ACRL Leadership,
The Executive Board is trying a new communication strategy to share more details regarding our meetings and actions. Following is a summary of our recent monthly meeting. The recent statement Opposing Initiatives to Censor Information Resources is a critical academic issue and I hope this helps our academic librarians and workers deal with opposition to diversity education and library materials.
Please let me know if you have any questions or if you need me to advance any ACRL concerns to the Executive Board. Thank you fo your service to ACRL members!
Maggie Farrell, EB Liaison to ACRL
Key highlights from the August EB meeting:
- Executive Director Tracie Hall shared there are three divisional conferences prior to LibLearnX in January 2022:
- Core Forum (Oct 7-9) Baltimore, MD
- AASL (Oct 21-23) Salt Lake City, UT
- YALSA Symposium (Nov 5-7) Reno, NV
- The division executive directors and boards are monitoring the situation due to the Delta variant. They are prioritizing safety and engaged in a communication strategy and comprehensive messaging. For LibLearnX, we are planning for a face-to-face conference with hybrid options and running through different scenarios.
- An EB subgroup met to discuss a new EB-EDI initiative to work on team engagement, develop an equity lens for the work, and advocate for an EDI approach and analysis for association wide efforts as appropriate.
- Emerging issues discussed included the new ALA Virtual Volunteer Fair and how to enhance the EB liaison roles.
Board Approved Action
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ALA Office
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Responsible Person
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Endorsed the "Statement Opposing Initiatives to Censor Information Resources, Curriculum, and Programs Addressing Racial Injustice, Black American History, and Diversity Education," and voted to support the continued work of a subgroup of the Intellectual Freedom Committee charged with the creation of a toolkit to assist library workers, school librarians, and state and regional chapters in opposing censorship of books, curriculum, and programs addressing racial injustice, Black American History, and diversity education.
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Office of Intellectual Freedom
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Deborah Caldwell-Stone
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Authorized acceptance of a Small Business Administration loan of $150,000.
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Finance Office
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Denise Moritz
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Appointed Denise Moritz, Interim CFO, as the Registered Agent for ALA-APA, Inc.
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Finance Office
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Denise Moritz
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Approved a two-month pilot of sending a brief update highlighting actions taken at the EB meeting and other items as appropriate to be distributed to EB and their staff and member leader liaises.
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Governance Office
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Sheryl Reyes
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- Went into closed session to discuss:
- Transforming ALA Governance Task Force appointments
- HR and EEO reporting
- Executive Director evaluation timeline
- Staff and operations update
- BARC vacancy appointment
- ALA Branding Working Group appointments
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 EB meeting is Tuesday, September 21 at 3pm CT via Zoom. The full EB meeting schedule can be found here. Most EB documents are publicly available here.
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Maggie Farrell
ALA Treasurer
Dean of Libraries
University of Nevada, Las Vegas
maggie.farrell@unlv.edu------------------------------