ALA Election Finals

The ALA elections are over. 14,441 people voted. The new ALA President Elect is Loriene Roy. The dues increase passed by a fairly close margin. The new incoming Councilors At Large are Rosie L. Albritton, Cassandra G. Barnett, Beth E. Bingham, Carolyn Sue Brodie, Kate Ann Corby, Bob R. Diaz, Heidi W. Dolamore, David L. Easterbrook, Ann Dutton Ewbank, Amy Gonzalez Ferguson, Nancy Fredericks, Carolyn P. Giambra, Michael A. Golrick, Michael Gutierrez, Rochelle L. Hartman, Beth K. Hill, Dora T. Ho, Patricia M. Hogan, Dennis J. LeLoup, Ginny B. Moore, Andrea M. Morrison, Ria Elizabeth Newhouse, Nancy C. Pack , Jo Ann Pinder, Ellen M. Riordan, Larry Romans, Frances R. Roscello, Mark C. Rosenzweig, Gail A. Schlachter, Barbara Silverman, Margie J. Thomas, Shixing Wen and Nancy P. Zimmerman. More election results are on this page and Michael has the numbers for the At Large Councilor votes.

dear recent and upcoming library grads

Happy National Library Week! You’ll be happy to know that the librarian shortage has been pushed back another few years. You’ll be even happier to know that advances in health care combined with the rising costs of health care mean that librarians are living longer and keeping their jobs longer. While there are plenty of creative ways you can give your work away for free or for cheap, you might want to look at this as an opportunity to go back to school or maybe find a new hobby while you wait.

Seriously, this is not an April Fools post, though I wish it were. I just wanted to let you know that Michael McGrorty posted a message to the ALA Council list talking about the librarian job market and the odd juxtaposition of the Library Corps idea. I followed up with my own response which you might find interesting. Catch up on the whole thread here and hope people don’t get too turned off to the entire idea of librarianship with the post that followed mine.

In the meantime, if you need a bright spot among all this darkness, please enjoy the Rock n Roll Library video created especially for this week. Got anything else to share for NLW? Add it in the comments.

changes in the blogosphere

Sarah, the Librarian in Black, has a new job. Karen, the Free Range Librarian, is dealing with some funding challenges at her place of work and has stepped down from ALA Council so that she can focus on work and life stuff. This has sparked more interesting discussion about the value of ALA versus peoples’ ability to substantively participate if they have limited time or financial resources. Michael from Tame the Web is condo shopping outside of Chicago, and I’ve been looking into some interesting job options for when the tech mentoring stuff wraps up in September.

wireless at ALA, for all

This just in over the ALA Council newswire. Wireless connectivity, which had previously been available only to ALA Councilors, will be available to all ALA Conference attendees in Chicago. Keith Michael Fiels, ALA Executive Director says the connnectivity will be available “at a highly discounted rate.” Of course, “discounted from what?” is the question here, since Councilors get their connections for free, but look forward to being able to be wireless at ALA in June.