First of all I must admit that I do not participate in ALA as much as
probably should. I belong, mostly because I have to, so I can belong to
AASL. To be honest I don't vote in the elections, mostly because in spite of
the articles in the magazine etc, I really do NOT KNOW anything about the
candidates for office and how they fundamentally are different. Rather than
vote by flipping a coin, I choose not to vote. But PLEASE, I don't want
LM_NET to be filled up with advertisements for this or that candidate. Keep
LM_NET out of that please.
Second, I don't go to the annual ALA conference, it costs too much. I prefer
to save my funds for the bi annual AASL conference and to attend the NECC
conference where librarians are an integral part. I do read the "American
Libraries", use tools on the web site and put my membership on my bio. Even
so, as one of the 10,000 AASL members on ALA it seems that we should be more
visible to the ALA leadership with or without our pushing the issues.
I went to the ALA site and looked for membership statistics, which btw were
hard to find. From what I found, AASL is the largest division containing 15%
of the membership. It seem to me that when one group is that large they
should be paid more attention.
Concerning the issue; couldn't "American Libraries" include a column in each
issue about school libraries? There are other regular columns? Yes, we have
our own AASL publication but then so do the other divisions. Yes there is
School Library Journal, but it is not sponsored by ALA.
Breaking away from ALA to me isn't the answer, it would take too long for a
new organization to develop to the level of ALA. But the AASL people
certainly could express their clout more.
Back to the problem; for me having an active role in ALA simply isn't going
to happen. Cost, distance, and time preclude that. That isn't an excuse it
is a reality. But I will make a resolution to pay more attention to
"American Libraries" and write when school librarians are left out.
Deborah Stafford
Gen. H.H. Arnold High School
Wiesbaden, Germany
deborah.stafford@t-online.de
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