Re: [LM_NET] Follow-up to Peter's comments - break away from ALA?

[Paula Yohe <paula_yohe@YAHOO.COM>]

I somehow missed Peter's comments -- but this is a marveloous idea.
  I finally quit paying dues to ALA -- the only thing it did for me was give me a 
10% discount....
  Over the years I have written letters to ALA concerning school libraries.
  When I was in grad school working on my degree in administration the textbooks 
had nothing about libraries. I wrote to publishers as well.
   
  Unitl we advocate for ourselves and let people know who we are -- we will not 
succeed.
   
  What people that I know who are not in the library field -- if you mention ALA 
and they have heard about it --
  it is usually in the context of Internet filtering and book banning.
   
  And let's face it -- folks want to feel their children are protected in school.
  ALA's message -- seems to promote the belief to parents that ALA thinks porn 
should be in school libraries.
   
  Not a good message for school librarians ....
   
  Food for thought....
   
  Paula
  

Melissa Techman <mtechman@K12ALBEMARLE.ORG> wrote:
  What if we started a new group - something like TLA - Teacher Librarian Advocates 
- and our focus was solely advocating for our profession? We could still belong to 
ALA (or not), we could still be leaders in our schools, and we could still be doing 
excellent jobs. However, we would not be relying on (or should that be waiting 
for?) ALA to tell the public who we are and what we do. We could have low dues and 
they could initially all go to pay for the big PR message that needs to be on TV 
and in newspapers, etc. "If you know how to judge what's valid and what's hype in a 
world of information overload, thank a Teacher Librarian", for example.
For all the good things ALA is and does, there is one important area in which it 
has never excelled: promoting the importance of librarians to the public in a way 
they understand. Advancing the profession in a way that leads to better salaries, 
more opportunities and a well-understood "brand" seems to be beyond ALA's 
abilities. 
Several of my professors mentioned this problem in my MLS program in the early 90's!
When my father started an early version of distance learning for economists and 
govt. ministers in Eastern Europe (late 80's? early 90's), he hired someone with an 
MIS degree to manage the delivery of information - he didn't know he had other 
choices!
When I was in the public library and I heard of a state's "Educational Media" 
organization, I thought it was an industry group that produced instructional videos!
I think that low salaries, mystified consumers, library closings and budget cuts 
all point to the fact that the important message has yet to be conveyed.
Grassroots movements, super collaborators, spokespeople/practitioners, curriculum 
writers, etc. are necessary but not sufficient to produce the results we need.

Until we have a big, clear message that reaches the public in a big way, I bet we 
will be revisiting this whole topic again and again and again.....
And the ALA website will still be telling us how to speak up in our own little 
ponds and how to contact legislators and if that was all that was needed, it would 
have worked by now...


Melissa Techman, MLS
Broadus Wood Elementary School,
185 Buck Mtn. Rd,
Earlysville, VA 22901
434-973-3865
mtechman@k12albemarle.org

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Paula Yohe
Director Of Technology/Library Media Center
Dillon School District Two
405 West Washington Street
Dillon, SC 29536
Phone: 843-841-3604 Fax:843-774-1214
paula_yohe@yahoo.com
 
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