ALCTS Network News v5n28 (May 19, 1993) URL = http://hegel.lib.ncsu.edu/stacks/serials/ann/ann-v5n28 PUT AN2 V5_NO28 ISSN: 1056-6694 ALCTS NETWORK NEWS An electronic publication of the Association for Library Collections & Technical Services Volume 5, Number 28 May 19, 1993 In this issue REPORT OF THE ALCTS ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE TASK FORCE ************************************************************************** [Editor's note: The Appendices referred to in this report will be in the next issue of AN2, vol. 5, no. 29. The line numbers are counted from the divider line below and should be treated as approximate. This report has been published in its entirety in _ALCTS Newsletter_, vol. 4, no. 4.] ************************************************************************** ALCTS ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE TASK FORCE FINAL REPORT, April 15, 1993 Beth J. Shapiro, Chairperson William Gosling Mark Roosa Susan Vita ORGANIZATIONAL TASK FORCE REPORT EXECUTIVE SUMMARY At the Winter 1991 board meeting, the ALCTS Board of Directors appointed a task force to review the organizational structure of the Association. The task force recognized the importance of obtaining input from the membership throughout the process. Beginning with the 1992 ALA Midwinter meeting and running through Midwinter 1993, the task force held numerous public meetings and published progress reports of its work in both _AN2_ and the _ALCTS Newsletter_. The meetings were well attended and extensive, thoughtful responses to the published reports were received. What follows is the culmination of our work. In addition to presenting an organizational model for consideration, this report reviews the key organizational issues raised by the members. Also presented are recommendations about how the organizational structure should work to achieve both our mission and the concerns of our members. Areas covered include charges for Association-level standing committees, scenarios for how publications and programs are accomplished, and suggestions for improving communication with the membership. The following recommendations for action are organized in two sections: process and organizational structure. The task force hopes that these recommendations will inspire thoughtful and fruitful discussions of the issues that ultimately will result in an improved ALCTS that is prepared to meet the challenges of the future. PROCESS RECOMMENDATIONS 1. The Board of Directors should hold a general reporting session towards the end of each conference to which all members are invited and at which ALCTS units report on their activities and accomplishments. It also would provide the Board with an opportunity to review its accomplishments with the membership. (line 278ff) 2. A single set of bylaws that apply to both the Association and its sections should be maintained. Section organization and bylaws committees are eliminated. (lines 309ff) 3. ALCTS should establish an electronic information service called ALCTSINFO to improve communication with the membership. (lines 348ff, 458ff) 4. Conference scheduling should be modified to reduce scheduling conflicts and to provide a coherent set of workshops and educational experiences for members in attendance. (line 399ff) 5. ALCTS should make greater use of technology to extend conference programs to those unable to travel to conference sites. (lines 420ff) 6. ALCTS should use video conferencing technology to broadcast reporting sessions of national agencies from conference sites. (lines 431ff) 7. Conference programming lead time should be reduced from 18 months to 6-12 months as is done in all other ALA divisions. (line 450ff) 8. The work of implementing ALCTS programs, workshops, institutes, etc. should be the responsibility of ALCTS staff. ALCTS members should be responsible for formulating programming ideas and actual program development. (line 437ff) 9. ALCTS should improve and increase participation opportunities for paraprofessionals by (line 471ff) * providing a reduced membership fee structure; * establishing a new focus group called Paraprofessionals in Technical Services; * appointing paraprofessional interns to various task forces and committees; and, * developing conference and extra conference programming of interest to paraprofessionals. ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE RECOMMENDATIONS 10. ALCTS unit structure should consist of standing committees, task forces, focus groups, and joint committees. (line 218ff) 11. Board of Directors should consist of 15 elected members: President, Vice President/President-elect; Past President, Budget and Finance and Professional Development Committee Chairs, and the ALA Councilor, all elected at large; 6 at-large members to represent various ALCTS functional interests, and the three section chairs. The ALCTS Executive Director serves in an ex-officio capacity. The Board may add other ALCTS standing committee chairs to serve ex-officio. (line 283ff) 12. The Continuing Education Committee should be replaced by the Professional Development Committee, which should play a wide-ranging role in developing programming, continuing education, training, and member communication activities for the Association. Library education issues would be addressed through section continuing education and training focus groups. (line 319ff) 13. A Strategic Visions Committee should be established to develop strategic visions, plans, goals, etc. for the Association. (line 343ff) 14. The Council of Regional Groups should become a focus group similar to the ALA Chapter Relations Council. (line 373ff) 15. ALCTS should be restructured into the following three sections to improve cross fertilization among groups with related interests and to reduce bureaucratic overhead and fiscal support: Bibliographic Access and Control, Resource Management and Delivery, and Innovative Ideas and New Technologies. This structure will retain the communities of interest desired by the members while reducing administrative overhead. (line 506ff) *********************************************** ALCTS ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE