ALA Members

I just received an e-mail from CORE instructing me to phone ALA membership to initiate my membership in CORE following the demise of ALCTS.  My understanding was that ALCTS members whose dues were current would be automatically transferred to CORE.  Is the membership office really expecting to receive phone calls from every current ALCTS member?  This is highly annoying.

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John DeSantis
Cataloging & Metadata Services Librarian
Dartmouth College
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I also received said email... and I had the same understanding.   Not sure what the deal is
Richard

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Richard Guinn
Cataloging Librarian
Southern Maryland Regional Library Association, Inc.
He/Him/His
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Original Message:
Sent: Sep 01, 2020 04:43 PM
From: John DeSantis
Subject: ALCTS- CORE transition


I just received an e-mail from CORE instructing me to phone ALA membership to initiate my membership in CORE following the demise of ALCTS.  My understanding was that ALCTS members whose dues were current would be automatically transferred to CORE.  Is the membership office really expecting to receive phone calls from every current ALCTS member?  This is highly annoying.

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John DeSantis
Cataloging & Metadata Services Librarian
Dartmouth College
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John: The email that I received had essentially three options. Two were numbered, as: "1. Join online." (a link) and "2. Call the ALA Member and Customer Services team at 1-800-545-2433." Then after another paragraph there was a link in the form of a blue rectangle with the words "Activate My Membership Online".
Initially, the "Join online" link took me to a page asking me to join ALA as if I were not already a member. So I went to the main ALA page and logged in to my account. Nothing in "My Account" gives any information on actual membership specifics (divisions, sections, etc.). In order to find that out, I had to click on a "renew" link, which took me to a different part of the ALA site ("ec.ala.org/...") that gave my membership summary. And it did show that I was a member of Core, paid up through 12/31/2020. Once having landed on this page, both the "Join online" and "Activate ..." links take me directly to it. (It may also simply be that I was logged in to my account on those subsequent tries, as opposed to not being logged in on the first try.)
The membership summary page gave me the option to "Add New Divisions", "Add/Drop Sections", and "Add New Round Tables".  I thought I'd make sure I was a member of a section within Core, but clicking on that button returned the message "There are no sections for this division." That's strange, I thought; I was sure I'd seen that the new division contained sections. So I went back to the Core site, and sure enough, it says there are 6 sections. (Of course, getting back to the Core site was not as easy as I expected. Once in "ec.ala.org/..." you're stuck there--no links within that site will take you back to the main ALA site.)
This seems all pretty much par for the course when it comes to ALA. A major professional organization devoted to information continues to have a very problematic website and substandard membership communications.

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Kevin Randall
Principal Serials Cataloger
Northwestern University Libraries
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Original Message:
Sent: Sep 01, 2020 04:43 PM
From: John DeSantis
Subject: ALCTS- CORE transition


I just received an e-mail from CORE instructing me to phone ALA membership to initiate my membership in CORE following the demise of ALCTS.  My understanding was that ALCTS members whose dues were current would be automatically transferred to CORE.  Is the membership office really expecting to receive phone calls from every current ALCTS member?  This is highly annoying.

------------------------------
John DeSantis
Cataloging & Metadata Services Librarian
Dartmouth College
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 9/2/2020 11:58:00 AM
From: Kevin Randall
Subject: RE: ALCTS- CORE transition

John: The email that I received had essentially three options. Two were numbered, as: "1. Join online." (a link) and "2. Call the ALA Member and Customer Services team at 1-800-545-2433." Then after another paragraph there was a link in the form of a blue rectangle with the words "Activate My Membership Online".
Initially, the "Join online" link took me to a page asking me to join ALA as if I were not already a member. So I went to the main ALA page and logged in to my account. Nothing in "My Account" gives any information on actual membership specifics (divisions, sections, etc.). In order to find that out, I had to click on a "renew" link, which took me to a different part of the ALA site ("ec.ala.org/...") that gave my membership summary. And it did show that I was a member of Core, paid up through 12/31/2020. Once having landed on this page, both the "Join online" and "Activate ..." links take me directly to it. (It may also simply be that I was logged in to my account on those subsequent tries, as opposed to not being logged in on the first try.)
The membership summary page gave me the option to "Add New Divisions", "Add/Drop Sections", and "Add New Round Tables".  I thought I'd make sure I was a member of a section within Core, but clicking on that button returned the message "There are no sections for this division." That's strange, I thought; I was sure I'd seen that the new division contained sections. So I went back to the Core site, and sure enough, it says there are 6 sections. (Of course, getting back to the Core site was not as easy as I expected. Once in "ec.ala.org/..." you're stuck there--no links within that site will take you back to the main ALA site.)
This seems all pretty much par for the course when it comes to ALA. A major professional organization devoted to information continues to have a very problematic website and substandard membership communications.

