Amy Brunvand here,
I'm the current chair of the Sustainabilty Round Table (SustainRT) and also a GODORT member.
It seems to me that GODORT has largely defined itself around the FDLP and that creates an image problem, making documents librarianship sound more like cataloging than like public service, reference, information literacy, and community engagement.
I believe that GODORT could boost membership by focusing on civic engagement and how it intersects with the interests of other ALA Round Tables.
As a docs librarian myself, it seems to me that many of the questions people have about their local communities are actually policy questions. In a reference context they can be answered by answering the questions, Who are the stakeholders? Why do they care? What government agency is responsible to manage it? (Common ground with the Library Instruction Round Table?).
For many years (not in my librarian role) I have written an environmental news digest for "Catalyst," a community non-profit magazine that serves the Salt Lake City Area. Astute documents librarians will notice that my digest is nearly all government information-- federal, state and local. The amazing thing is, when Catalyst polled readers, this government documents-intensive information turned out to be a major reason why people pick up the magazine. People are confused by government information, but at the same time they actually want to know what's going on in their community. :
Environews Archives | Catalyst Magazine
As local newspapers fold this becomes even more important. I think there is a big role for libraries in doing something similar to my news digest to highlight government information that affects the local community.
I wrote about this idea for sustainability and civic engagement in DTTP:
Brunvand, Amy, and Ambra Gagliardi. "Sustainability, Relocalization, Citizen Activism, and Government Information."
DttP 43 (2015): 10.
Civic engagement is also key to the UN Sustainable Development Goals;
IFLA -- Libraries, Development and the United Nations 2030 Agenda GODORT could be central to this kind of trendsetting librarianship.
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Amy Brunvand
Associate Librarian
University of Utah
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Original Message:
Sent: Sep 17, 2018 03:14 PM
From: Hallie Pritchett
Subject: Update on GODORT's membership
According to ALA, a round table's personal membership must be at least 1% of ALA's personal membership as of August 31st in any given year to have a dedicated Councilor. As of July, 2018, ALA has 52,379 personal members and GODORT has 456. Based on these numbers, GODORT needed to have at least 524 members to retain its Councilor position after Bill Sudduth's term expires at Annual 2019; as of August 31st, we are 68 members short. Unfortunately, there is no grace period; after Annual 2019, GODORT will not have its own Councilor until our membership reaches at least 1% of ALA's personal membership.
However, the impending loss of our Councilor is a merely a symptom of a much larger issue: over the past decade, GODORT's decline in membership has greatly outpaced ALA's decline in membership. Since 2007, GODORT has gone from a high of 1120 members to 456 as of last month, a decline of 59.3%. Over the same time period, ALA went from 64,729 members to 59,379, a decline of 8.3%. Further information about ALA's membership statistics can be found here: http://www.ala.org/membership/membershipstats_files/annual_memb_stats.
Over the past month, the Steering Committee has had numerous online discussions about what lead to the decline in membership and what we can do to address the issue. Based on these discussions, Steering has identified several actions we plan to take in the coming months:
- Restructure how we handle our online presence, including finishing the website migration and establishing a new committee charged with website maintenance and overseeing GODORT's social media outlets,
- Plan our in-person meeting schedules around meetings, programs, and activities designed to demonstrate GODORT's value and attract new members,
- Start a membership drive to recruit new members,
- Explore the possibility of merging with another round table or division.
I encourage all GODORT members to offer their thoughts on our membership issue on ALA Connect (https://connect.ala.org/godort/home). GODORT members are also encouraged to attend the upcoming Steering Committee meeting on September 24th, where our membership issue will be the main agenda item; details about that meeting will be posted in a separate message.
One final point to emphasize: although the loss of our Councilor was the catalyst for this discussion, regaining that position is NOT our primary goal. Our goal is to make GODORT stronger and more attractive to new members; increasing our membership and getting our Councilor back are one of several outcomes that will be achieved by meeting that goal. Working together, we can ensure that GODORT remains a vital and vibrant organization for all current and future information professionals that work with government information.
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Hallie Pritchett
GODORT Chair 2018/19
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