Do you know what that book even is? It’s a 200-plus page handbook automatically distributed to every ALA member who is on a committee or in some governance role (for example, on Council). It is also a sacred cow, a third rail of Council, at least where the idea of producing it any other way comes up.
Yet printing and distributing the handbook costs $50,000 per year.
In 2004, ALA proposed to stop printing the handbook. At annual conference 2004, Council did not get to the resolution that would have stopped ALA. That was Council’s choice: it could have rearranged its agenda, but chose not to, assuming that 175 Councilors collapsing on the fainting couch would be enough to ensure continued production of the Handbook (after all, this whole discussion took place days after you all went home from the conference). Sure enough, this year, ALA again printed and distributed the Handbook. This, though in 2006 ALA members will be asked to approve a 30% dues increase.
I’m in favor of the dues increase, to a point. I’m not in favor of increasing dues while ALA is demonstrating its unwillingness to let go of old things to make way for new. I’m also not in favor of increasing dues while continuing a fiscally unwise, environmentally unsustainable service that benefits a few members even though all must pay for it.
I’m also feeling that same button pushed that I have felt in most traditional libraries, when a change in service is proposed and librarians, quite frankly, freak out. Receipt printers. Closing the card catalog. Internet. Helping patrons with computers. Never mind what’s actually best for the mission: It’s Not The Way We’ve Always Done It. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt.
But I digress. With respect to the Handbook, there are a number of alternatives to business as usual:
1. Repurpose the handbook and offer it online in formats that are easy to use–smaller chunks, in HTML, that can be viewed online, downloaded to laptops and computers, or printed off as needed. (The handbook is currently available online, behind the membership wall, as a single, large PDF.)
2. Make the handbook self-supporting: charge for it. Anyone who wants it would have to buy it. Subscriptions could even be signed up for in advance, like a yearbook. (Courtesy of Councilor Melora Ranney from Maine.)
3. Make receipt of the handbook opt-in. It would have to be proactively requested.
Other ideas? Do you agree that the Handbook should cease dead-tree production?
Posted on this day, other years:
- Write On: Videos about the Writers' Strike - 2007
- Much to be thankful for - 2007
- Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking - 2006
- Upgrading away... - 2006
- Writing the Memoir: From Truth to Art, Second Edition - 2006
- Hayden on the Patriot Act - 2003
21 Comments
I get the Handbook, and I’ve never used it. The people with whom I am on committees and I have already shared e-mail and snail mail addresses and phone information, so the thing’s totally redundant from our point of view.
ALA: Scrap it, PLEASE!
I agree that it is time to look at the necessity and usability of the handbook. How easily can it be searched? How quickly can you find a person’s name to recall which committee they are on? How easily can you choose names and email addresses and communicate with them on mini-lists? NOT WELL. The handbook becomes a historical document of record. It lists the committee tasks for the year – which is very important – but these and the membership lists are fluid, frequently change and have no way to be updated once they are in print. I’d like to see the handbook in a changed format. If someone still desires a mailing, put it on CD-ROM for distribution, but stop and look at the huge number of hours spent creating this book. I hope to see if available online in an entirely different format, with interactive capabilities. Imagine being able to click through and choose the names of committee members for similiar groups across divisions! Much better use of materials and funds.
“Repurpose” is not a word.
I don’t have any more ideas, but I agree that producing the handbook for $50,000 is ridiculous.
If ALA is so eager to spend that kind of money, then it needs to spend it on providing a sliding fee membership scale.
My husband is required by his employer to belong ALA and other job-related organizations, but he has to do this out of his own pocket, which really bites my butt. Between student loan payments and a mortgage payment to live in a working-class neighborhood (not upper-middle class like the boss) ALA dues are luxury we really can’t afford.
But hey, why buy the children Xmas presents when you can belong to ALA instead!
This is a prime example of why some library institutions can not move forward. “We’ve always done it that way” is not a vaid argument for reproducing every single online version of things in a print format. This is not fiscally responsible behavior.
The ALA Handbook it the behemouth example of this problem. In my library, it is a print list of every database we own reproduced in print. In the case of the Handbook, is this thing ever even read? Karen, I think your suggestion to reproduce it in chunks via HTML would be the best solution.
Do I agree that the Handbook should cease dead-tree production? Would “Hell, yes!” be putting it too strongly? Why even make paper delivery an opt-in choice? (Here’s the PDF, there’s a printer, and over there is a three-ring binder. You want paper – go for it.)
Frankly, I expect my council to rise up in furious protest over a $50k white elephant like this rather than getting all Nicholson Baker-y about the warm, cuddly paper version.
BTW, the membership area of the web site has the current handbook in PDF, but the previous one in HTML (current version “coming soon”). I suppose some poor schmoe is copying and pasting from a Word master into HTML pages. The master copy should be in a format from which it can be spun off to both versions simultaneously, if not on the fly, to avoid this versioning problem.
I’d far rather see that $50,000 a year go for more useful things: like more continuing education initiatives, better website support for committees so that it’s easier to get work done remotely between conferences, support for teleconferencing at conferences so that every committee member doesn’t have to physically attend every conference, etc.
