A New Challenge for ALA: Leading Between Activism and Advocacy
"Those of us who are activists are always impatient with our adversaries. ALA’s new administrators will have to find ways to engage with both those activists and their opposition—not an easy undertaking.
Of course, I am already worried that the supporters of the ALA milquetoast approach to advocacy and societal politics might prevail, as they often have. Still, the other side of that coin is that misplaced excessive activism can destroy whatever avenues to real clout librarians have built. ALA management must be willing and able to expend a great deal of policymaking skill and strength to win little power in the larger arena. Fortunately, librarians are used to jobs like that.
ALA’s most recent controversies, such as the debate at the Midwinter Town Meeting in Atlanta over its response to the Trump administration and the close vote to require that the next ED hold an MLS degree, are an early warning of how difficult recruiting new leaders—and their task once chosen—can be. To make that work possible, ALA must develop more effective ways to tap membership sentiment on crucial issues."
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