TASK FORCE FINAL REPORT INTRODUCTION At the Winter 1991 board meeting, the ALCTS Board of Directors appointed a task force to review the organizational structure of the Association. The charge was: "To review the current division and section organizational structure of ALCTS, consulting widely within the division, and to recommend a new organizational model that will be appropriate to meet the needs of librarians in library collections and technical services during the late 1990's and after the year 2000..." The task force recognized the importance of obtaining input from the membership throughout the process. Beginning with the 1992 ALA Midwinter meeting and running through Midwinter 1993, the task force held numerous public meetings and published progress reports of its work in both _AN2_ and the _ALCTS Newsletter_. The meetings were well attended and extensive, thoughtful responses to the published reports were received. While there is not space to reflect every concern voiced, most of the issues fell within three primary categories: 1) ALCTS has become too bureaucratic; 2) ALCTS focuses too much on "nitty gritty", day-to-day problems and is not looking towards the future; and 3) there has been inconsistent and poor communication between ALCTS leadership and the members. In addition to meeting at regularly scheduled ALA conferences, the task force spent a total of 4 days in 3 separate retreats developing the recommendations included in this report. At the first retreat, the task force agreed that a new ALCTS mission statement was needed before an effective organizational review could commence. A new ALCTS mission statement was developed by the Task Force and presented to the ALCTS Board in June of 1992. This statement was revised and approved by the ALCTS Board of Directors in January 1993. The new mission statement is in Appendix A. As the task force neared the end of its deliberations, ALA initiated a process that will review the overall ALA organizational structure. The task force met with Bill Summers, the chair of the ALA Self Study Committee, but this report in no way attempts to address the broader issues that face ALA. Nevertheless, the organizational issues identified are similar to those being addressed by the ALA self study. Numerous organizational models were considered and all were rejected except the one presented here. Also, this report reviews the key organizational issues raised by the members. Recommendations about how the organizational structure should work to achieve both the ALCTS mission and the concerns of its members are presented. Areas covered include charges for the division level standing committees, scenarios for how publications and programs are accomplished, and improving communication with and services to the membership. This report is organized into the following sections: Organizational Issues (line 180ff) Organizational Structure (line 216ff) Professional Development (line 381ff) Paraprofessionals (line 469ff) Organizational Model (line 504ff) Conclusion (line 571ff) In addition, there are several appendices: Appendix A: ALCTS Mission Appendix B: ALCTS Structure Appendix C: Publications Scenario Appendix D: Scenario for Implementing Major Programs, Institutes and Workshops ORGANIZATIONAL ISSUES The task force took every available opportunity to gather member concerns about how ALCTS meets member needs today and what type of organization is needed as we approach the twenty-first century. The following question was asked: "What can't we do now that we should be doing in order to meet the needs of both our members and profession at large? Some of the responses we received were: * 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. * The structure is generally unresponsive. Therefore, as the task force proceeded to develop proposals every effort was made to present an organizational structure that would: * Reduce elitism and unnecessary bureaucracy; * Empower the members; * Reduce the number of overlapping and non-essential committees; * Enhance the identity of ALCTS and its members * Improve communication within ALCTS. This report and any subsequent reorganization of ALCTS should be judged on how well these organizational issues have been addressed. ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE In deciding to retain the section structure of ALCTS, the task force recognized the important function played by the sections in providing for members a community of common interest. However, the Association must be flexible enough to provide new communities of interests when the need arises. The task force organized the various types of committees and units into three categories: **Standing Committees carry out the on-going administrative work of ALCTS and its sections, such as budgeting, nominations, publications, etc. At the Association level, diversity of interests should be the goal of committee appointments rather than section representation. Within the sections, it is proposed that no more than two standing committees exist: section executive committee and a Nominating & Appointments Committee. To reduce bureaucratic duplication, as much of the administrative work of the Association as possible should be consolidated within Association-level committees. **Task Forces have a specific task or project to carry out that may or may not have a limited time frame. Examples include awards, program planning, writing standards/guidelines, preparing publications, Organizational Structure Task Force, etc. **Focus Groups exist to provide discussion and/or study forums on specific topics of interest to the members and contain elements of both committees and discussion groups. They are organized to provide more flexibility for the members. Focus groups may develop short, informal topical programs that require no organizational financial resources except for a room assignment and perhaps microphones. Focus groups also may propose formal programs to the Professional Development Committee. Membership in focus groups is self-selected and self-managed by electing their own chairs and/or steering committees. Official communication between