These aren’t really notes from the Saturday LITA Board meeting (my third meeting today so far). This is just my observation, as an ALA politico, that LITA is a breath of fresh air in ALA. I was just at the ALA Orientation for new ALA Councilors. I was talking with a councilor who is on another division board, and he pointed out that he arrives at ALA with a thick stack of pre-work–as we in LITA governance do–while ALA Councilors arrive at the conference with at most three pieces of paper. This is because LITA gets it: our responsibilities flow reasonably smoothly from our digital to analog workspaces, so the work at our four meetings every year is not at the “what is this” stage but at the much more advanced level of “what needs to happen now with this proposal/resolution/issue.”
Yes, face-to-face is invaluable (it’s no fun drinking alone), but face-to-face is also much more pleasant when you’re ready to do the kind of discussion that needs to take place among wetware in a conference room. Among other questions I have about divisions that function the Olde Waye is why they would inflict this on themselves? Is pain really better than change?
Incidentally, two units that do well in this respect are PLA and YALSA. I was approached last night by a YALSA politico who asked me for a demo of how we do our blog. Neat idea, she commented. Sure thing, I said!
So back to the meeting, during which I’ll try to choke down a mystifyingly abstract resolution on broadband services that showed up on our doorstep last night so I can ‘splain it to everyone and get some feedback before it gets voted on. Come, other ALA units: learn from the masters!