Politics and the ALA Elections

I was recently fulfilling my duty as a member of ALA and voting for the governing council members. It can be painfully boring reading through everyone's personal statement and for me voting for people who have not previously served on ALA council.

Now as an archivist I'm not all that involved in ALA or the politics surrounding it. I've only been to one mid-winter and even then I wasn't really there.

Down the list a piece was a person whose job title was simply "blogger." It intrigued me so I thought I'd check out the guy's blog. Big mistake.

This so called "conservative" librarian holds the usual positions that diversity is a non-issue and that censorship is okay, sometimes (but who decides?). In his words,

"I think patrons have a right to challenge a book and sometimes its okay to say a book doesn't belong in certain collections. The world won't end."

I'm sure the Third Reich would agree.

As I've learned from politics, this guy likes to play the "professional victim," always being shot down for their attempt to "balance" the liberal leanings of ALA. And fuck yeah ALA is liberal. Its hard not to be when constantly pitted against fascist censorship; when the organization's mission is to inform the citizenry, which is anathema to conservatism (because conservatism's very existence relies on an uninformed populace). As a professional victim, he puts up a piss poor bio profile on the ballot, which says nothing of what he would do as an ALA councilor. His intellectual design-similar profile is merely a criticism of ALA. So when he is not elected he'll claim that no one voted for him because the membership is liberal not because his plea to be elected was confrontational and half-assed.

He also attacks nominees for council that he deems progressive, yet you'll find no mention of where he works on the ballot*. Presumably he doesn't want his name connected with his library because a) he's a paranoid delusional, believing that ALA will hire thugs to throw his books in maple syrup or b) he doesn't want to shame his library.

The list does not even have true criticisms, but is used as a McCarthyite tool to generate support for his views without substantive evidence. Some nominees are simply on the list for having the word "diversity" in their "Statement of Professional Concerns."

Actually his list (which was posted by a 3rd party on the listserv) is actually a pretty good guide to go by if you really want people who are primarily progressives on ALA Council.

Personally, I think its a bad idea to overly politicize something as vital as ALA. The organizations advocacy is really minimal compared with the rest of its activities. And personally I believe that ALA's positions have actually enhanced the image of librarians. I'd rather we be known as trouble making iconoclasts than invisible Alice-the-librarians.

*His pitch for council reads: "I am a conservative librarian who is concerned about the tone ALA takes on many library issues and also the stands it takes on many non-library related issues. I believe intellectual diversity is the most important kind of diversity. I believe Library 2.0 is overrated though I’m involved with 4 blogs and have accounts with YouTube and Flickr. I don’t support software filters on all public computers but access to pornography is not a right of intellectual freedom. I support the MLS (it does need an overhaul) and its not what makes you a librarian. I’ve been a professional librarian for 11 years. I enjoy what I do and like many fellow librarians I don’t see ALA as influencing what I do today. It does affect the relevancy and importance of librarians and libraries in the future. For more information about me and my positions you can visit www.shush.ws."