SRRT (Social Responsibilities Round Table)

ALA Forward has redefined both what the American Library Association claims to value and how power is exercised inside it.

The revision of the core values and the restructuring of governance are not parallel tracks. They were mutually reinforcing moves that together replaced a member-driven, conflict-tolerant association with a managed organization designed to minimize democratic risk.

The revision of the core values is settled. A historically expansive ethical framework, built through decades of struggle over democracy, social responsibility, intellectual freedom, equity, and international solidarity, has been narrowed through consolidation and elimination. This was justified as streamlining, yet its real effect is to dissolve specific political commitments into generalized professional virtues. Values that once named obligations to oppose repression, challenge state power, and act collectively across borders no longer stand as independent anchors. The ethical inheritance of librarianship is now presented as something to be curated for coherence rather than preserved in its full, demanding plurality.

The governance changes give this ethical contraction institutional force. Council, once a central deliberative body with real authority to shape policy and direction, is increasingly repositioned as a forum for ratification rather than decision. Its scope is narrowed, its agenda more tightly controlled, and its ability to initiate binding action reduced. What appears as efficiency is, in practice, a loss of member sovereignty.

Round tables and member groups, historically the engines of political pressure within ALA, are weakened through restructuring that reframes them as advisory or affinity-based rather than as sites of organized power. Their capacity to place issues on the association's agenda, sustain oppositional work, or force institutional response is curtailed. The language of inclusion remains, but the mechanisms through which inclusion once translated into consequence are dismantled.

In their place, ALA Forward elevates smaller, more centralized bodies whose legitimacy derives from strategic alignment rather than democratic accountability. Decision-making authority is concentrated in committees and leadership structures insulated from sustained member pressure. Participation is preserved as consultation, listening sessions, and feedback loops, all carefully detached from binding outcomes. Members are invited to speak, but increasingly prevented from deciding.

This restructuring resolves a longstanding tension in ALA's history by decisively favoring managerial control over democratic contestation. For much of its existence, ALA functioned as an arena in which internal conflict was not a malfunction but a source of ethical and political development. ALA Forward recasts that history as inefficiency. Disagreement becomes misalignment. Dissent becomes obstruction. Democracy itself is reduced to a process of managed input.

Seen together, the narrowed values and centralized governance form a closed system. Once democracy and social responsibility are no longer articulated with specificity, governance reforms that hollow them out can proceed without contradiction. Once opposition to injustice is no longer clearly named as a core value, it can be sidelined as optional advocacy. The structure is designed to absorb critique while preventing it from altering direction.

Because this transformation is already complete, appeals to reform ALA Forward from within its own framework amount to chasing a receding horizon. The framework has been engineered to neutralize precisely the forms of collective pressure that once forced the association to live up to its stated ideals. Dissent survives as gesture, diversity as display, participation as performance.

Under these conditions, parallel organizing, perhaps, is no longer a supplementary tactic or a temporary response. It may become the primary site where democratic librarianship can still be practiced. Parallel structures might preserve the fuller historical understanding of librarianship as a collective, political, and ethically demanding project. They might allow members to deliberate, decide, and act without passing through managerial filters designed to contain conflict.

Parallel organizing would not reject ALA's history. It would refuse its administrative rewriting. It would recognize that when values are narrowed and governance is centralized, the work of democracy cannot be restored through procedural tweaks. It has to be rebuilt elsewhere, deliberately, openly, and without asking permission from a structure that has already decided what kind of politics it will allow. What forms this might take remain to be articulated. Whether it is possible or not is not clear.




I know this analysis (for which, by the way, I can provide a more detailed mapping) will occasion much controversy. Let's try to keep it respectful and professional. I look forward to your responses, fellow members!

ALA Forward has redefined both what the American Library Association claims to value and how power is exercised inside it.

The revision of the core values and the restructuring of governance are not parallel tracks. They were mutually reinforcing moves that together replaced a member-driven, conflict-tolerant association with a managed organization designed to minimize democratic risk.

The revision of the core values is settled. A historically expansive ethical framework, built through decades of struggle over democracy, social responsibility, intellectual freedom, equity, and international solidarity, has been narrowed through consolidation and elimination. This was justified as streamlining, yet its real effect is to dissolve specific political commitments into generalized professional virtues. Values that once named obligations to oppose repression, challenge state power, and act collectively across borders no longer stand as independent anchors. The ethical inheritance of librarianship is now presented as something to be curated for coherence rather than preserved in its full, demanding plurality.