section level focus groups go through section executive committees. Focus groups will have to justify their continuation every three years through procedures established by the Organization and Bylaws Committee. It is recommended that a one page summary of the accomplishments and highlights from the previous three years and justification for continuation be presented: "this is what we have done...this is what we see coming up in the future." Several joint committees exist within ALCTS. These committees are established collaboratively between ALCTS and other agencies outside of ALCTS. The following concepts for various parts of the organizational structure at the Association level of ALCTS are proposed: Board of Directors As with the present ALCTS Board of Directors, this new board should set policy, provide budget oversight, conduct Association planning, engage in external relations within ALA and with other appropriate groups outside of ALA, and facilitate intersectional relations within ALCTS. An emphasis should be placed on Association planning that regularly engages in visioning the future directions of our profession and on conducting reviews of the Association and its component units at least once every five years. The Board should be charged with facilitating all Association activities such as leadership development, communications, education/training, the development of standards and guidelines, social interaction and support among the members, coping with change, and the applications of new technology within ALCTS. The Board should hold a general reporting session towards the end of each conference to which all members are invited. Each section and Association-level unit that has something important to report would report at this open meeting. Written reports of the activities of Association activities should be provided and made available whenever possible. The composition of the Board should include the following persons elected at-large: President, Vice President-Elect, Past President, Budget and Finance Committee Chair, Professional Development Committee Chair, and the ALA Councilor. Also, six at-large board members will be elected to represent the following interest areas within ALCTS: acquisitions, cataloging, collection development, preservations, serials, and technology. The section chairs also are Board members. The ALCTS Executive Director serves in an ex-officio capacity. The Board may decide to invite other Association standing committee chairs to serve ex-officio. Standing Committees The largest number of standing committees will exist at the Association level. Committee size should vary depending upon the needs of the committee. Appointments to standing committees and task forces shall reflect diversity within the Association (e.g., functional expertise, type of library, geographic region, gender/ethnic diversity, etc.) The charges and appointment process for several of these committees should be modified from current practice as follows: Appointments Committee advises the Vice President on appointments to Association committees and joint committees. It also recommends ALCTS appointments to IFLA committees. This committee is chaired by the Vice President and includes three appointed members and the vice chairs of the sections. Organization & Bylaws Committee is the only organization and bylaws committee in the Association. A single set of bylaws and procedure manual will be maintained by the Association. Bylaws are approved by the Board of Directors and a vote of the membership. Association procedures are approved by the Board. Section procedures are developed by the section executive committees and will be reviewed for consistency with Association policies and procedures by this committee. This committee will establish and maintain a calendar for the organizational reviews of committees, task forces, and focus groups. The Past President serves as chair. Professional Development Committee: The Professional Development Committee (PDC) replaces the Continuing Education Committee and has wide-ranging responsibility for coordinating and developing all Association continuing education, training, and professional development activities. The activities of this committee should be a primary focus of the Association. Its purpose is to sponsor, promote, support, schedule, and coordinate continuing education and training for the membership--both professional and paraprofessional. The PDC will have three subcommittees to accomplish its charge: Conference Programming, Extra Conference Programming, and Member Communication. The PDC should help prepare the members for both present and future challenges by providing education, training, and networking opportunities at conference programs, classes, and workshops; through regional institutes; and through remote, electronic conferencing or other means made possible by technological developments. The possibility of CE credits should be explored for the training offered. Three at-large members are elected to the PDC for staggered terms. The chairperson is appointed for a one year renewable term by the Vice President from one of these elected members. The other committee members include the chairs of the three subcommittees. The subcommittees are appointed by the Vice President. In addition, an ALCTS staff member serves as an ex-officio member of the committee. Strategic Visions Committee is a new standing committee that replaces the Planning Committee and is charged with developing strategic visions, plans, and goals for the Association. It also should identify services, products and grant opportunities to be channeled to appropriate groups. ALCTSINFO Advisory Board: The task force proposes the creation of an ALCTS sponsored electronic information service called ALCTSINFO to improve communication among the members. This standing committee will serve as the advisory committee to ALCTS staff on the electronic services to be provided. Additional information about ALCTSINFO appears 90 lines down. Budget and Finance Committee remains essentially the same except for two elements. The chairperson should be elected at-large for a three-year