Tennessee Chapter Councilor Report

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ALA’s MidWinter Meeting was held on February 9-13, 2018 in Denver, CO.  ALA’s Council meets three times at each conference.  The full list of documents and actions taken are available via the links below.

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

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

Actions taken at ALA’s MidWinter Meeting include establishing a new Fellows Program (the Lois Ann Gregory-Wood Fellows Program) for mid-career ALA members who are interested in governance.  The program will provide a conference scholarship for both an Annual Conference and a MidWinter Meeting.   For more details, see CD#31_21318_act_FINAL.  This was named in honor of Lois Ann Gregory-Wood, who is celebrating her 50th year of service to ALA.

Another particularly notable action was the bestowing of an honorary ALA Membership upon Carla D. Hayden, the Librarian of Congress.

Additional actions include adding policies dealing with politics in American libraries, language on equity, diversity, and inclusion; and definitions of equity, diversity, and inclusion to the ALA Policy manual.   (See CD#17_13018_ACT for details)  Council also adopted the Intellectual Freedom Committee’s position paper on “Net Neutrality: AN Intellectual Freedom Issue” and their interpretation of the Library Bill of Rights addressing visual and performing arts in libraries.  (See CD#19-#19.2_21318_FINAL for details).

Dr. Edwin Gleaves was honored with a memorial resolution at this MidWinter meeting as well.  The full text of the resolution is available on the ALA Council documents website.

ALA’s Annual Conference will take place June 22-26, 2018 in New Orleans, LA.  I will be attending and will make my final Chapter Councilor’s report to the Board after the conference.  The list of documents referenced above will be updated throughout the conference if you’re interested in seeing what Council is dealing with.

I will continue to forward emails to the TLA list and will keep the Board updated on information from ALA Council and ALA as I receive it. 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.

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