Greetings, NMRT colleagues,
Below, please find the most recent update from the ALA Executive Board, provided by our awesome liaison,
@Karen Schneider!
Key highlights from the October 29-31, 2021 Executive Board Fall meeting:
- Development Office
- Reconstitute and realign the Office into more of an advancement-focused department.
- Contracted with an online platform called Free Will, a for profit company which has devised an easy way for members of the public to go online and to create a valid Will.
- The library champions program continues to hold steady.
- Executive Director Update
- Pivot strategy launch in the beginning of fiscal year (October 1) and benchmarking ourselves against other associations (e.g. operational ratios).
- A business development plan and recommendation on best practices for JobLIST is underway.
- ALA staffing update was provided - keeping an eye on alignment of programs and services with expenses.
- Recognized the work on the EDI inventory across the organization.
- Membership Report
- Focus for the year remains on membership growth, both of library worker members and supporting students as they graduate from LIS programs, as well as getting library lovers more involved in ALA.
- Pilot membership recruitment work is underway with Chapters, Divisions and Round Tables.
- Conference Services
- Good registration numbers, collaborative marketing updates, and program submissions selected for the Library Learning Experience (LLX).
- The Annual Conference skeleton schedule was presented and approved. A hybrid component for Annual Conference is still under review.
- Communication Marketing Office
- Communications cross functional team is well on its way to inventorying and assessing communications vehicles in the hopes of optimizing ALA's external and member-facing communications to achieve its business goals.
- Working with the ALA Branding Workgroup that was established to build a new visibility campaign that positions both ALA and Libraries as essential, to increase the awareness of ALA in the general public, to attract new donors and supporters, and to position ALA in a positive light for new and renewing members.
- Financial Update
- FY21 Preliminary 3rd Quarter Financials total revenue and expenses exceeded the budget. A positive budget variance. PPP loan forgiveness exceeds the deficit and helps offset losses but still does not cover outstanding expenses and debt.
- FY22 Budget revisions includes LibLearnX as a virtual conference and revised annual estimates of income $72,047,000.
- Five Year Financial Plan - provides a five-year financial look-back and a five-year look-forward for ALA, aligning with the Pivot Plan.
- Continuing Education projections reflect start-up costs and very conservative budgeting. The Controller's Report indicates stronger liquidity.
- Endowment Trustee Report - the book value of the endowment has been trending down. Trustees continue to review ALA's investments with Merrill Lynch, as well as reviewing the Trustee selection process.
- Operating Agreement Working Group
- Three options for overhead were reviewed (keep as is, modify practice, or eliminate). Will have drafts for comments in April 2022. At ALA Annual June 2022, a final report and recommendation will be shared.
- Transforming ALA Governance (TAG) Task Force
- The work of this task force is addressing governance at a structural, functional and cultural level. The plan will be brought to ALA Council in January 2022.
- Public Policy and Advocacy Office
- The Committee on Legislation is working on the 2022 legislative agenda, the Library of Congress illegal alien subheading issue, and eBooks issue which calls for fair pricing from publishers.
- Working with the Chapter & International Relations Office to engage more student members in advocacy and chapter relations work and worked with the Office for Intellectual Freedom on a state legislative summit.
- Chapter and International Relations
- Engagement in international members is being worked on to help increase memberships.
- Coordinating the COVID library relief fund through Mellon Foundation and Acton Family giving to distribute $1.5 million to 34 different libraries across the country.
- Information Technology Update
- Provided an update on activities as well as the goals for IT for 2022. IMIS upgrade and cleanup; Hard drives social media cleanup; Revenue and membership dashboards to establish baseline statistics; Develop a plan to move all off-site data services to the cloud; Develop a plan for future websites to support our current system, which will end November 2022.
- Equity Diversity and Inclusion Update
- The EDI Assembly will examine the charge and emphasize that the assembly convenes various individuals and groups doing great EDI work to collaborate.
- The Committee on Diversity created an EDI score card last year, will focus on Council approval of the score card, and the hope is that it will be used as a template for project integration.