term similar to the ALA Treasurer. Also, it will assume responsibility for recommending to the Board international travel support for ALCTS members after consulting with the International Relations Focus Group. Other Standing Committees: Other Association level standing committees include Membership, Publications, LRTS Editorial Board, and Research & Statistics. Their charges and basic functions remain unchanged. International Relations becomes a focus group with several of its previous functions assumed by other committees. For more information about how the publications process works, see Appendix C. By eliminating some of the section administrative committees, the number of functional units, excluding institute and conference programming committees, is reduced from 123 units to 106 units. The task force also believes that the proposed structure will encourage units that no longer need to exist to disappear thereby providing a more relevant Association for the members. Council of Regional Groups The task force recommends that the Council of Regional Groups (CRG) be reconstituted as the Chapter Relations Focus Group, similar in form and function to the ALA Chapter Relations Council. Due to the important role played now by CRG in communicating with regional chapters and groups, every effort should be made to include members of the Chapter Relations Focus Group as members of Professional Development Committee subcommittees. PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT One of the major problem areas that surfaced during the task force deliberations was a concern about the unevenness of communication with members who do not attend ALA and with the way in which conference and extra-conference programming is both handled and scheduled. The task force also viewed all of these issues as member (both professional and paraprofessional) and leadership development issues. Several operational and programmatic recommendations were developed to emphasize education, training, and personal networking rather than administrative busy work: 1. A Professional Development Committee should be established as an ALCTS standing committee to coordinate all continuing education, training, and general membership communication activities. The purpose and composition of this committee is described at line 316. 2. Annual Conference Scheduling: At annual conferences, professional development should be the focus and scheduling should reflect this emphasis. Two to two and half core days should be set aside for member development and programming. Members will participate in well-coordinated workshops designed to stimulate new ideas and new skills through speakers, reporting sessions, vendor presentations of new products, and member interaction and networking. For example, committee meetings might be scheduled only on Fridays, Monday afternoons, and Tuesdays, leaving Saturdays, Sundays, and Monday mornings for educational programming without conflict. Other combinations of continuing education and business time slots also are possible such as scheduling committees to meet in early morning and evening time slots. Such scheduling would reduce the significant scheduling conflicts that our most active members face. It would free them to interact with other members--including new members--in workshops, and would enrich the learning process. This would require a MAJOR shift in conference scheduling--but one that would provide significant member benefits. At Midwinter Conferences, an emphasis should be placed on focus group activities in addition to Association business. 3. Opportunities for Members Who Don't Attend Midwinter or Annual Conferences: A large number of ALCTS members do not attend the annual or midwinter conferences and every attempt should be made to improve services to these members. Some of the following approaches could be used: video tape more programs, implement video-conferencing for some of the larger programs; take successful programs or pre-conferences on the road. 4. Reporting Sessions (e.g., LC, NISO, NAL, NLM, etc.) that are sponsored by focus groups, task forces and other units should be consolidated so that business/focus group meeting times are not wasted on the same information being presented numerous times throughout conference. In addition, it is recommended that these reporting sessions be presented as a video conference that could be uplinked and sent out nationally so that members who are unable to attend ALA can hear these reports. The video conference should be coordinated by and scheduled through the Professional Development Committee and scheduled in a no conflict slot. 5. Program Implementation: The work of implementing programs, workshops and institutes should be the responsibility of the ALCTS staff. Program/institute planning committees spend too much time handling the nitty gritty of this aspect of continuing education and not enough time in developing the conceptual and theoretical frameworks of the programs. Staff should contact speakers, determine necessary budgets, make all room arrangements, handle all publicity, etc. This recommendation may have significant implications for staffing and budgeting for the ALCTS office. Nevertheless, the type and quality of support provided by staff needs to be addressed. 6. Budget and Budget Planning: The Professional Development Committee should be provided with an annual budget to support all programming activities. Procedures should be developed that will reduce the program planning lead time. Six to twelve months in advance of the program should be adequate lead time. This will help the programs to be more current and to focus on issues of immediate importance to the members. Budgets for extra conference programs should be developed as separate projects by the PDC. Programs not funded by the PDC will be forwarded to the Budget and Finance Committee for approval. 