSC was involved due to its provision of a link on its Web site to the BSA and due to a reference to an ALSC representative to BSA.
• Passed a resolution encouraging Congress to “amend the Copyright Act to facilitate the use of ‘orphan works' if the user has made a reasonably diligent, good faith search to locate the owner of the work, but was unable to find the owner.”

Other ALA Council news of interest:

• Patty Wong, Chair of the Budget Analysis and Review Committee (BARC), presented a very positive budget assessment. Total revenue for the Association proved to be almost $1 million over budget projections with a budgetary ceiling of $56,540,976 for fiscal year 2007.
• The Endowment Fund report presented by Chair Robert Newlen was equally impressive with a gain from a market value of $25,454,000 in 2005 to $29,028,000 in 2006.
• The BARC was granted an extension of six months to study the ramifications of establishing a graduated dues structure for ALA.
• ALA Treasurer Terri Switzer reported that ALA is building a solid reserve and the growth in revenue has been on the upswing. Annual dues revenue has increased from about $5 million in 1995 to $8 million in 2006. During the 26 years from 1980 to 2006, the total net asset balance for ALA has grown from $4,728,000 to $30,812,000. Total membership in ALA has risen from 35,433 in 1980 to 64,689 in 2006.
  

ALA/APA Council Actions

At the Midwinter Meeting, the ALA/APA Council:

• Passed unanimously a nonbinding resolution endorsing a minimum salary of $40,000 for professional [degreed] librarians. A copy of the resolution is available online.

Other ALA/APA Council news of interest:

• The ALA/APA budgetary deficit of $39,552 for FY 2006 drove the “ending net assets” of ALA/APA from a negative $195,492 to a negative $235,044. There was good news, though, in the fact that the overall income of the ALA/APA was 68% higher than the previous year and that the repayment of the initial loan of $250,000 loan from ALA will begin in FY 2009. It is hoped that the ALA-APA will turn the corner and become self sustaining within the next few years. However, in the Treasurer's Report for ALA-APA delivered to Council on January 21, two of the weaknesses noted about the ALA-APA were “low awareness among ALA members” and “confusion about relationship with ALA ”.
• Future plans include strengthening the fundraising strategy, continuing to market the Certified Public Library Administrator certification program, continuing to market salary surveys, and investigating developing support staff and other certification programs.

Other Items of Interest

• President Burger is working on a National Agenda for Libraries to clarify and codify ALA 's positions on a wide variety of issues. Her goal is to garner support and guide ALA 's work at national, state and local levels. More information is available at http://wikis.ala.org/nationallibraryagenda/
  index.php/Main_Page.
• The ALA elections for 2007 will take place from March 15 to April 24 with final returns expected on May 1.
• ALA kicked off the Emerging Leaders program with an institute at Midwinter. Two of the 118 spots were filled by Rachel Rubin and Wendy Rawson, young librarians from Ohio sponsored by OLC. ALA plans to institutionalize the Emerging Leaders program in 2008.
• American Libraries is celebrating its first 100 years in 2007 with a number of events, articles and exhibits.
• ALA President-Elect Loriene Roy is gathering examples of library anniversary events that will occur during her presidential year, June 27, 2007 to July 2, 2008. These could include library openings, closings, renovations, foundings, first conferences, births or deaths of people important in library history, etc. She would like to highlight centennial anniversaries. You can share them with her using an online form at www.lorieneroy.com.
• Mike Flynn, Director of the Office of Information Analysis and Access of Environmental Information for the EPA, discussed the recent closure of several EPA libraries and was subjected to some fairly intense questioning. He emphasized that the EPA network of some 26 libraries was in the process of digitizing much of its content and shifting away from “walk-in” service. The thrust of his remarks was that the EPA libraries are not all going to be closed and are just in a period of transition. Many in the audience expressed skepticism in their questioning of the motives for not providing access to certain records and removal of long time EPA staffers.
• The Freedom to Read Foundation reported on continuing struggles with the government on National Security letters under the USAPATRIOT Act. In ACLU of Florida vs. Miami School Board, about children's books about Cuba, the case was won at district level, but the school board appealed; a decision is pending. FTRF is monitoring Bradburn vs. North Central Regional Library District
  (Washington)—this is the first challenge to a library's internet filtering policy under CIPA. The suit claims that NCRL goes beyond CIPA requirements in filtering, but the library denies the allegations.
• ALA has filed a Freedom of Information Act request to determine whether or not it is under surveillance by the federal government, as an organization actively opposed to the USA PATRIOT Act. ALA is also planning a national conference on privacy, tentatively titled “Taking Back American Values”.
• ALA recently released a comprehensive study of gender, race and age in the profession, analyzing US Census data from 1990 and 2000 to provide a demographic picture of our profession. The study found that the nearly 110,000 credentialed librarians were predominantly ages 45-54, female and white. The number of racial and ethnic minorities receiving accredited master's degrees grew from 9 percent to 13 percent, and the percentage of males decreased 4.6%.
• ALA continues to participate strongly in the International Federation of Library Associations, contributing to flood and tsunami relief and development efforts. ALA will appoint a representative to the US Committee of the Blue Shield, which tries to protect cultural property during armed conflict.

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