Deep Thinking

While podcasts are the rage, I have a basic problem with the format. I have a serious hearing problem and can’t always understand what is being said. Since I discovered the thrills of closed captioning on my new TV, I won’t go back to uncaptioned movies for entertainment. The difficulty in listening while viewing videos or podcasts results in my refusing to download long podcasts. Am I the only one in the blogosphere with this difficulty?

I was reading Doug Johnson’s blog entry today called Lobbying for Spare Change or Real Change and had to leave a comment on his site. It brought to mind the fact that those who are not directly involved with an AASL/ALA committee and aren’t attending the membership meeting at Annual, may be unaware of just what does happen during the year. So I am going to share some information here that Affiliates of the Affiliate Assembly and Legislation Committee members know.

Recently I sent out the email below. I encourage you to read it, respond to it, and contact one of the members of the committee with your concerns and offers to help.
*************email***************
Dear Affiliate Assembly representatives,
In my role as AASL legislation committee chair I need your help on behalf of school librarians. Please complete the information request form at the bottom of this email and return it to me. Feel free to cut out the middle section in your reply.

The legislation committee seeks to involve more school library media specialists in legislative activities and national and state legislative days. During ALA Midwinter’s Affiliate Assembly meeting, we will share information on ways that you can easily become involved. There are some things you can do now to be informed and involved. The most effective organizations that lobby and talk to legislators are the ones where every member is passionate about their profession and is personally involved, rather than relying upon national committees and paid offices (like the ALA Washington Office) to lobby for them. We are here to help you involve your state organizations and members.

ALA has established FLLAN, the Federal Library Legislative and Advocacy Network (FLLAN) to better share federal legislative and advocacy information with State Chapters. From the ALA website this is “a new initiative to establish a national grassroots advocacy network.” We want to make absolutely certain that each state FLLAN contact knows who to contact regarding the voice of school library issues within that state. The ALA goal is “for every state chapter to designate a representative to contact as federal legislative issues arise. These advocates would, in turn, relay information and calls-to-action to contact persons in each congressional district and for each senator. A network of advocates will ensure that we will be able to respond quickly and effectively to legislative issues as they arise. By having this established network in place, we can maximize our efforts on a national level.” http://www.ala.org/ala/washoff/fllan/fllan.htm The list of each official FLLAN member is located at http://www.ala.org/ala/washoff/fllan/netdir.htm If you have not done so yet, please consider contacting your state FLLAN representative and volunteering.

ALA sponsors National Library Legislative Day (NLLD)on May 2nd with a day-long training and briefing session on May 1st that is tremendously valuable. Information can be found at http://www.ala.org/ala/washoff/washevents/nlld/nationallibrary.htm The ALA Washington Office maintains a list of each state delegate coordinator and we are working with them for states to recruit representatives for school libraries. We recognize that for school librarians, the school calendar conflicts with the leg. day event– one solution to this has been for school librarians to participate in Virtual Library Legislative Day from their home state. Some states sponsor school librarians or parents to attend NLLD to advocate on our behalf.

As a past president of my state organization, I empathize with how busy you are and recognize that many states have legislative committees to help share the involvement. Since the AASL Legislation committee works to maintain an accurate record of all state legislative contacts to facilitate a strong advocacy network, I need your help now before Midwinter. Please reply with the completed information below. If you also would like to be receive updates on how AASL is working with legislators on your behalf, please indicate so below. Feel free to forward this email to your legislative chair.

I appreciate your taking the time to communicate with me. I will be maintaining my checklist based upon the contact information in the Affiliate Assembly handbook that was distributed late November, so if I don’t hear from you and your state organization soon, I will keep trying. As many of you know, I am very persistent as well as passionate about school libraries.

Thank you for your time and attention to completing this. I am including the names and email contacts of the AASL Legislation Committee members. Please feel free to contact any and all of us regarding legislative issues and concerns. You can also sign up for ALAWON, the ALA Washington Office Newsline to receive emails regarding library issues at http://www.ala.org/ala/washoff/washnews/news.htm Thank you.
Diane R. Chen

AASL Legislation Committee members:

Bashaw, Debra dbashaw@huntington.esc7.net Texas
Burns, Ty R. tburns@ccisd.net Texas
Chen, Diane dianerchen@comcast.net Tennessee
Couts, Pat buckspal@sbcglobal.net Oklahoma
Daniel, Judy shm001@mail.connect.more.net Missouri
Harlan, Mary Ann persei@cox.net (AASL board liaison) California
Hayden, Jim j23hayden@aol.com Oregon
Howard, Jody Jody.howard@cudenver.edu Colorado
Negro, Toni tnegro@comcast.net Maryland
Reiman, Mary mreiman@lps.org Nebraska
Roth, Bob rroth@boston.k12.ma.us Massachusetts
Schuckett, Sandy aq061@lafn.org California
Agarwal, Kathy kagarwal@ala.org (AASL staff liaison) Illinois

*******************************************************
State Affiliate Organization:
Name of state’s Legislation Committee chairperson or other contact:
Email:
Address:
Phone:
Does the state organization send a school library media representative to National Library Legislative Day?
Who will be attending in May 2006? (this may be updated at ALA Midwinter or later)
Would you like to receive AASL Legislation Committee updates as well as the person above?

**************end email*******************
Now, you don’t have to be a member of the committee to be involved. You can also contact the ALA Washington Office, members of the ALA Legislation Committee including Ruth Toor - former school librarian and editor of The School Librarian’s Workshop who you can email.

Also, if you are in attendance at ALA’s Midwinter Meeting in San Antonio, be sure to attend the briefings from the Washington Office so you are informed.

The Washington Office presents a Washington Office Update every Saturday morning. This year, the schedule is:

8:00-9:00 AM on Jan 21 in the Convention Center, Room 204 Stephanie
Vance will be conducting a workshop on “How to Speak to the Media”
9:00-9:10 AM will be the Chairs of OITP Advisory Committee and Committee on Legislation briefly updating audience on our issues (appropriations, telecom, E Rate, etc)
9:10-9:25 AM will be “Behind the scenes Activities on the PATRIOT Act”
9:25-9:50 AM will be Jonathan Band explaining the different legal
actions around Google and its digitization projects
9:50-10:00 AM will be audience Q & A

10:30 AM will have a breakout session on Disaster Preparedness in
Convention Center, Room 213A

Also at 10:30 AM will be a breakout session on digitization with a panel
of experts followed by audience discussion

Anyone who has not had media training should definitely come to the 8-9
AM session; and you should have someone at the Disaster Preparedness
workshop to get the handouts and help folks use all the information we
will have on Washington’s Disaster web page

****************Advocacy******************
If you’d like to see how ALA/AASL develops it’s plans regarding advocacy, whether it be with legislators or with other stakeholders and the public, join us at any committee or ask questions. Spend a few moments with committee members like Bob Roth, and Sandy Schuckett in an informal setting and you’ll see our passion for excellent school libraries runs deep. Read Sandy Schuckett’s excellent book

Political Advocacy for School Librarians: YOU HAVE THE POWER!

available from Linworth Publishing to give you a quick start to learning more. Most importantly to getting involved is changing your thinking from the idea that someone else will do the lobbying and speaking for you, to the belief that you have a message that needs to be shared.