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From the President
As many of you know, CLA has been talking about its governance structure. CLA conducted a survey to get an idea of how you all felt about CLA membership: how you participate, why you are a member, and how you think we can improve. Following that, a task force, appointed last year by Margaret Todd, worked on different possibilities and perspectives, having long conversations about CLA's relevancy and future. It was not an easy discussion, but an interesting, lively, and important one.
The goal is to find ways to attract new members, retain the members we have, and create a more interactive organization that's easy to understand. We hope for more active participation, a leaner governance structure, and possibly the ability to have members who can participate even if they cannot travel to a physical location. The world of technology can make many things possible, and I, for one, welcome the opportunity for us to engage members in many ways. The result of the task force's work is "Proposal to Reorganize CLA to Enhance Member Participation and Relevance," which you can find on this blog and below as a printable pdf document.
This proposal was presented at CLA to both the outgoing and the incoming Assembly. Before that, the Executive Committee had weighed in, making suggestions to tweak the proposal, as well as to confirm that we wanted to pursue this proposal. Now, it's up to you to provide us with your thoughts, ideas, and comments.
I will say here what I told the Assembly groups: this is a proposal. It's not a done deal. In fact, some pieces of this would require a vote of the membership to enact. However, it is a document constructed over many days, with all types of librarians and library workers participating. It is also not the idea of one consultant. CLA hired a consultant to keep the process moving and to keep the group focused. Because of his experience as a consultant with other library organizations, the consultant was familiar with the issues we face. Because of his experience in the professional organization sector, he was able to provide us with some industry information and trends. The ideas themselves, however, come from a group of people. Last, this is not something that will be implemented over night. It will require a transition and a plan to make this as successful as possible.
Some of the ideas are unusual, some might seem extremely logical. You may agree with some ideas and disagree with others. I just hope you will discuss the ideas, think about other solutions, and offer them to us for consideration. CLA is making every effort to enable the reply/comment feature on the blog. I will send out a notice via CALIX when it's operational. In the meantime, I welcome your comments to me personally, and I will continue to collect them if you prefer not to post them once that feature is enabled. The nice thing about the reply feature will be the ability to create an interactive dialog. It's a little less scientific than a survey, but allows for greater communication among members.
CLA will collect comments and collate them along with suggestions and ideas. At their January 2008 meeting, the Executive Committee will once again look at the proposal, along with the input from the membership, and will consider whether or not to continue with the proposal.
I encourage you, once again, to take time to make suggestions, ask questions, and provide comments. CLA will be the better for it!
Monique le Conge
2008 President
monique_leconge@ci.richmond.ca.us
Posted on November 16, 2007 9:41 AM | Permalink