I received my ALA ballot–at last–and started voting. I like that I can stop and return to my ballot, and with the length of the Council ballot, frequent breaks are necessary.
If you haven’t sent in your ballot yet, please consider my choices. This is a short list, and it could be much longer if I included everyone I was voting for or felt should be on Council. What I want to emphasize on this list are candidates who you might overlook because you don’t know them, or candidates you didn’t vote for in the past (such as Barb Stripling) who merit your consideration. If you have questions about other candidates, feel free to ask me about them.
I’m starting out of order with Michael J. Miller because I’m frustrated that he doesn’t win a seat on Council (particularly when some people who need to get off Council keep getting elected). He served as GLBTRT Chair at a time when it was his role to help guide the “Task Force” into Roundtable status, and he was thorough, brilliant, and strategic. Michael is a tech-savvy, smart, diplomatic fellow who would add more GLBT representation to Council and present an astute voice for improving library education without sending us back to the stone age. Michael keeps running for Council. That he does not get elected continues to demonstrate that most people don’t know who they are voting for, a casualty of a long ballot for an obscure office.
Khafre K. Abif: I know him from Council, he’s a good advocate for youth
Monika Antonelli: clueful, good governance wonk, good techy angle, young enough to prove that Council is not where old ALA members go to die
Diedre (Dee) Conkling: smart, savvy, great advocate for diversity
Julie A. Cummins: another youth advocate
Brad Eden: LITA person; actually mentions metadata in his statement of professional concerns–not that Council takes much action on metadata… but a good touchstone for his techy-ness
Norman J. Eriksen: gay, techy, willing to state that libraries need to change, el pronto; also has a keen fiscal sense I admire
Tom Hennen: advocates reform for evaluating library performance, astute, good manager, innovator (he’s the Hennen behind Hennen’s Amer.Pub. Lib. Ratings, HAPLR); also known to PUBLIB’ers as DatCalmGuy
Charles E. Kratz: a smart management type, good assessor of organizational strategy
Monique Le Conge: lively, good administrator, insightful, could bring fresh air to Council
Peg Oettinger: another example of someone I work with on Council who brings humor and experienced insight to ALA governance
William D. Paullin is on this list because I know he’s good on Council (he took a break–a good idea, trust me), he brings New Jersey savoir faire to our activities, and he asked for my support.
Barbara Pickell took over my local library in New Jersey and made it bloom. Get her on Council!
Dale Poulter: LITA member and strong advocate for reforming the OPAC.
Donald L. Roalkvam: we should always have at least one trustee on Council, and Don is tireless.
Pamela C. Sieving: hooray, Pam is running for Council! She’s funny, tech-astute, a good thinker, a great organizational wonk.
Barbara Stripling: this point is where I pray my list isn’t the kiss of death for candidates for ALA office. I wish Barb was our incoming ALA president, but I’ll take her on Council as a consolation prize. I supported her last year, and I’m supporting her this year, and I’ll support her whenever she’s on the ballot. She’s a wonderful voice within our association, a very sensible woman, a great negotiator and thinker, and someone we need to keep active in ALA governance.
Posted on this day, other years:
- Thinking Ahead to Creative Nonfiction 2009 - 2008
- Five Nonbiblioblogs - 2007
- MPOW Annual User Survey Results - 2006
- ALA Election Status - 2006
Thanks for this, Karen. Very helpful to someone new to the field.
Just so you know, I did get the magic email. And though I’m not quite sure, after 13 years as an ALA member, ahem, I believe this will be the first time I vote. So there is something to be said for Gormangate.
Karen,
I liked voting online, but not reading all the bios online. To me, it goes more quickly, and I feel I’m not missing anything, when the information is on paper. If they offer the option again next year, I suspect I’ll ask for a paper ballot.
I didn’t vote for many people for Council – in truth, I never do. I base my decision on one thing and one thing only … did the candidate mention in any way that there are people other than librarians working in libraries? If, in talking about all the wonderful things they would like to do if elected, they fail to acknowledge in even the smallest way the majority of people working in libraries today, they don’t get my vote. When it comes to Council, I’m a one-issue kind of guy.
I agree with Gene, partly because I am not a librarian but a library assistant. Where I work at U.C. Berkeley library, we have of course a large staff and here in tech services most do not have MLS degrees. As library assistants we have our separate issues, such as relatively low pay and low status regardless of the quality of our work (in fact my union is talking about a strike, something which I do not wish for), and it would be nice to see the ALA devoting a little bit more of its attention to library staff issues. By the way Gene, any candidates you recommend?