I have a feeling I even know the poor schmoe!
Note that last year the Handbook was offered online in HTML, but it wasn’t updated for this year. Very annoying.
I find the Handbook easier to use online, but most people on Council are very low-tech. I’ve even been told that I’m insulting the people who volunteer for ALA etc. But the REAL cost of ALA governance are the extra days we spend at Council because ALA as an organization can’t work between meetings, and because some committees churn out half-assed unreadable reports at conference that we consume and vote on those last two days after you-all have gone home. To me, that’s the real insult.
$50K? For that? In 10 years the only time I’ve ever used it is to see if my name was listed in it!
This is just yet another way that the major professional organization is lagging behind their members.
The WikiPublisher project (http://www.wikipublisher.org/wiki/) can do exactly what Thomas Dowling suggests – generate both HTML and pdf from a single source – in this case a wiki. It’s one solution to the need to distribute structured content in both an online and printable version, without some poor person having to copy and paste from Word to an HTML template.
It makes more sense to have this as an online, searchable document. I am sure each person may only use a page or two over a year. A large percentage of tha handbook is no need to most people, since people have small niches they fall into. The only time I used it extensively was when I first joined ALA and someone gave me their copy. It allowed for easy browsing of all the division, sections, committees, etc, since the web site was poorly designed.
Put me down as a “hell,yes” along with Thomas. Printing these annual directories has become so outdated. I once learned that about 50% of the paper consumed annually by the German printing industry–the world’s largest or second-largest depending on the year–goes for printing phone books. One can actually hear the trees falling. Enough already.
ALA’s dues increase is not going to go over well. I already know a great number of academic librarians who have let their membership lapse; an increase will push a lot more of us over that edge. I don’t need ALA for my work or my career, so the fact that I continue as a member is almost an act of charity.
I get the Handbook and I will admit that I *have* used it. While I am not wedded to the print version and having it mailed out to everyone, I would like to put in a vote for retaining the Handbook as an intellectual entity and at least one version that *is* fixed for a given year. Again that could be in pdf or some other format. As noted by others, having different versions/formats could meet different needs so I’d like to think we don’t have to take an either or approach.
I find it very frustrating to find historical information on a site that simply replaces pages with the current year’s information and which does not retain the previous year’s information (which is what happens on many of the ALA divisional pages). I admit that I come from a humanities background and I have been known to look at organizational change by looking at the past as well as the present and the future.
There is something to be said for know where we have been so that we don’t go back and re-do it again. There are whole groups working on the issues of digital archiving and I’d like to hope that eventually ALA will implement some of the practices that libraries work so hard to develop… but I’m not holding my breath.
Also, I found it easier to do cross-divisional analysis using the Handbook than by searching the ALA website. Admittedly the search engine has gotten better but it’s still not great for refined searching.
Just a couple of counter-points. I too could think of better uses for the $50K but I’d like to see a rational and planned approach for transitioning it rather than one that focuses on short-term monetary benefits.
The latest today from ALA is that they’ll create scenarios and provide an analysis that could result in a change by 2007 (yes, 2007). Also, ALA is stating, gee, maybe up to half of that $50,000 is really for updating the content. As I stated on the Council list, “Regarding half of $50k used to actually update the information, color me skeptical. Something seems quite wrong about that. $25k to add the latest president, the latest conference location, update the Index of Persons, and ensure that the list of Honorary Members is updated, etc.? Either something is wrong with the cost analysis (it’s like the statement that it would cost $200,000 in programming to move to a salary-based dues formula), or it’s time to outsource the updating of the manual.”
Zoe, I have to disagree with you. The production of the information does not warrant the printing and distribution of paper copies.
This would make a great wiki, and then it would have the revision history and historical commentary. If only ALA could spell wiki!
I belonged to ALA during my graduate school years, then when I was converted to full-fledged membership after graduation/employment, was told that ALA would make me pay for the membership directory. Since AALL (which my employer paid for) and my local AALL chapter included the membership directory in the dues, I thought this was pretty bogus. And whoever I talked to about it was borderline rude. So have I paid for a non-law library membership in the past 15 years? Heck no!
The “membership directory” in the ALA Handbook only lists people on committees and so forth.
When I got mine, I asked if our central branch would have any use for such a thing, because as an ALA member and committee member, I had no use for it. The response was flatly “no.” Ditch this thing…please. What a waste of money that could have so many other uses.
“Something seems quite wrong about that. $25k to add the latest president, the latest conference location, update the Index of Persons, and ensure that the list of Honorary Members is updated, etc.?”
Since the Handbook also includes the membership of all ALA, divisional, and round table committees and interest group/discussion group officers, you’re talking about maintaining several thousand pieces of information (there are a LOT of committees etc. in ALA!). $25K may be high, but I’d certainly believe $5K-$10K.
On the other hand, the paper version of the Handbook has long outlived its usefulness (in my opinion, and I’m about as “printist” as they come): Either PDF or controlled wiki or controlled database would work better.
Walt, I guess I can buy $5k, particularly since the handbook seems to be the mechanism for gathering this information.
I too have my printist side; I use paper to-do lists without apology. cheaper than a second monitor, particularly for the task.
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