Mr. Olson Goes to Washington #3

The third installment of Chris Olson's Coucil Report from the ALA National Conference.

COUNCIL II: The Committee on Legislation presented the following resolutions, which were passed with some discussion. These included:
(1) Resolution on Funding for the National Library Service (the resolution calls upon Congress to fund the $19.1M needed for the first year of the NSL’s multi-year digitization project to convert up-to-date technology for the Talking Book services to people with visual or physical disability.)

(2) Resolution on Principals for Digital Content (the resolution adopts a declaration, Principles for Digital Content, which deals with values, intellectual property rights, sustainable collections, collaboration, advocacy, international scope, continuous learning, preservation and importance of standards.)

(3) Resolution on Government Printing Office FY 2008 Appropriations (this resolution reaffirms its commitment to Government Printing Office and Federal Depository Library Program services and collections and urges full funding at $182M)

(4) Resolution on No Child Left Behind (NCLB) (this resolution urges the passage of the SKILLS Act, which would include school library media specialists who meet the criteria established by the state educational agency as highly qualified in NCLB, require school districts to employ at least one highly qualified school library media specialist, allow state and local Title II funds to be used to assist in recruiting and training highly qualified school library media specialists)

(5) Resolution on the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program FY 2008 Funding (this resolution urges Congress to restore full funding of $47M to enable the program to complete its activities)

I have copies of all the resolutions if anyone is interested in seeing them in more detail.

The Freedom to Read Foundation is ALA's First Amendment legal defense arm. John Berry informed Council on the current activities including Youth and the First Amendment, Freedom to Read Freely, Protecting Privacy and Anonymity, Religion and the Public Library, and State Legislation.

Teri Switzer presented the treasurer’s report. ALA programmatic priorities include diversity, literacy, intellectual freedom, equity of access to information and library services, education and life-long learning, and organizational excellence. The budget proposal addresses first the 2010 strategic plan. Goals in the plan include:

(1) Advocacy/Value of the Profession
(2) Education
(3) Public Policy and Standards
(4) Building the Profession
(5) Membership
(6) Organization Excellence

The key internal developments for this year include the completion of Joblist Online; completion of online database project - Choice and Booklist; Year 3 of publishing department "Content Centric" business plan; complete the business plan of a magazine promoting library usage to the public; better utilization of the Association Management System as a tool to exploit cross marketing opportunities. There has been little change in ALA's total revenues. Last year they made $47M from dues, publishing and meeting and conferences. Teri recommended that additional scholarships be offered from the Spectrum fund, which would help in increasing the diversity in our profession.