PLA Blog

Ethics, Joanne Pinder reported on the proposed changes in the ALA Code of Ethics.

Clara Bohrer reported on the finances of PLA. Fund balance was about $25,000 lower than expected partly because the Spring Symposium was not as successful as budgeted. The other reason is a printing cost which will be recovered when the published book is finally sold. Clara then reviewed the current year. The reports do not show any revenue for the conference which will occur in March. PLA is set with a cyclical budget for spending more in one year and capturing revenue from conferences in the other years. Registration for the conference is running ahead of Boston.

Budget assumption for the future is that there will be an endowment transfer in the years in which conferences are held. BARC has created a new series of budget review guidelines. One item noted was that the budget to actual variance should be no more than 5%. It is not clear whether that is on the overall budget or for individual line items.

Molly Fogarty reported on the Deliberative Dialog meeting on December 12. She explained the purpose of the meeting was about getting groups within ALA to consensus on a stand. In the particular case it was over GPO standards. The goal was to establish a protocol if units cannot agree.

There was discussion of the Emerging Leaders Program about participants and how the project worked.

Carolyn Anthony reported on the Library Support Staff Certification Program which is an IMLS program jointly with Western Council of State Libraries. They have developed a set of competencies. This expected to be completed in the summer of 2010. The next year is policy and procedure and on assessment (tests, portfolio, experience). It will then be field tested using the CPLA model. It is an exciting idea.

Sunil Iyengar, director of research and analysis for the National Endowment for the Arts, reported on a survey on reading. Survey of adults showed less than half had read a book of poetry, fiction in the past year. Lots of data. Partly in answer, they created the Big Read to encourage communities to read the same book.

Battery dying. More to come.

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.}

I wanted to try to do this from the Board meeting, but had some technical troubles. Therefore there will be some well ex post facto posts on Board actions.

The initial meeting began with a broad ranging discussion of creating a new structure for PLA. This process has been underway for more than a year. I had some concerns going in, but spent some time talking to a Past President who had been very involved in creating the current structure. The current structure was created to get away from a very traditional structure which had sections each with a bylaws committee, and other parallel structures.

However the cluster idea is not really working, and it is felt that the size of the PLA Board is too large. As in the larger association, many members cannot run for office or serve on committees because they have trouble getting funding and support for attending both Midwinter and Annual every year.

Part of what will happen is that there will be some association committees, but there will be flexibility to create (and disband) what ALA calls “Discussion Groups” and what PLA will call a “Community of Practice.

It is an interesting concept and the bylaws were crafted in such a way as to allow more flexibility.

There was considerable discussion on one section of the proposed bylaws which would remove decisions on dues increases from a vote of the membership and invest that decision with the Board. I believe the final decision is that this will be removed. A number of us (and yes, I was one) expressed concern that the dues issue could overshadow the re-structuring issue and cause the defeat of the whole package.

We will review the changes we discussed (some wordsmithing, some content) at our second meeting on Monday.