The governance changes give this ethical contraction institutional force. Council, once a central deliberative body with real authority to shape policy and direction, is increasingly repositioned as a forum for ratification rather than decision. Its scope is narrowed, its agenda more tightly controlled, and its ability to initiate binding action reduced. What appears as efficiency is, in practice, a loss of member sovereignty.

Round tables and member groups, historically the engines of political pressure within ALA, are weakened through restructuring that reframes them as advisory or affinity-based rather than as sites of organized power. Their capacity to place issues on the association's agenda, sustain oppositional work, or force institutional response is curtailed. The language of inclusion remains, but the mechanisms through which inclusion once translated into consequence are dismantled.

In their place, ALA Forward elevates smaller, more centralized bodies whose legitimacy derives from strategic alignment rather than democratic accountability. Decision-making authority is concentrated in committees and leadership structures insulated from sustained member pressure. Participation is preserved as consultation, listening sessions, and feedback loops, all carefully detached from binding outcomes. Members are invited to speak, but increasingly prevented from deciding.

This restructuring resolves a longstanding tension in ALA's history by decisively favoring managerial control over democratic contestation. For much of its existence, ALA functioned as an arena in which internal conflict was not a malfunction but a source of ethical and political development. ALA Forward recasts that history as inefficiency. Disagreement becomes misalignment. Dissent becomes obstruction. Democracy itself is reduced to a process of managed input.

Seen together, the narrowed values and centralized governance form a closed system. Once democracy and social responsibility are no longer articulated with specificity, governance reforms that hollow them out can proceed without contradiction. Once opposition to injustice is no longer clearly named as a core value, it can be sidelined as optional advocacy. The structure is designed to absorb critique while preventing it from altering direction.

Because this transformation is already complete, appeals to reform ALA Forward from within its own framework amount to chasing a receding horizon. The framework has been engineered to neutralize precisely the forms of collective pressure that once forced the association to live up to its stated ideals. Dissent survives as gesture, diversity as display, participation as performance.

Under these conditions, parallel organizing, perhaps, is no longer a supplementary tactic or a temporary response. It may become the primary site where democratic librarianship can still be practiced. Parallel structures might preserve the fuller historical understanding of librarianship as a collective, political, and ethically demanding project. They might allow members to deliberate, decide, and act without passing through managerial filters designed to contain conflict.

Parallel organizing would not reject ALA's history. It would refuse its administrative rewriting. It would recognize that when values are narrowed and governance is centralized, the work of democracy cannot be restored through procedural tweaks. It has to be rebuilt elsewhere, deliberately, openly, and without asking permission from a structure that has already decided what kind of politics it will allow. What forms this might take remain to be articulated. Whether it is possible or not is not clear.




I know this analysis (for which, by the way, I can provide a more detailed mapping) will occasion much controversy. Let's try to keep it respectful and professional. I look forward to your responses, fellow members!

ALA Forward has redefined both what the American Library Association claims to value and how power is exercised inside it.

The revision of the core values and the restructuring of governance are not parallel tracks. They were mutually reinforcing moves that together replaced a member-driven, conflict-tolerant association with a managed organization designed to minimize democratic risk.

The revision of the core values is settled. A historically expansive ethical framework, built through decades of struggle over democracy, social responsibility, intellectual freedom, equity, and international solidarity, has been narrowed through consolidation and elimination. This was justified as streamlining, yet its real effect is to dissolve specific political commitments into generalized professional virtues. Values that once named obligations to oppose repression, challenge state power, and act collectively across borders no longer stand as independent anchors. The ethical inheritance of librarianship is now presented as something to be curated for coherence rather than preserved in its full, demanding plurality.

The governance changes give this ethical contraction institutional force. Council, once a central deliberative body with real authority to shape policy and direction, is increasingly repositioned as a forum for ratification rather than decision. Its scope is narrowed, its agenda more tightly controlled, and its ability to initiate binding action reduced. What appears as efficiency is, in practice, a loss of member sovereignty.

