CLA Weblog Submissions
To navigate our archives, please click on a category to the left. Do you have information that would be of interest to the library community? Please send your weblog submissions to the CLA office at info@cla-net.org.
President's Column
Hello California Library Association members!
As your President for 2009/10, I've had an eventful three weeks since the gavel was passed at Conference. From the unfortunate rupture with San Jose State University to the shocking closure of the City of Colton's libraries in Southern California to the successful recruitment of a strong and experienced Executive Director for CLA to the physical relocation of CLA's offices and transition to a new management structure - whew!
Thankfully, each of these adventures has been met with offers of help, great teamwork, problem-solving, kindness and goodwill. I am grateful to be working with so many others of talent and commitment across the state (and the country) to serve California communities, support California libraries, renew and revitalize CLA.
For those who were not able to attend the 111th Annual CLA Conference at Pasadena on November 1, I wanted to share an abbreviated version of my introduction of myself and my hopes for CLA the next year:
These are unprecedented times - for our communities, our libraries across the state, and for the California Library Association. We need to act creatively and realistically, envision a future beyond current limitations, and build toward that future. I applaud Past President Barbara Roberts, the Board and CLA staff for doing all of this during the past year.
Many of you may not know me. My name is Kim Ly Bui-Burton. I am the child of a first generation immigrant, and I share this heritage, and this poem I wrote for my father, with many of us living in California.
My Father's Pho
The broth is always steaming when I arrive;
oxtail-scented mist,
the way the morning began in his childhood,
fog rising off the Mekong,
the soup-vendor's cart close behind.
Pale half moons of onion - "oignon" -
that word the French forced on his tongue.
Ordered piles of beef:
"meat is a seasoning, not a meal."
Coriander's leafy green.
He remembers the colors steeping the hills,
add rice sticks, bleached as the stalks
harvested after American rain.
White ao dai, white bones.
The noodles curl thick in the pot.
All this my father gives me:
memory's meat; the salt of nuoc mam
and grief, heat of soup, his lost life.
He finishes with the sweetness of lime.
The first bowl is mine. I will eat.
I'm the Director at Monterey Public Library - the same library where I worked my first job - as a Page - when I was 16. As California's first Vietnamese-American Library Director (but not the last) giving back to CLA has long been something I've wanted to do.
Sixteen years ago, CLA took a chance on the future of a first-year San Jose State graduate student/single mom - me - by selecting me as a recipient of the Scholarship for Minority Students in Memory of Edna Yelland. That financial and professional support changed my life, as did the friendships and professional growth that CLA Conferences and activities have fostered and sustained. I am honored and humbled to be here.
And where is here? For CLA, this past year, and these past few weeks, has been one of challenge and change. In keeping with Past President Barbara Roberts' goals from last year, my focus is to continue the revitalization of CLA by:
- completing its infrastructure work
- expanding our relationships with other library organizations and stakeholders
- improving our value and usefulness to all of you - and your institutions and communities
- demonstrating respect, integrity, clarity and transparency in everything we say and do
When I think about library staff and library supporters across the state, I imagine that we live in the same world - communities struggling to survive difficult times; physical libraries as essential and poorly funded community anchors whether in cities, towns, rural areas, tribal lands, universities, community colleges, schools or businesses; residents young and old embracing and demanding technologies for productivity, creativity and connection; growing needs and shrinking resources.
But I can't be sure of that until I ask you - what are you facing? What do your communities need? What solutions have you found? What can your Library Association provide to transcend this difficult time?
With the help of the new Board you have elected to represent you in the year ahead, CLA's new Executive Director and increased CLA staff through our contract association management firm ARC, these questions will be asked - and answered - in the coming year.
We will invite our statewide library partners - including the State Library, InfoPeople, Califa, CALTAC, schools of library and information science, other library associations and more - to meet with the Board and myself to talk and think about how we will work more closely together.
We will reach out to all of you - professionals and paraprofessionals, community volunteers, new and seasoned CLA members, committees, interest groups and allies - so that your voices are heard in CLA's strategic planning process. The plan that we create - together - will set the course for CLA for the future.
As California libraries and California library supporters, we must act together. Our missions and populations may be different and diverse, yet they are overlapping. These differences cannot, must not, divide us.
Our strength comes from our diversity, our commitment to shared values, literacy and lifelong learning, our history, our dedication, our passion. I ask each of you to bring your whole self to the table for CLA as we join together to shape our future. Together, we will Navigate the New!
Kim Bui-Burton
CLA President
Posted on November 25, 2009 9:30 AM | Permalink