SRRT (Social Responsibilities Round Table)

To Sam Helmick and the members of the Executive Board,

It is highly disingenuous that your recent email to ALA members announcing a major new policy -- overturning over one hundred years of our governance culture, and a formal policy in place since 1971 -- buries this shocking news under a peppy update about the strategic plan, something always expected to change every five years.  Declaring all Executive Board (EBD) meetings to be in closed session is a terrible and needless move that violates policy and undercuts decades of member governance.

It directly contradicts ALA Policy 7.4.4 on open meetings, which does not include any exemption for the Executive Board.  If the Board wishes to change that, of course it may do so – but it must then use the official procedure for revising policies, stated in Policy 18.3: such a proposal must be deliberated and approved by the Council.  From what I can see, both of these policies have been willfully ignored. 

Even the ALA By-Laws imply that EBD meetings are open.  By-Law Article V Section 5 states that "Virtual observation methods shall be provided to the Association's membership during open portions of all regular scheduled meetings."  Clearly it is assumed that there will be open portions of EBD meetings.  Again, this could be changed – through a multi-step and open process.

I have served on many boards within the library profession and in other nonprofit groups and have never seen a closed-meeting policy used except for discussing private personnel matters, something already a provision of Policy 7.4.4.  ALA's open meetings policy was adopted in 1971 – and amongst the plethora of planning and organizational consultants that have worked with ALA since then, not once has this policy been deemed problematic for the conduct of business.

It is not clear what is gained by this decision.  Given the demise of the Midwinter Meeting, there is now only one (out of 4) meetings per year of the Executive Board that is even a ready opportunity for members to observe.  It is only the most committed and interested members who attend the EBD as observers; the agenda and documents are complex and require existing knowledge of ALA business.  It is not a meeting one idly chooses to attend to fill an empty hour in the daily schedule.  The presence of observers does not make the meeting any longer since they can't participate.  ALA needs those very observer-members to build a robust cohort for association guidance, and simply reporting out a summary later is not the same as listening to the full discussion and understanding the diverse perspectives that shape the issues.

What sort of consultant would advise either this abrupt non-consultative process (which itself violates good practices), or this specific change?  ALA is not a private corporation; and unlike many major nonprofits it is highly member-led, not staff-driven in matters of policy.  Other large nonprofits are often charities that may have what they call "members" but who are primarily donors with no involvement in organizational management and programs.  The consultants ALA used have shown abysmal ignorance of their client.

ALA has been an exemplar for strong, member-led governance for over a century.  I myself served three terms on Council both as an at-large and a round table Councilor, and on a variety of other top-level committees.  We were always conscious of the open meetings policy, especially over the years when remote online participation became an increasingly demanded option: how to do that, and ensure openness, took some years to resolve.  It is a significant denial of transparency and a reduction of access to information to make all Executive Board meetings closed, not values our association should promote.

I urge the Executive Board to reconsider this decision immediately, and if not, then I insist Council address this violation of procedure with decisive action.

With deepest concern,

Sarah M. Pritchard

ALA Member since 1977

(if any members of Council are on this list, please repost this letter to that ALA Connect Community, I do not have access.)

To Sam Helmick and the members of the Executive Board,

It is highly disingenuous that your recent email to ALA members announcing a major new policy -- overturning over one hundred years of our governance culture, and a formal policy in place since 1971 -- buries this shocking news under a peppy update about the strategic plan, something always expected to change every five years.  Declaring all Executive Board (EBD) meetings to be in closed session is a terrible and needless move that violates policy and undercuts decades of member governance.

It directly contradicts ALA Policy 7.4.4 on open meetings, which does not include any exemption for the Executive Board.  If the Board wishes to change that, of course it may do so – but it must then use the official procedure for revising policies, stated in Policy 18.3: such a proposal must be deliberated and approved by the Council.  From what I can see, both of these policies have been willfully ignored. 

Even the ALA By-Laws imply that EBD meetings are open.  By-Law Article V Section 5 states that "Virtual observation methods shall be provided to the Association's membership during open portions of all regular scheduled meetings."  Clearly it is assumed that there will be open portions of EBD meetings.  Again, this could be changed – through a multi-step and open process.

I have served on many boards within the library profession and in other nonprofit groups and have never seen a closed-meeting policy used except for discussing private personnel matters, something already a provision of Policy 7.4.4.  ALA's open meetings policy was adopted in 1971 – and amongst the plethora of planning and organizational consultants that have worked with ALA since then, not once has this policy been deemed problematic for the conduct of business.

It is not clear what is gained by this decision.  Given the demise of the Midwinter Meeting, there is now only one (out of 4) meetings per year of the Executive Board that is even a ready opportunity for members to observe.  It is only the most committed and interested members who attend the EBD as observers; the agenda and documents are complex and require existing knowledge of ALA business.  It is not a meeting one idly chooses to attend to fill an empty hour in the daily schedule.  The presence of observers does not make the meeting any longer since they can't participate.  ALA needs those very observer-members to build a robust cohort for association guidance, and simply reporting out a summary later is not the same as listening to the full discussion and understanding the diverse perspectives that shape the issues.