Round tables and member groups, historically the engines of political pressure within ALA, are weakened through restructuring that reframes them as advisory or affinity-based rather than as sites of organized power. Their capacity to place issues on the association's agenda, sustain oppositional work, or force institutional response is curtailed. The language of inclusion remains, but the mechanisms through which inclusion once translated into consequence are dismantled.

In their place, ALA Forward elevates smaller, more centralized bodies whose legitimacy derives from strategic alignment rather than democratic accountability. Decision-making authority is concentrated in committees and leadership structures insulated from sustained member pressure. Participation is preserved as consultation, listening sessions, and feedback loops, all carefully detached from binding outcomes. Members are invited to speak, but increasingly prevented from deciding.

This restructuring resolves a longstanding tension in ALA's history by decisively favoring managerial control over democratic contestation. For much of its existence, ALA functioned as an arena in which internal conflict was not a malfunction but a source of ethical and political development. ALA Forward recasts that history as inefficiency. Disagreement becomes misalignment. Dissent becomes obstruction. Democracy itself is reduced to a process of managed input.

Seen together, the narrowed values and centralized governance form a closed system. Once democracy and social responsibility are no longer articulated with specificity, governance reforms that hollow them out can proceed without contradiction. Once opposition to injustice is no longer clearly named as a core value, it can be sidelined as optional advocacy. The structure is designed to absorb critique while preventing it from altering direction.

Because this transformation is already complete, appeals to reform ALA Forward from within its own framework amount to chasing a receding horizon. The framework has been engineered to neutralize precisely the forms of collective pressure that once forced the association to live up to its stated ideals. Dissent survives as gesture, diversity as display, participation as performance.

Under these conditions, parallel organizing, perhaps, is no longer a supplementary tactic or a temporary response. It may become the primary site where democratic librarianship can still be practiced. Parallel structures might preserve the fuller historical understanding of librarianship as a collective, political, and ethically demanding project. They might allow members to deliberate, decide, and act without passing through managerial filters designed to contain conflict.

Parallel organizing would not reject ALA's history. It would refuse its administrative rewriting. It would recognize that when values are narrowed and governance is centralized, the work of democracy cannot be restored through procedural tweaks. It has to be rebuilt elsewhere, deliberately, openly, and without asking permission from a structure that has already decided what kind of politics it will allow. What forms this might take remain to be articulated. Whether it is possible or not is not clear.




I know this analysis (for which, by the way, I can provide a more detailed mapping) will occasion much controversy. Let's try to keep it respectful and professional. I look forward to your responses, fellow members!

ALA Forward has redefined both what the American Library Association claims to value and how power is exercised inside it.

The revision of the core values and the restructuring of governance are not parallel tracks. They were mutually reinforcing moves that together replaced a member-driven, conflict-tolerant association with a managed organization designed to minimize democratic risk.

The revision of the core values is settled. A historically expansive ethical framework, built through decades of struggle over democracy, social responsibility, intellectual freedom, equity, and international solidarity, has been narrowed through consolidation and elimination. This was justified as streamlining, yet its real effect is to dissolve specific political commitments into generalized professional virtues. Values that once named obligations to oppose repression, challenge state power, and act collectively across borders no longer stand as independent anchors. The ethical inheritance of librarianship is now presented as something to be curated for coherence rather than preserved in its full, demanding plurality.

The governance changes give this ethical contraction institutional force. Council, once a central deliberative body with real authority to shape policy and direction, is increasingly repositioned as a forum for ratification rather than decision. Its scope is narrowed, its agenda more tightly controlled, and its ability to initiate binding action reduced. What appears as efficiency is, in practice, a loss of member sovereignty.

Round tables and member groups, historically the engines of political pressure within ALA, are weakened through restructuring that reframes them as advisory or affinity-based rather than as sites of organized power. Their capacity to place issues on the association's agenda, sustain oppositional work, or force institutional response is curtailed. The language of inclusion remains, but the mechanisms through which inclusion once translated into consequence are dismantled.

In their place, ALA Forward elevates smaller, more centralized bodies whose legitimacy derives from strategic alignment rather than democratic accountability. Decision-making authority is concentrated in committees and leadership structures insulated from sustained member pressure. Participation is preserved as consultation, listening sessions, and feedback loops, all carefully detached from binding outcomes. Members are invited to speak, but increasingly prevented from deciding.

