In yet another dispatch from the What Were You Thinking Department, ALA’s website has an egregious fiction splashed on its front page insinuating that ALA has awarded the First Lady with a “citation.”
“ALA” didn’t award Bush anything. The first anyone on Council heard of ALA’s citation was through the announcement on the website. It is true, and unobjectionable, that the immediate past president and current president of ALA gave the First Lady copies of the two “youth awards,” the Caldecotts and Newbery Medal winners. As for the “citation,” whatever it was and whatever it said, I don’t know about you, but that smells like an award, and awards are voted on by Council, the governing body of ALA, of which I am a duly-elected member.
I would never begrudge the permanent bureaucracy and temporary leadership of ALA the right to brown-nose with current presidential administrations, and a pile of books is a good thing to give anyone. (Notice that ALA didn’t give Mrs. Bush the latest Stonewall award winner.) However, I expect ALA to stop far short of implying that ALA–a membership organization–has bestowed awards on anyone when the governing body that you elected has not had a chance to hear of, let alone debate or vote on, an award. ALA was quick to respond that “Mrs. Bush did not receive an ALA award,” but this is not a credible response when the the front page of the ALA website trumpets that Bush received a “citation.”
This whole mess is an end run around ALA governance that is disrespectful to the membership and contemptuous of the processes we have established. ALA, get a grip–or lose your grip on your members.
Posted on this day, other years:
- Crowdvine versus SWIFT - 2008
- Gloryoski, Metadata! (Thoughts from IA Summit 2008) - 2008
- Adam Gopnik on Sentences - 2007
- LITA's Blogging IG - 2006
- What a RT could do - 2006
- Name That Rose! - 2004
- RFID in Libraries - 2004
- ALA Election Update: Better than I Thought - 2004
- More on that Mystery Rose - 2004
Karen, Karen Karen, did you ever stop to think that maybe it was a “citation,” you know, like a traffic ticket? Maybe she had some overdue library books. She’s a busy woman you know, saving the world from Islamic right wing fundamentalists for the use of Christian right wing fundamentalists.
I really don’t think that many of the 64,000 ALA members would be as upset as some council members are over Laura Bush being honored in this fashion for the help she has provided libraries and librarians in this country. I did not vote for her husband, but if she is promoting library funding in this ocuntry at a time of widespread fiscal crises, then good for her. Why not provide a little positive reinforcement for activity that directly affects our profession?
Aside from that I wonder, why should the ALA council have to be consulted for this kind of activity? Is not the ALA president also elected? What powers does the ALA president have, or must all of her or his actions be micromanaged by ALA council?
What exactly has Laura Bush done for American libraries? Got her hubbie to make American libraries roll over with that stupid ‘Patriot Act’? Gee Laura, thankx a lot. Come to think of it: Who elected HER to any position of authority anyway?