PLA Blog

I missed the beginning of this meeting because it overlaps with a committee appointment I hold on the Membership Committee. So, I spent a half hour at AL Membership Committee before traipsing back to the Convention Center to the meeting.

I walked into the reports from the Clusters to the Board with the reactions to the proposed change to the bylaws. There was some concern over change, and there were a lot of questions about the transition process which has yet to be outlined. Great quoted from PLA President Jan Sanders: “We are not sure yet what this camel looks like, never mind how fast it runs.”

There will need to be some additional documents prepared and out to PLA members to explain the plan and transition. While there were many questions raised, there was much positive reaction. One of the senses is that the new bylaws will allow a great deal more flexibility in how PLA.

[Audience comments: members of the audience included my friends Danny Hales, ex-EB Member Nann Blaine Hilyard, several staff, JoAnn Pinder past ALA Treasurer candidate and past PLA President (I think), past ALA Presidential Candidate Claudia Sumler, Committee on Legislation Chaire Molly Fogarty Past PLA President Clara Bohrer. There were about 20 people in the audience, pretty good.]

ALA Exec Board Member Marion Gonzales came to talk. Even with the dues increase, there was not only no loss in members, but a very modest increase. This has also had a positive impact on revenue. There have been housing issues with conferences. Beginning with 2009 you must be registered for the conference in order to book a room. for Anaheim 50% of the rooms were booked on the very first day. The Graduated Dues Study was noted (see the post on ALA Council Info Session.) ALA-APA has its first CPLA administrator. There are 87 candidates participating and hope for 3 more by Annual. National Library Workers Day is April 15.

Nann Blaine Hilyard visited to talk about the potential of merger between ALTA and FOLUSA.

{Stay tuned for part 2…I’m heading back to Membership.}

Tags: ALAMidwinter2008, PLA, PLA Board

This entry was posted on Monday, January 14th, 2008 at 3:57 pm and is filed under PLA Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.