This restructuring resolves a longstanding tension in ALA's history by decisively favoring managerial control over democratic contestation. For much of its existence, ALA functioned as an arena in which internal conflict was not a malfunction but a source of ethical and political development. ALA Forward recasts that history as inefficiency. Disagreement becomes misalignment. Dissent becomes obstruction. Democracy itself is reduced to a process of managed input.

Seen together, the narrowed values and centralized governance form a closed system. Once democracy and social responsibility are no longer articulated with specificity, governance reforms that hollow them out can proceed without contradiction. Once opposition to injustice is no longer clearly named as a core value, it can be sidelined as optional advocacy. The structure is designed to absorb critique while preventing it from altering direction.

Because this transformation is already complete, appeals to reform ALA Forward from within its own framework amount to chasing a receding horizon. The framework has been engineered to neutralize precisely the forms of collective pressure that once forced the association to live up to its stated ideals. Dissent survives as gesture, diversity as display, participation as performance.

Under these conditions, parallel organizing, perhaps, is no longer a supplementary tactic or a temporary response. It may become the primary site where democratic librarianship can still be practiced. Parallel structures might preserve the fuller historical understanding of librarianship as a collective, political, and ethically demanding project. They might allow members to deliberate, decide, and act without passing through managerial filters designed to contain conflict.

Parallel organizing would not reject ALA's history. It would refuse its administrative rewriting. It would recognize that when values are narrowed and governance is centralized, the work of democracy cannot be restored through procedural tweaks. It has to be rebuilt elsewhere, deliberately, openly, and without asking permission from a structure that has already decided what kind of politics it will allow. What forms this might take remain to be articulated. Whether it is possible or not is not clear.




I know this analysis (for which, by the way, I can provide a more detailed mapping) will occasion much controversy. Let's try to keep it respectful and professional. I look forward to your responses, fellow members!

ALA Forward has redefined both what the American Library Association claims to value and how power is exercised inside it.

The revision of the core values and the restructuring of governance are not parallel tracks. They were mutually reinforcing moves that together replaced a member-driven, conflict-tolerant association with a managed organization designed to minimize democratic risk.

The revision of the core values is settled. A historically expansive ethical framework, built through decades of struggle over democracy, social responsibility, intellectual freedom, equity, and international solidarity, has been narrowed through consolidation and elimination. This was justified as streamlining, yet its real effect is to dissolve specific political commitments into generalized professional virtues. Values that once named obligations to oppose repression, challenge state power, and act collectively across borders no longer stand as independent anchors. The ethical inheritance of librarianship is now presented as something to be curated for coherence rather than preserved in its full, demanding plurality.

The governance changes give this ethical contraction institutional force. Council, once a central deliberative body with real authority to shape policy and direction, is increasingly repositioned as a forum for ratification rather than decision. Its scope is narrowed, its agenda more tightly controlled, and its ability to initiate binding action reduced. What appears as efficiency is, in practice, a loss of member sovereignty.

Round tables and member groups, historically the engines of political pressure within ALA, are weakened through restructuring that reframes them as advisory or affinity-based rather than as sites of organized power. Their capacity to place issues on the association's agenda, sustain oppositional work, or force institutional response is curtailed. The language of inclusion remains, but the mechanisms through which inclusion once translated into consequence are dismantled.

In their place, ALA Forward elevates smaller, more centralized bodies whose legitimacy derives from strategic alignment rather than democratic accountability. Decision-making authority is concentrated in committees and leadership structures insulated from sustained member pressure. Participation is preserved as consultation, listening sessions, and feedback loops, all carefully detached from binding outcomes. Members are invited to speak, but increasingly prevented from deciding.

This restructuring resolves a longstanding tension in ALA's history by decisively favoring managerial control over democratic contestation. For much of its existence, ALA functioned as an arena in which internal conflict was not a malfunction but a source of ethical and political development. ALA Forward recasts that history as inefficiency. Disagreement becomes misalignment. Dissent becomes obstruction. Democracy itself is reduced to a process of managed input.

Seen together, the narrowed values and centralized governance form a closed system. Once democracy and social responsibility are no longer articulated with specificity, governance reforms that hollow them out can proceed without contradiction. Once opposition to injustice is no longer clearly named as a core value, it can be sidelined as optional advocacy. The structure is designed to absorb critique while preventing it from altering direction.

