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From The President
How long have you been a member of CLA? How did you decide to become a member? Was it when you were a library school student? A rookie librarian? Or did your library sign you up? CLA is as good as the members it has. It has always been so. The CLA staff does a great job of keeping us moving on a day-to-day basis, but the membership helps steer the ship, as well as getting the work of the organization done. Thank you, by the way, for helping!
As an organization, we have a wonderful opportunity over the next couple of years, as we can see from the following:
As part of its commitment to the profession, the San Jose School of Library and Information Science will enroll all of its MLIS students as members of the American Library Association (ALA) and the California Library Association (CLA). Director Ken Haycock and faculty believe that this membership and the attendant readings will enhance student understanding of the profession and the issues it faces, part of the content of its program, and encourage connections between the associations and SLIS students.
The ALA and CLA are "umbrella" associations open to all regardless of preferred work environment so the School worked with them.
Students who are already a member of ALA or CLA will have their membership extended for a year.
Students who live in another state will receive the ALA membership; if the state has a state association with an arrangement with ALA (there are sixteen at present) they will be joined with that state association as well; in other words a student in Washington will be joined with the Washington Library Association, not the California Library Association; if there is no affiliated program the student will join ALA only.
Over the course of 18 months more than 2,200 San Jose graduate students will become ALA members.
Wow! A great influx of new professionals, interested in all types of libraries will be joining CLA. Their ideas and inspiration from their education will only enhance what we have to offer. I do think this is a two-way street that will benefit everyone. Anytime that I have taught a class or presented a workshop, I have learned from the students. Each time, I learn something. We will all learn from these new members, if we make the most of this opportunity.
This opportunity presents a challenge: making CLA responsive and attractive as a membership organization. What ideas do you have for not only attracting new members, but encouraging those members to renew their memberships? What would you change about the organization, the conference, the activities? I'd like to know, because that many new members will be a boon to CLA; I want to make sure that there is enough to keep them, as well as to serve the existing membership. Examining our governance, which we discussed at the conference, is one way to look at our flexibility and inclusiveness as an organization. I hope that you will take the time to e-mail me your comments or ideas about the suggestions which we'll be talking about more over the coming months. If you have ideas about getting and keeping members involved, though, I am eager to hear them!
It is such a simple idea, signing up the students. One of the libraries that I worked for did provide personal membership in CLA as a benefit of employment, which I really appreciated when I was a beginning librarian. It made it easier to be involved, and if I had to pay for my own travel, I didn't mind as much. This is a great benefit if you are able to offer it to your employees (if you are an employee, maybe you'd like to suggest it), along with the institutional membership for your library.
I appreciate Ken Haycock's vision and support, and look forward to working with San Jose over my term as President to find innovative ways to keep those student members. Thank you, Ken, for working with CLA!
Monique le Conge
2008 President
monique_leconge@ci.richmond.ca.us
Posted on November 9, 2007 5:57 PM | Permalink