ALCTS Network News v4n09 (November 2, 1992) URL = http://hegel.lib.ncsu.edu/stacks/serials/ann/ann-v4n09 ISSN: 1056-6694 ALCTS NETWORK NEWS An electronic publication of the Association for Library Collections & Technical Services Volume 4, Number 9 November 2, 1992 In this issue ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE TASK FORCE: PROGRESS REPORT #2 ************************************************************************** ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE TASK FORCE REPORT PROGRESS REPORT #2 The ALCTS Organizational Structure Task Force met October 2-3 to continue its work. To date, we have received numerous thoughtful and helpful comments from ALCTS members and these comments formed the basis for the work at this last meeting. OVERVIEW OF TASK FORCE DIRECTION One area of concern that has surfaced repeatedly is discomfort with our proposal to abolish the sections. Yet, most of these same people also have been highly critical of the way in which the ALCTS structure presently works. So before determining in which direction we should head, we reconfirmed the issues and concerns that have been raised to date by asking the question "What can't we do now that we should be doing in order to meet both the needs of our members and the profession at large?" The following are some of the problems we identified: * We can't program in a timely fashion. * We can't move quickly on major issues. * We have difficulty identifying and developing new leaders. * Projects can't be approved in a timely fashion. * Visionary ideas do not surface easily. * The structure is generally unresponsive. Therefore, as we proceed to develop proposals, we agreed that we cannot lose sight of the following issues: * bureaucracy & elitism * empowerment of the members * too many committees/too much overlap * library-related issues * loss of focus and identity about the role of ALCTS and its members * better communication within the Association * politics We spent considerable time discussing your concerns about the abolition of sections and decided to build sections back into our plan although we are planning to recommend some changes in how sections operate. As of this writing, two possible organizational structures will be presented to the Board of Directors. While significant progress has been made in developing detail operational issues on our proposals, we determined that we would not be able to complete our work prior to the Denver Mid-Winter meetings. Therefore, we decided to let our schedule slip by several months. We will submit our report to the Board of Directors by April, 1993 and hearings will be held at the Annual Meeting in New Orleans. The Task Force will be meeting several times at Midwinter. For those of you who might be interested in seeing more detail on our progress to date, please join us for our first meeting, which will provide a more detailed recap of our work than what is provided here in this newsletter. This meeting will be held on Saturday, January 23rd from 4:30 - 5:30 p.m. SUMMARY OF REVISED TIMELINE -- Midwinter 93 : Continued development of plan -- April 93: Plan submitted to Board of Directors -- June 93: Hearings on Task Force plan -- June 93-Midwinter 94: Board Consideration of Plan and possible action OPERATIONAL COMPONENTS OF AN ALCTS STRUCTURE We have made considerable progress on describing the roles and functions of the various pieces of an organizational structure and would like to share with you what we have developed to date and once again encourage you to communicate your thoughts to us. Board of Directors The Board of Directors should set policy, provide budget oversight, engage in external relations with other groups both within and outside of ALA, facilitate communication within ALCTS, and engage in visionary planning for the Association. The Board also should engage in an overall review and evaluation of the Association's effectiveness and structure once every five years. The primary purpose of the Board should be to FACILITATE all Association activities such as: leadership development, communication, education/training, the development of standards and guidelines, provision of social interaction and professional support, development of visions for the future, assistance with coping with change, and the application of new technology. The Board should not spend the bulk of its time hearing general reports from all sections and Association committees. Rather, we propose that the Board implement a general reporting session at which no Board business is conducted and to which all Association members are invited. Written reports of Association activities and accomplishments should be strongly encouraged and published in AN2 and in the ALCTS Newsletter. Sections The primary purpose of a section is to provide a COMMUNITY OF COMMON INTEREST for its members. Within this framework, the sections and their executive committees exist to facilitate all section activities just as the Board of Directors does for the Association. Standing Committees The primary purpose of standing committees is to conduct the ongoing administrative work of ALCTS and its sections, such as budget and finance, nominations and appointments, international relations, publications oversight, membership