Because this transformation is already complete, appeals to reform ALA Forward from within its own framework amount to chasing a receding horizon. The framework has been engineered to neutralize precisely the forms of collective pressure that once forced the association to live up to its stated ideals. Dissent survives as gesture, diversity as display, participation as performance.

Under these conditions, parallel organizing, perhaps, is no longer a supplementary tactic or a temporary response. It may become the primary site where democratic librarianship can still be practiced. Parallel structures might preserve the fuller historical understanding of librarianship as a collective, political, and ethically demanding project. They might allow members to deliberate, decide, and act without passing through managerial filters designed to contain conflict.

Parallel organizing would not reject ALA's history. It would refuse its administrative rewriting. It would recognize that when values are narrowed and governance is centralized, the work of democracy cannot be restored through procedural tweaks. It has to be rebuilt elsewhere, deliberately, openly, and without asking permission from a structure that has already decided what kind of politics it will allow. What forms this might take remain to be articulated. Whether it is possible or not is not clear.




I know this analysis (for which, by the way, I can provide a more detailed mapping) will occasion much controversy. Let's try to keep it respectful and professional. I look forward to your responses, fellow members!

ALA Forward has redefined both what the American Library Association claims to value and how power is exercised inside it.

The revision of the core values and the restructuring of governance are not parallel tracks. They were mutually reinforcing moves that together replaced a member-driven, conflict-tolerant association with a managed organization designed to minimize democratic risk.

The revision of the core values is settled. A historically expansive ethical framework, built through decades of struggle over democracy, social responsibility, intellectual freedom, equity, and international solidarity, has been narrowed through consolidation and elimination. This was justified as streamlining, yet its real effect is to dissolve specific political commitments into generalized professional virtues. Values that once named obligations to oppose repression, challenge state power, and act collectively across borders no longer stand as independent anchors. The ethical inheritance of librarianship is now presented as something to be curated for coherence rather than preserved in its full, demanding plurality.

The governance changes give this ethical contraction institutional force. Council, once a central deliberative body with real authority to shape policy and direction, is increasingly repositioned as a forum for ratification rather than decision. Its scope is narrowed, its agenda more tightly controlled, and its ability to initiate binding action reduced. What appears as efficiency is, in practice, a loss of member sovereignty.

Round tables and member groups, historically the engines of political pressure within ALA, are weakened through restructuring that reframes them as advisory or affinity-based rather than as sites of organized power. Their capacity to place issues on the association's agenda, sustain oppositional work, or force institutional response is curtailed. The language of inclusion remains, but the mechanisms through which inclusion once translated into consequence are dismantled.

In their place, ALA Forward elevates smaller, more centralized bodies whose legitimacy derives from strategic alignment rather than democratic accountability. Decision-making authority is concentrated in committees and leadership structures insulated from sustained member pressure. Participation is preserved as consultation, listening sessions, and feedback loops, all carefully detached from binding outcomes. Members are invited to speak, but increasingly prevented from deciding.

This restructuring resolves a longstanding tension in ALA's history by decisively favoring managerial control over democratic contestation. For much of its existence, ALA functioned as an arena in which internal conflict was not a malfunction but a source of ethical and political development. ALA Forward recasts that history as inefficiency. Disagreement becomes misalignment. Dissent becomes obstruction. Democracy itself is reduced to a process of managed input.

Seen together, the narrowed values and centralized governance form a closed system. Once democracy and social responsibility are no longer articulated with specificity, governance reforms that hollow them out can proceed without contradiction. Once opposition to injustice is no longer clearly named as a core value, it can be sidelined as optional advocacy. The structure is designed to absorb critique while preventing it from altering direction.

Because this transformation is already complete, appeals to reform ALA Forward from within its own framework amount to chasing a receding horizon. The framework has been engineered to neutralize precisely the forms of collective pressure that once forced the association to live up to its stated ideals. Dissent survives as gesture, diversity as display, participation as performance.

Under these conditions, parallel organizing, perhaps, is no longer a supplementary tactic or a temporary response. It may become the primary site where democratic librarianship can still be practiced. Parallel structures might preserve the fuller historical understanding of librarianship as a collective, political, and ethically demanding project. They might allow members to deliberate, decide, and act without passing through managerial filters designed to contain conflict.