What sort of consultant would advise either this abrupt non-consultative process (which itself violates good practices), or this specific change?  ALA is not a private corporation; and unlike many major nonprofits it is highly member-led, not staff-driven in matters of policy.  Other large nonprofits are often charities that may have what they call "members" but who are primarily donors with no involvement in organizational management and programs.  The consultants ALA used have shown abysmal ignorance of their client.

ALA has been an exemplar for strong, member-led governance for over a century.  I myself served three terms on Council both as an at-large and a round table Councilor, and on a variety of other top-level committees.  We were always conscious of the open meetings policy, especially over the years when remote online participation became an increasingly demanded option: how to do that, and ensure openness, took some years to resolve.  It is a significant denial of transparency and a reduction of access to information to make all Executive Board meetings closed, not values our association should promote.

I urge the Executive Board to reconsider this decision immediately, and if not, then I insist Council address this violation of procedure with decisive action.

With deepest concern,

Sarah M. Pritchard

ALA Member since 1977

(if any members of Council are on this list, please repost this letter to that ALA Connect Community, I do not have access.)

Response to Sarah Pritchard

Sarah,

Thank you for your lucid, principled, and urgent letter. You have not only exposed a procedural violation but illuminated a deeper pattern-an ongoing hollowing out of member governance in favor of centralized administrative control. What you have so clearly documented is not just a breach of Policy 7.4.4 or a misreading of the By-Laws; it is a rupture with the democratic culture of ALA itself.

Declaring all Executive Board meetings closed is an affront to the values ALA claims to uphold-transparency, participation, collective responsibility. But what makes this move especially alarming is the context in which it arrives: the elimination of the Midwinter Meeting, once a key site of in-person oversight and deliberation, and the virtualization of the Membership Meeting, which has turned what was once a vital space for direct member intervention into a remote, time-limited formality.

The replacement of Midwinter with LibLearnX-an event explicitly stripped of governance functions-has removed a critical opportunity for members to observe and understand the work of the Executive Board. Since its launch, LibLearnX has been framed as "learning-focused," yet functionally operates as a firewall between members and the mechanisms of governance. It is now being discontinued entirely after 2025, with no commitment to restore democratic functions in its place.

Meanwhile, the Membership Meeting's shift to Zoom has made it more accessible in theory, but in practice has further abstracted and minimized the participatory powers of the rank-and-file. These meetings are increasingly informational in tone, with limited space for resolution-making or member deliberation. They offer access without agency.

You are right to call out the cynical misdirection of the Executive Board's announcement, buried beneath upbeat strategic plan language. But we must go further and ask: What vision of the Association is being pursued, and in whose interests? Why are consultants-who appear ignorant of ALA's legacy of member-led governance-being entrusted with decisions that reshape the political structure of the organization?

This is not about "efficiency." It is about enclosure. When deliberative spaces are shuttered-when Council is sidelined, when Core Values like "social responsibility" and "democracy" are removed-when even our milestone anniversaries are outsourced to private PR firms-it becomes clear that ALA is being reengineered into something it has never been: a professional association without a public

Your call for immediate reversal of this decision is not only justified-it is essential. But it must be part of a broader reckoning. This moment demands not just procedural correction, but political clarity. We must reassert what kind of Association we are-and refuse to become one that trades away its democratic soul for the illusion of managerial progress.

In solidarity and with deep appreciation,

Mark Rosenzweig

IRTF/SRRT, co-cordinator

SRRT Action Council, member-driven

former ALA Councilor at large

To Sam Helmick and the members of the Executive Board,

It is highly disingenuous that your recent email to ALA members announcing a major new policy -- overturning over one hundred years of our governance culture, and a formal policy in place since 1971 -- buries this shocking news under a peppy update about the strategic plan, something always expected to change every five years.  Declaring all Executive Board (EBD) meetings to be in closed session is a terrible and needless move that violates policy and undercuts decades of member governance.

It directly contradicts ALA Policy 7.4.4 on open meetings, which does not include any exemption for the Executive Board.  If the Board wishes to change that, of course it may do so – but it must then use the official procedure for revising policies, stated in Policy 18.3: such a proposal must be deliberated and approved by the Council.  From what I can see, both of these policies have been willfully ignored. 

Even the ALA By-Laws imply that EBD meetings are open.  By-Law Article V Section 5 states that "Virtual observation methods shall be provided to the Association's membership during open portions of all regular scheduled meetings."  Clearly it is assumed that there will be open portions of EBD meetings.  Again, this could be changed – through a multi-step and open process.

I have served on many boards within the library profession and in other nonprofit groups and have never seen a closed-meeting policy used except for discussing private personnel matters, something already a provision of Policy 7.4.4.  ALA's open meetings policy was adopted in 1971 – and amongst the plethora of planning and organizational consultants that have worked with ALA since then, not once has this policy been deemed problematic for the conduct of business.

