January 2016

ALA’s MidWinter Meeting was held on January 8-12, 2016 in Boston, MA.  ALA’s Council meets three times at each conference.  I have included below a list of links to the various documents and information that are involved in Council. There’s even an audio recording of each Council meeting if anyone is interested in hearing the actual discussions.

Council Actions http://www.ala.org/aboutala/governance/council/council_actions

Council Agendas http://www.ala.org/aboutala/governance/council/council_agendas

Council Documents http://www.ala.org/aboutala/governance/council/council-documents

Council Recordings http://www.ala.org/aboutala/governance/council/councilaudio

A number of resolutions were discussed by Council in these sessions.  Some of the actions taken by Council include adopting the Resolution Against Islamophobia (CD# 32), separating the policies on Labeling and Rating Systems into their own sections (CD # 17), and inserting a short abstract about Internet Filtering into the policy manual (CD #17).  The Joint Council of Librarians of Color was approved to be an affiliate member of the American Library Association (CD# 25).  A Resolution on Replacing the Library of Congress Subject Heading “Illegal Aliens” with “Undocumented Immigrants” (CD#34) was also passed.

The name change for the Office of Literacy and Outreach Services (OLOS) was approved.  OLOS will now be known as the Office for Diversity, Literacy, and Outreach Services. (CD# 27).  The composition of the new Office for Diversity, Literacy, and Outreach Services Advisory Committee will be made up of the merger of Diversity Council, a subcommittee of the Committee on Diversity (COD) and the OLOS Advisory Committee.

The Resolution for Restoring Civil Liberties and Opposing Mass Surveillance (CD# 19.1 and CD# 20.2) was passed.  The full text of the resolution is available in either council document linked above..

Also passed was the Resolution Concerning Accessibility of ALA Conferences and Meetings for People with Disabilities (CD# 31). This resolution calls for the establishment of a Conference Accessibility Task Force.  The Task Force has been formed, and is expected to report back at each conference until Annual 2017, when they are to complete their work.

Of particular note is the Resolution Supporting the 2015 Advocacy Implementation Plan (CD# 35), which encourages all state chapters (among others) to adopt the Advocacy Implementation Plan to help move forward advocacy goals across the nation.  The Advocacy Implementation Plan can be found at http://www.ala.org/groups/advocacy-implementation-plan.

Memorial resolutions were passed honoring Shereen Marx, Kuang-Hwei (Janet) Lee-Smeltzer, Richard C. Fyffe, Billy Charles Beal, Allene Farmer Hayes and Linda Waddle.  Tribute resolutions were passed honoring Barbara Blosveren and James H. Billington.

I have also passed along information received through the various ALA listservs to the TLA listserv.

If there are questions about the information here, any of the emails that I have sent to the listserv, or about ALA and Council in general, please let me know! I can be reached via email at tla.alacouncilor@gmail.com.