I'm such a joiner. Be my bellweather?
Apr. 6th, 2006 10:50 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
I wish there were a way to join ACRL and YALSA without joining ALA. I agree with all the brouhaha (eg. Jessamyn, Dorothea) that the ALA as a whole has been trying for years now to benefit libraries at the expense of librarians. I don't want to join the ALA -- it's my belief that you can't fundamentally help libraries as institutions unless you help librarians as well. Yet I need to network with people in my field, and while I can technically get by without joining ACRL (there's plenty of other organizations and opportunities to meet people while I'm working here), I don't know how else I can be involved with YA lit. I don't after all, work in the field, and almost all the real work in children's and YA librarianship are happens in ALSC and YALSA.
Well, at least now that I have a job I can afford to rejoin ChLA. That's something.
Well, at least now that I have a job I can afford to rejoin ChLA. That's something.
no subject
Date: 2006-04-06 03:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-06 03:12 pm (UTC)If they'd even welcome my involvement. My scholarship in childlit is as an independent scholar, and I don't work with children right now (though I'm reviewing). But we must cultivate connections, no?
no subject
Date: 2006-04-10 06:24 pm (UTC)On the other hand, I might get to be on a committee! Where they'll send me lots of free graphic novels to read!
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Date: 2006-04-25 04:28 pm (UTC)Sorry, got distracted by being pissed off. Anyway, a sentence begins, "While the American Library Association doesn't keep statistics on library positions lost..." They DON'T?? What the hell do we pay them for, then? They're perfectly happy to invent statistics about the coming "librarian shortage," but they can't bother to keep track of positions lost? How on earth do they expect to advocate for retaining those positions if they don't even have data? AAAARRRGGHH! Our professional organization blows.
no subject
Date: 2006-04-25 04:34 pm (UTC)They don't?
Dear ALA,
We would much rather you organized to show schools what value librarians add to the curriculum -- including teaching how to use online resources, how to know what to trust, and when to turn to print -- than concentrated on filling the schools with trainee librarians who will never get jobs.
No love,
Me, who is sadly joining anyway for the same reasons in_parentheses is