Parallel organizing would not reject ALA's history. It would refuse its administrative rewriting. It would recognize that when values are narrowed and governance is centralized, the work of democracy cannot be restored through procedural tweaks. It has to be rebuilt elsewhere, deliberately, openly, and without asking permission from a structure that has already decided what kind of politics it will allow. What forms this might take remain to be articulated. Whether it is possible or not is not clear.




I know this analysis (for which, by the way, I can provide a more detailed mapping) will occasion much controversy. Let's try to keep it respectful and professional. I look forward to your responses, fellow members!

ALA Forward has redefined both what the American Library Association claims to value and how power is exercised inside it.

The revision of the core values and the restructuring of governance are not parallel tracks. They were mutually reinforcing moves that together replaced a member-driven, conflict-tolerant association with a managed organization designed to minimize democratic risk.

The revision of the core values is settled. A historically expansive ethical framework, built through decades of struggle over democracy, social responsibility, intellectual freedom, equity, and international solidarity, has been narrowed through consolidation and elimination. This was justified as streamlining, yet its real effect is to dissolve specific political commitments into generalized professional virtues. Values that once named obligations to oppose repression, challenge state power, and act collectively across borders no longer stand as independent anchors. The ethical inheritance of librarianship is now presented as something to be curated for coherence rather than preserved in its full, demanding plurality.

The governance changes give this ethical contraction institutional force. Council, once a central deliberative body with real authority to shape policy and direction, is increasingly repositioned as a forum for ratification rather than decision. Its scope is narrowed, its agenda more tightly controlled, and its ability to initiate binding action reduced. What appears as efficiency is, in practice, a loss of member sovereignty.

Round tables and member groups, historically the engines of political pressure within ALA, are weakened through restructuring that reframes them as advisory or affinity-based rather than as sites of organized power. Their capacity to place issues on the association's agenda, sustain oppositional work, or force institutional response is curtailed. The language of inclusion remains, but the mechanisms through which inclusion once translated into consequence are dismantled.

In their place, ALA Forward elevates smaller, more centralized bodies whose legitimacy derives from strategic alignment rather than democratic accountability. Decision-making authority is concentrated in committees and leadership structures insulated from sustained member pressure. Participation is preserved as consultation, listening sessions, and feedback loops, all carefully detached from binding outcomes. Members are invited to speak, but increasingly prevented from deciding.

This restructuring resolves a longstanding tension in ALA's history by decisively favoring managerial control over democratic contestation. For much of its existence, ALA functioned as an arena in which internal conflict was not a malfunction but a source of ethical and political development. ALA Forward recasts that history as inefficiency. Disagreement becomes misalignment. Dissent becomes obstruction. Democracy itself is reduced to a process of managed input.

Seen together, the narrowed values and centralized governance form a closed system. Once democracy and social responsibility are no longer articulated with specificity, governance reforms that hollow them out can proceed without contradiction. Once opposition to injustice is no longer clearly named as a core value, it can be sidelined as optional advocacy. The structure is designed to absorb critique while preventing it from altering direction.

Because this transformation is already complete, appeals to reform ALA Forward from within its own framework amount to chasing a receding horizon. The framework has been engineered to neutralize precisely the forms of collective pressure that once forced the association to live up to its stated ideals. Dissent survives as gesture, diversity as display, participation as performance.

Under these conditions, parallel organizing, perhaps, is no longer a supplementary tactic or a temporary response. It may become the primary site where democratic librarianship can still be practiced. Parallel structures might preserve the fuller historical understanding of librarianship as a collective, political, and ethically demanding project. They might allow members to deliberate, decide, and act without passing through managerial filters designed to contain conflict.

Parallel organizing would not reject ALA's history. It would refuse its administrative rewriting. It would recognize that when values are narrowed and governance is centralized, the work of democracy cannot be restored through procedural tweaks. It has to be rebuilt elsewhere, deliberately, openly, and without asking permission from a structure that has already decided what kind of politics it will allow. What forms this might take remain to be articulated. Whether it is possible or not is not clear.




I know this analysis (for which, by the way, I can provide a more detailed mapping) will occasion much controversy. Let's try to keep it respectful and professional. I look forward to your responses, fellow members!