Random Acts of Kindness from ALA?

[Jenny Levine]

Over on the Membership Participation Task Force blog, I just posted the notes from the group's meeting at Midwinter in Seattle. I'm the staff liaison for the group, but I wasn't able to attend the discussion (an unfortunate conflict with the Web Advisory Committee meeting) so the notes were new to me. In reading through them, though, I found myself nodding my head in agreement.

Is that true for you, too, when you read them? Anything in particular resonate with you? How about suggestions for implementing some of their ideas or ideas of your own?

I was particularly taken with the idea of "random acts of kindness from ALA." What would that mean for you?

[Jennifer Parsons]

Goodness, that could mean almost anything. But one way to take it would mean that local chapters of the ALA get involved in charities-- things like Head Start, tutoring programs, or other such programs...even things unrelated to the LIS world, like fundraising efforts for medical research or to help elders.

It could also tie in with outreach programs for student members, something that the task force went over in great detail and which appeals to me, since I'm a student. An inverse of that would be similar programs for lifelong ALA members.

Of course, this can also apply to sending candy to all of ALA's members-- also something I don't have a problem with, either, though that is a lot of candy.

[Karin Dalziel]

A few notes:

A wiki for student members is under development

I know that it's tough to do things quickly in organizations, but sometimes you just need to throw caution to the wind. It seems like a wiki is one thing that should be quick to put up! My concern with this is that it will be behind a pay wall - which will make it not as useful. Actually, I would go so far as to say ANY public meeting space should be open to all- it will make it more useful, and therefore will bring more people to it.

Micro-engagement opportunities need to be available

Yes!!

As a student member, it's hard to know where I will be in a year, so making a long term commitment is hard. I'm perfectly willing to do something for a shorter term, though - say, 3-6 months.

Random acts of kindness from ALA

Not sure what this means, but it sounds nice.

ALA has 10,000 student members

WOW. That's a lot. If even a fraction participated in an LIS student wiki, that would be amazing!

Other things I would like to see-
* More open content in general- I want to be able to link to, for example, American Libraries content, but I can't.
* Some clear direction on where to start. It seems like opportunities don't come to my email inbox or RSS reader (am I subscribing to the wrong feeds?) as often as they do for other groups I am in. Perhaps there could be one place where all opportunities are neatly listed and categorized? If there is such a thing already, I don't know about it.
* More funding to get people to ALA Annual. I'm able to go this year because I have a friend to stay with, otherwise it would be impossible. Public librarians in my city no longer have funding for Prof. Development. Maybe there are lots of funding opportunities out there, but I have not seen too many yet.
* Speed up ala.org. I know it's probably going through growing pains, but I'm experiencing 2 minute load times frequently.

These are just off the top of my head. I may be completely wrong about some of this. I still feel a little (ok, a lot) lost in ALA, but I've only been in about 9 months.

[Jenny Levine]

Hi, Karin --

Some additional thoughts from me....

1. The student wiki. Actually, there is no intention of putting this behind a paywall, and you can even see it right now at http://wikis.ala.org/students/. I know it seems like it should be easy to add content to this, but ALA has more than 25 wikis right now, in addition to the more than 25 blogs, plus 60,000+ web pages, so finding the time to add content is a real problem (as is true in most libraries, I think). John Chrastka was doing a great job of convening a group of staff to work on it, but then crises came up, conferences happened, and now we need to regroup. We really do want to make this open and useful, and we very much want it to be a collaborative effort. The feeling here is that we need to figure out the structure and navigation before announcing it. I'm hoping we'll jumpstart this effort after Annual (which, as I'm learning, takes *a lot* of peoples' time around here).

2. Short-term commitments. Any ideas on what that means to you? I've been struggling with it myself, which was one reason for this post.

3. Open content. I'm with you on the American Libraries complaint, as there is lots of stuff *I* want to link to! There is one corner here that would like to open it up, but another corner that views it as a member perk. We already hear a lot of "what do I get for my dues" or "what does ALA do for me?" sentiments, and while I don't think anyone is joining just for the magazine or the AL Direct email (which I personally find very informative), I find myself sympathizing with both sides. Does it seem like a perk to you? This is another piece I am struggling with personally.

4. Help getting started within ALA. Again, we know this is an issue, and we're trying to take steps to address this. For example, the Read, Write, Connect wiki is our attempt to pull together in one place the current awareness types of services we offer. That doesn't really help you get started, though. I am part of a group that is organizing a "Get Involved" wiki that should resolve some, if not most, of these issues, but we've also hit a time roadblock. I am putting all of my eggs in the "we'll have more free time in August to work on this" basket. If you have suggestions for this wiki, we'd love to hear them. Again, the wiki is up at http://wikis.ala.org/getinvolved/, and it will be open for collaboration. We do have good intentions....

5. Financial help for Annual. Did you see John Chrastka's post on MemberBlog about Travel Awards for Annual 2007? John doesn't post as often as others, but when he does, it's usually good stuff. Do you have other ideas for things we could do in this area?

6. Speed up the website. Are you experiencing this lagtime on the website itself or a particular service on it? I know it's difficult to distinguish between the two, and the second is really the first, but I'm just trying to understand is it basic web pages, forms, or something else. I wonder if the lag period is due to the fact that we are in the middle of migrating from one CMS to another. Half the organization is on the new system, so we have a hardware switch in place that redirects those web pages to the new system. If so, then we should see speed improvements when the migration finishes later this year. I know it sounds like it should be a quick project, but 11 divisions, several "units/offices," and 60,000+ pages does take a while. I know the new CMS is supposed to serve up web pages faster, too, so hopefully this will improve soon.

I totally get the "lost in ALA" feeling you note. I feel that way myself, especially when folks around here throw around acronyms I don't know. I have some ideas for demystifying the organization (one of which you'll see this week if all goes well). I really appreciate you posting your thoughts here, as these kinds of discussions help us move forward and better meet member needs. I'd love to hear more of your thoughts on all of this.

Thanks again,
Jenny