You'll have to excuse the language today. I know this is a family blog, but I just couldn't think of an appropriately strong phrase to describe the SRRT ass-kicking by the ALA Council.
At Library Juice, you can find the SRRT's own report about the success of their shenanigans at ALA Council in Seattle. The two resolutions totally unrelated to librarianship were defeated, I knew, but I hadn't realized just how soundly. I hadn't noticed the actual numbers when reading about the ALA Council votes regarding defunding the Iraq War and lobbying to have President Bush impeached, but considering the vote count the SRRT report should have been called "We Got Our Collectivist and Collective Ass Kicked."
The resolution on the Iraq War was defeated 98-48. That's a pretty good ass-kicking by anyone's standards. According to the balanced and objective author of the SRRT report, "Almost everyone we talked with was in favor on a personal level, but there is a disconnect between their personal views and their professional lives. We just have to work harder to connect our issues and break down these barriers to fundamentally change our society."
"A disconnect between their personal views and their professional lives." Well, that's certainly one way to put it. Another way to put it is that, unlike some of the SRRT folks, not everyone subscribes to the totalitarian mindset that the personal and the professional and everything else is subsumed within the political. There is nothing outside the SRRT! Hail the SRRT! Somebody should tell the totalitarians at the SRRT that lots of people like to separate their personal and their professional lives, but I guess that's harder to understand if you don't have a personal life.
This is what I have to say to the SRRT totalitarians: it's not so much that I want to separate my professional life from my personal life as that I want to separate my professional life from your personal life. You can have your rallies and give your self-righteous speeches on your own time, but why should the rest of us be inflicted with your troubled personalities? Hyper yourselves into a frenzy that the ALA isn't righting all the wrongs of the world one library card at a time in the privy of your own home.
Apparently more folks on the Council are starting to agree with me. Consider the resolution to impeach President Bush. As I've stated before, what you think of President Bush (or the Iraq War, for that matter) isn't important. I've deliberately avoided stating my personal beliefs on these issues. What matters is that the ALA has no business taking political stands unrelated to American libraries and the SRRT folk have no business to thrust their personal politics on the organization.
The SRRT report didn't even have the heart to give the full vote numbers, but limply noted that "in the end, only about ten councilors voted for the resolution." I'm reminded of a comment made about Walter Mondale when Ronald Reagan defeated him 525 electoral votes to 13 in 1984: "That's only 13 more votes than I got, and I didn't even run!"
The SRRT folk who are so dedicated to "diversity" are still going after the poor little Boy Scouts. This is despite the fact that the majority of Scout Leaders are allegedly pedophiles, which should endear them to the open-minded SRRT radicals. Fortunately, their latest jab has been stalled until Annual. Maybe for the SRRT, diversity means that the ALA has room for both Stalinists and Trotskyites. At Annual they'll probably introduce a resolution that anyone who is a Boy Scout isn't even allowed to use libraries. Because you know the motto of the SRRT: Intellectual Freedom is the Freedom to Think Like Us!
About Me
- AL
- The Annoyed Librarian is possibly the most successful, respected, and desirable librarian of her generation. She has no other interest than to bring her wit and wisdom to the huddled librarian masses yearning to breathe free. The Annoyed Librarian is a free spirit and you are lucky to have her.
11 comments:
Oh but to hope that this "disease" becomes a pandemic and jumps over to infect all so-called "unions," starting with the NEA. A professional association should not be a political monolith.
--Taupey
Well a few comments. Glad SRRT lost. If a political issue doesn't relate to libraries, then ALA and no committee of the ALA should be botehring with the politics. EPA library issues, YES ALA should get involved, impeach Bush, NO ALA should not get involved.
Normally I say personal life and professional life should not mix, unless you have to go to nice conference and you can take spouse along. However, I just got a job offer, and I will now be job sharing with my wife. So some personal time will be spent getting up to date with what she's been doing. Once I'm caught up, then yes personal time is personal time.
As for the BSA issue, waht's interesting is that in an april ALA poll, 53% said that ALA should keep it's afilliation with the BSA. I contacted the Assoc. for Lib. Services to Children (ALSC), and they are apparently opposed to the SRRT sponsored resolution against the BSA. As a student of history, and a PROUD member of the BSA, whenever a communist or fascist regime gets in power, the very first youth organizations they go after are the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts/Guides.
And no I'm not a pedophile.
Hyper yourselves into a frenzy that the ALA isn't righting all the wrongs of the world one library card at a time in the privy of your own home.
Absolutely. Preferably in the privy in the privy of their own homes, so that whatever frenzy ensues can be immediately disposed of.
What matters is that the ALA has no business taking political stands unrelated to American libraries and the SRRT folk have no business to thrust their personal politics on the organization.
Right on, AL!
"The resolution on the Iraq War was defeated 98-48. That's a pretty good ass-kicking by anyone's standards."
I'm glad it was defeated too. But how many abstained because it wasn't a library issue? Ideally, non-library issues shouldn't even get a vote. Abstaining from these irrelevant resolutions is one way for a Councilor to express the view that it's not worth the time and energy.
Impeachment? Boy scouts? Those have nothing to do with libraries. How nutty.
But the Iraq war might have a connection with libraries. The federal government has been pushing the responsibility of funding social programs to the state and local levels to fund the war. And library budgets are getting cut as they have to compete with fire and police departments.
Whenever a country is at war it suffers. In this war, the suffering is largely invisible to the average middle-class Joe, but the public service sector has been feeling the negative effects of this war since it started.
Anonymous @ 10:59.
Money is fungible. By your reasoning, any public policy which implicates the expenditure of public revenue is fair game for the commentary of the American Library Association because such revenue might conceivably be diverted to enhance the funding of libraries.
The following might be noted:
1. The ratio of public expenditure to Gross Domestic Product is not fixed;
2. Public expenditure on libraries is a tiny fraction of total public expenditure;
3. So, if you are irritated with levels of funding for public libraries, you might direct your inquiries to state legislators and municipal councillors, who are responsible for the discretionary decisions in this matter.
Annoyed Librarian, that was an EXCELLENT posting! You really ARE annoyed! Thanks for informing the public of these issues. I'm going to del.icio.us this post because it is so good.
"Because you know the motto of the SRRT: Intellectual Freedom is the Freedom to Think Like Us!"
AL thanks for setting the record straight, and thanks for adding much needed (and self-deprecating) humor to the librarian profession! If it wasn't for your site I don't think I would give any hope to the future of the profession. Maybe less grandiosity (particularly by the American Library Association) and a sense of humor should be elements of Library 2.0! AL for next ALA President!
Remember, before entering your public library, ALWAYS wear a condom!
Revelation 13:5 - Are we in this 42 month period?
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