development, continuing education, organization and bylaws, research and statistics, and legislation and external affairs. Task Forces Task forces are established by the Board or section executive committees to create or produce a specific product or task. Its assignment could be short-term (much like our task force assignment) or recurring year-after-year. Task forces will be engaged in the following types of activities: program and institute planning, writing guidelines or standards, writing or preparing other types of publications or products, etc. Focus Groups Focus groups exist to provide discussion and/or study forums on specific topics of interest to the members. Focus groups are established either by the Board of Directors or section executive committees. Focus groups may develop short, informal, topical programs/presentations that require no financial resources from ALCTS except for room assignment and perhaps microphones. Focus groups may propose more formal programs but these will have to go through formal section/ALCTS/ALA procedures. Membership in focus groups is self-selected and the focus group maintains its own mailing list. They develop their own procedures for electing or appointing chairpersons and/or steering committees. We are contemplating some sort of sunset limitation for focus groups that would require a review and evaluation of effectiveness and need every 2-3 years. WHAT REMAINS TO BE DONE We have focussed our energies on the roles and functions of various elements of an organizational structure. We now have to determine the following: 1. How should the sections be constituted? Some people have been concerned that we will recommend an organizational structure that mirrors current structures within our libraries. Rest assured, we are not planning to do that. Rather, we want to develop a structure that will facilitate the operation and effectiveness of ALCTS, which is an association, not a library. 2. We have made some progress on developing scenaria for how a task force or section gets a publication approved and on how major program planning occurs but these need further development. In addition, we need to think through how many other activities actually will work. A major guiding principle in this aspect of our work is "empowerment". We will try to reduce bureaucratic oversight whenever it impedes rather than facilitates the work of ALCTS. 3. Overlaying almost any structure are communication vehicles for the members. We have yet to explore this issue. Any of the structures proposed will be discussed and evaluated against the issues in the first section of this report. As you can see, we have some difficult work ahead of us and we encourage you to contact any one of us if you would like to express your thoughts on this important process. [Editor's note: AN2 will be happy to carry the debate on this issue. Simply send your message (or a copy of it) to the ALCTS Office at u34261@uicvm.uic.edu and we will issue all comments in digest form.] ALCTS ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE TASK FORCE Beth Shapiro, Chair, Rice University-Fondren Library P.O. Box 1892, Houston, TX 77251; shapiro@ricevm1.rice.edu William Gosling, University of Michigan Library, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1205; william.gosling@um.cc.umich.edu Mark Roosa, Huntington Library, 1151 Oxford Road, San Marino CA 91108-1218 Susan Vita, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 20540 svit@seq1.loc.gov ************************************************************************* ************************************************************************* ALCTS NETWORK NEWS (ISSN 1056-6694) is published irregularly by the Association for Library Collections & Technical Services, a division of the American Library Association. Editorial offices: ALCTS, 50 E. Huron St., Chicago, IL 60611; Liz Bishoff, President; Karen Muller, Executive Director. Editor: Karen Muller (u34261@uicvm); Editorial Advisory Board: Liz Bishoff, Jennifer Younger, Arnold Hirshon. ALCTS NETWORK NEWS is available free of charge and is available only in electronic form. Opinions expressed in the articles are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the division. News items should be sent to the editor at Bitnet address u34261@uicvm. To subscribe, issue the network command "tell listserv@uicvm sub alcts [your account] [your name]." Back issues of AN2 are available through the listserver. To find out what's available, send the following command to LISTSERV@UICVM: send alcts filelist The ALCTS FILELIST contains the list of files with the EXACT filename and filetype. To get a particular file, issue this command to the LISTSERV@UICVM: send filename filetype. Send questions about membership in ALCTS to the ALCTS Office, u34261@uicvm. All materials in the newsletter subject to copyright by the American Library Association may be reprinted or redistributed for the noncommercial purpose of scientific or education advancement granted by Sections 107 and 108 of the Copyright Revision Act of 1976. For other reprinting or redistribution or translations, address requests to the ALA Office of Rights and Permissions, 50 E. Huron Street, Chicago, IL 60611. *************************************************************************