------------------------------
Kevin Randall
Principal Serials Cataloger
Northwestern University Libraries
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: Sep 01, 2020 04:43 PM
From: John DeSantis
Subject: ALCTS- CORE transition


I just received an e-mail from CORE instructing me to phone ALA membership to initiate my membership in CORE following the demise of ALCTS.  My understanding was that ALCTS members whose dues were current would be automatically transferred to CORE.  Is the membership office really expecting to receive phone calls from every current ALCTS member?  This is highly annoying.

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John DeSantis
Cataloging & Metadata Services Librarian
Dartmouth College
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Hello all,

My sincerest apologies for the confusion. Please disregard the "activate your membership" portion of that email as it was sent in error. I sent out a correction message immediately following.

Since you all were members of ALCTS prior to September 1, your Core membership has already been activated. You do not need to do anything else. You're already in  the ALA system as a Core member. 

My apologizes for the confusion. I appreciate your patience during this transition period.

Let me know if you have any further questions. Thanks!

Chrishelle

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Chrishelle Thomas
Membership and Marketing Manager
American Library Association / LITA
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Original Message:
Sent: Sep 02, 2020 11:03 AM
From: John DeSantis
Subject: ALCTS- CORE transition

Thanks, Kevin-I ended up doing the same thing with the same result.  But just this morning ALA sent out a message clarifying that the one that we received was sent to ALCTS and LLAMA members in error, and that in fact our membership was transferred over to CORE.

And I agree with you about the endless IT issues within ALA.

 

Sent from Mail for Windows 10

 

Original Message:
Sent: 9/2/2020 11:58:00 AM
From: Kevin Randall
Subject: RE: ALCTS- CORE transition

John: The email that I received had essentially three options. Two were numbered, as: "1. Join online." (a link) and "2. Call the ALA Member and Customer Services team at 1-800-545-2433." Then after another paragraph there was a link in the form of a blue rectangle with the words "Activate My Membership Online".
Initially, the "Join online" link took me to a page asking me to join ALA as if I were not already a member. So I went to the main ALA page and logged in to my account. Nothing in "My Account" gives any information on actual membership specifics (divisions, sections, etc.). In order to find that out, I had to click on a "renew" link, which took me to a different part of the ALA site ("ec.ala.org/...") that gave my membership summary. And it did show that I was a member of Core, paid up through 12/31/2020. Once having landed on this page, both the "Join online" and "Activate ..." links take me directly to it. (It may also simply be that I was logged in to my account on those subsequent tries, as opposed to not being logged in on the first try.)
The membership summary page gave me the option to "Add New Divisions", "Add/Drop Sections", and "Add New Round Tables".  I thought I'd make sure I was a member of a section within Core, but clicking on that button returned the message "There are no sections for this division." That's strange, I thought; I was sure I'd seen that the new division contained sections. So I went back to the Core site, and sure enough, it says there are 6 sections. (Of course, getting back to the Core site was not as easy as I expected. Once in "ec.ala.org/..." you're stuck there--no links within that site will take you back to the main ALA site.)
This seems all pretty much par for the course when it comes to ALA. A major professional organization devoted to information continues to have a very problematic website and substandard membership communications.

------------------------------
Kevin Randall
Principal Serials Cataloger
Northwestern University Libraries

Original Message:
Sent: Sep 01, 2020 04:43 PM
From: John DeSantis
Subject: ALCTS- CORE transition


I just received an e-mail from CORE instructing me to phone ALA membership to initiate my membership in CORE following the demise of ALCTS.  My understanding was that ALCTS members whose dues were current would be automatically transferred to CORE.  Is the membership office really expecting to receive phone calls from every current ALCTS member?  This is highly annoying.

------------------------------
John DeSantis
Cataloging & Metadata Services Librarian
Dartmouth College
------------------------------