- Diversity and Longitudinal study made possible through the Mellon grant that will reinvent and update the diversity council initiative from 2012. Currently working with related groups on developing an RFP to identify data scientists and analysts to support the project. NALCO members are serving as advisory stakeholders as well. There was a kick-off meetings to discuss roles and designate liaisons.
- Office of Intellectual Freedom Report
- The intersection of Intellectual Freedom and Social Justice working group is working on a report about alternatives to neutrality language while still focused on the radical empathy concept and reviewing feedback from initial circulation of the working draft.
- The Intellectual Freedom Committee has a number of subgroups that are working on statements and policies addressing intellectual freedom. Revising the Freedom to Read statement.
- OIF is addressing an unprecedented number of challenges and controversies.
- Equity Diversity and Inclusion and the intersection of Social Justice
- The Board to consider implementation of the actionable items outlined in the draft document, which the subgroup will review and finalize to bring back to the Board for discussion and approval.
- Accreditation Update
- Goal is to work with ALISE on a survey that would be jointly sent to the larger LIS education community and to look at the responses at a future Board meeting.
- President Wong will have an informal meeting with ALISE leadership to re-establish a formal relationship on Accreditation.
- Publishing Report
- ALA Publishing Committee charge is outdated and reflects a model of publishing that no longer exists. Revised charge for approval forthcoming.
- Received Mellon funding to support the Booklist Reader, which is a monthly patron-facing magazine to highlight content for general readers with a focus on EDISJ. This launched in September and is currently digital only with hopes of going to print.
- Moved to the Chicago Distribution Center, the new fulfillment vendor, which has good connection with BiblioVault, an opportunity to grow our eBook and digital content opportunities in coming years.
- Emerging Issues
- The Committee on Organization asked about their involvement/role in the Transforming ALA Governance Task Force work.
- The Constitution and Bylaws Committee is looking at and discussing Council Document (CD) 42.1.
- NALCos raised questions about diversity related programs at LibLearnX, which might need further exploration.
- GNCRT would like clarification on the role of Round Tables going forward at LibLearnX.
- Engagement with ALA-APA was asked as well as an update on ASGCLA transition activities.
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Board Approved Action
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ALA Office
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Responsible Person
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The ALA Executive Board approves the simplified ALA member model with Professional Options to be renamed and provide additional work around pricing and bundling to be brought to the Spring Executive Board meeting
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Membership
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Melissa Walling
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On the recommendation of the ALA Membership Committee, the ALA Executive Board to change the salary threshold for non-salaried membership from $30,000 to $45,000 for FY23.
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Membership
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Melissa Walling
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The ALA Executive Board approves the skeleton schedule for the 2022 Annual Conference in Washington DC on June 23-28, 2022 as amended to move the Executive Committee Meeting virtually a week prior.
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Conference Services, Governance
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Earla Jones, Sheryl Reyes
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On the recommendation of BARC & F&A, the ALA Executive Board approves the Final FY 22 Budget and Annual Estimates of Income of $72,047,000 as highlighted in document EBD #3.1
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Finance
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Denise Moritz
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On the recommendation of F&A, the ALA Executive Board accepts the ALA Retirement Plan audit as issued by PKF Mueller and highlighted in EBD #3.5
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Finance
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Denise Moritz
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The ALA Executive Board approves Executive Director Hall's recommendation that staff articulate an internal EDISJ staff action plan to integrate with the work at the Executive Board level.
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Executive Office
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Tracie Hall
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The ALA Executive Board adjourned into closed session several times throughout the meeting to discuss:
- ALA Board Retreat & Effectiveness;
- Legal Update;
- Membership Model;
- Social Media and Triage Protocol;
- Retirement Plan, Contracts, Appointments and Nominations;
- Office of Intellectual Freedom Confidential Report; and
- Executive Director Evaluation.
Note: The EB goes into closed session to discuss matters that should not be discussed publicly for legal reasons, may be sensitive in nature, or are not yet ready to be announced.
The next ALA Executive Board meeting is Tuesday, December 21. The full EB meeting schedule can be found here. Most EB documents are publicly available here.
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Dani Cook
Associate University Librarian, Learning and User Experience
UC San Diego Library
She/Her/Hers
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