7. ALCTSINFO: As leaders in the use of information technology in our libraries, we should be utilizing technology to a greater extent within the Association. ALCTS should establish an electronic news service called ALCTSINFO that would be similar to many of the campus-wide information services presently being developed at numerous colleges and universities. Available services should include AN2 (text file), ALAWON (text file); and other data resources files such as directories, listservs, conference information, ALCTS policies, standards, electronic excerpts from programs, and fast breaking news, among others. PARAPROFESSIONALS As an association, ALCTS has not adequately addressed the issue of responsiveness to the needs of paraprofessionals in collections and library technical services. Paraprofessional interest in professional involvement is increasing and ALCTS must find ways to respond to their interests and attract them to the Association to foster better communication or they will join or affiliate with other associations that better meet their needs. The task force recommends that ALCTS develop opportunities for paraprofessional participation by : * providing sliding scale dues based on income; and by * providing visible opportunities for paraprofessional involvement such as: * develop programs and other educational opportunities of interest; * create a Paraprofessionals in Technical Services Focus Group; * encourage other divisions to provide opportunities, particularly LAMA; * establish a section for paraprofessionals within AN2 to which they contribute; * appoint paraprofessionals as interns to various task forces; * encourage regional institute participation by developing topics of interest to paraprofessionals. THE ORGANIZATIONAL MODEL The task force recommends that ALCTS be restructured into an association with three sections: Bibliographic Access and Control, Resource Management and Delivery, and Innovative Ideas and New Technologies. Though the number of sections has been reduced, a home remains for every group presently within ALCTS. ____________________________________ | | | | | Board of Directors | | | | | |__________________________________| | | | ---------------------------------------------------- | | | ___________________ ____________________ ____________________ | | | | | | | Bibliographic | | Innovative Ideas | | Resource | | Access & |<----->| & New |<---->| Management | | Control | | Technologies | | & Delivery | |_________________| |__________________| |__________________| When looking at this model, it is important to remember that the proposed alignments of units within each model are just that--proposals that need to be carefully reviewed during the implementation process. A suggested unit realignment is detailed in Appendix B. Should this model be adopted by the membership, the task force recommends that the ALCTS Board involve the membership in implementing this proposal. Many of the charges and specific organizational details must still be developed. The most unique feature of this model is the Innovative Ideas and New Technologies Section (IIS). Though it is an independent section with a section elected executive committee, the task force recommends that each of its units (task forces and focus groups) be a joint effort with another section. This has the advantage of both providing a home for those interested with innovative ideas and new technologies in technical services and collections but also encourages their permeation throughout the Association. This model is a forward-looking model responsive to member needs because: * It emphasizes a visionary approach to Association activities by highlighting innovative Association work. The activities of the Innovative Ideas and New Technologies Section are fluid and are unburdened by some of the ongoing and day-to-day work of the Association. * It provides a much leaner bureaucratic structure that will reduce administrative costs including the amount of time ALCTS staff must spend on bureaucratic business. This will result in more time and resources to be spent on programmatic support. * It reduces the programmatic isolation that now exists among sections by fostering programmatic cross-fertilization while still retaining "communities of interest". Given the increasing interdependence of the areas of specialty within ALCTS, it is advantageous for the Association to encourage more collaborative work. This model provides enough cohesion within the sections to provide desired communities of interest but the sections are not so narrowly defined that isolation among related areas of interest will occur. * Though reducing the number of standing committees, opportunities for member participation are increased through a vital focus group structure. CONCLUSION This report is submitted to the ALCTS Board of Directors as a discussion document. It is the hope of the task force that the recommendations provided herewith stimulate the Association leadership and membership to look with a fresh eye towards the ALCTS of today so that we can make the ALCTS of tomorrow a truly outstanding, innovative and visionary Association for the next century. Throughout this process, the task force received numerous thoughtful comments from many ALCTS members. The quality of the recommendations in this report and the effectiveness of any organizational changes that are implemented should be evaluated according to the following criteria: * Do members receive what they need in a timely fashion? * Is the scale of activities small enough that participation is encouraged and affordable? * Is the Association able to adjust quickly to changes in the world of librarianship? * Does the Association help members to grow and develop? * Does the Association have an outstanding image throughout the profession and by those outside the profession? If the answers to these questions are yes, then the Association will have gone a long ways towards building quality into ALCTS as we approach the millennium. ************************************************************************* ************************************************************************* 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; Editorial Assistance: Beth Shapiro. 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 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. *************************************************************************