It is not clear what is gained by this decision.  Given the demise of the Midwinter Meeting, there is now only one (out of 4) meetings per year of the Executive Board that is even a ready opportunity for members to observe.  It is only the most committed and interested members who attend the EBD as observers; the agenda and documents are complex and require existing knowledge of ALA business.  It is not a meeting one idly chooses to attend to fill an empty hour in the daily schedule.  The presence of observers does not make the meeting any longer since they can't participate.  ALA needs those very observer-members to build a robust cohort for association guidance, and simply reporting out a summary later is not the same as listening to the full discussion and understanding the diverse perspectives that shape the issues.

What sort of consultant would advise either this abrupt non-consultative process (which itself violates good practices), or this specific change?  ALA is not a private corporation; and unlike many major nonprofits it is highly member-led, not staff-driven in matters of policy.  Other large nonprofits are often charities that may have what they call "members" but who are primarily donors with no involvement in organizational management and programs.  The consultants ALA used have shown abysmal ignorance of their client.

ALA has been an exemplar for strong, member-led governance for over a century.  I myself served three terms on Council both as an at-large and a round table Councilor, and on a variety of other top-level committees.  We were always conscious of the open meetings policy, especially over the years when remote online participation became an increasingly demanded option: how to do that, and ensure openness, took some years to resolve.  It is a significant denial of transparency and a reduction of access to information to make all Executive Board meetings closed, not values our association should promote.

I urge the Executive Board to reconsider this decision immediately, and if not, then I insist Council address this violation of procedure with decisive action.

With deepest concern,

Sarah M. Pritchard

ALA Member since 1977

(if any members of Council are on this list, please repost this letter to that ALA Connect Community, I do not have access.)

To Sam Helmick and the members of the Executive Board,

It is highly disingenuous that your recent email to ALA members announcing a major new policy -- overturning over one hundred years of our governance culture, and a formal policy in place since 1971 -- buries this shocking news under a peppy update about the strategic plan, something always expected to change every five years.  Declaring all Executive Board (EBD) meetings to be in closed session is a terrible and needless move that violates policy and undercuts decades of member governance.

It directly contradicts ALA Policy 7.4.4 on open meetings, which does not include any exemption for the Executive Board.  If the Board wishes to change that, of course it may do so – but it must then use the official procedure for revising policies, stated in Policy 18.3: such a proposal must be deliberated and approved by the Council.  From what I can see, both of these policies have been willfully ignored. 

Even the ALA By-Laws imply that EBD meetings are open.  By-Law Article V Section 5 states that "Virtual observation methods shall be provided to the Association's membership during open portions of all regular scheduled meetings."  Clearly it is assumed that there will be open portions of EBD meetings.  Again, this could be changed – through a multi-step and open process.

I have served on many boards within the library profession and in other nonprofit groups and have never seen a closed-meeting policy used except for discussing private personnel matters, something already a provision of Policy 7.4.4.  ALA's open meetings policy was adopted in 1971 – and amongst the plethora of planning and organizational consultants that have worked with ALA since then, not once has this policy been deemed problematic for the conduct of business.

It is not clear what is gained by this decision.  Given the demise of the Midwinter Meeting, there is now only one (out of 4) meetings per year of the Executive Board that is even a ready opportunity for members to observe.  It is only the most committed and interested members who attend the EBD as observers; the agenda and documents are complex and require existing knowledge of ALA business.  It is not a meeting one idly chooses to attend to fill an empty hour in the daily schedule.  The presence of observers does not make the meeting any longer since they can't participate.  ALA needs those very observer-members to build a robust cohort for association guidance, and simply reporting out a summary later is not the same as listening to the full discussion and understanding the diverse perspectives that shape the issues.

What sort of consultant would advise either this abrupt non-consultative process (which itself violates good practices), or this specific change?  ALA is not a private corporation; and unlike many major nonprofits it is highly member-led, not staff-driven in matters of policy.  Other large nonprofits are often charities that may have what they call "members" but who are primarily donors with no involvement in organizational management and programs.  The consultants ALA used have shown abysmal ignorance of their client.

ALA has been an exemplar for strong, member-led governance for over a century.  I myself served three terms on Council both as an at-large and a round table Councilor, and on a variety of other top-level committees.  We were always conscious of the open meetings policy, especially over the years when remote online participation became an increasingly demanded option: how to do that, and ensure openness, took some years to resolve.  It is a significant denial of transparency and a reduction of access to information to make all Executive Board meetings closed, not values our association should promote.

I urge the Executive Board to reconsider this decision immediately, and if not, then I insist Council address this violation of procedure with decisive action.

With deepest concern,

Sarah M. Pritchard

ALA Member since 1977

(if any members of Council are on this list, please repost this letter to that ALA Connect Community, I do not have access.)