No Librarians in Washington

Emily Sheketoff might be a powerhouse. Whether she is or not, she has inspired the leadership of the American Library Association (ALA) to junk a very successful 50-year tradition to hire her. Sheketoff has been appointed to ALA's most important job, executive director of the ALA Washington Office.

For a half century or more, a librarian has held that job in what has been ALA's most successful operation. The Washington Office convinced the federal government to build more libraries than Andrew Carnegie but also literally invented the idea of federal responsibility in library service. It persuaded a dozen Congresses that library needs must be considered in all information policy decisions, from the building of our great depository library system to the fair use clause of the copyright law. It has been a more triumphant lobby than most nonprofit lobbies in Washington and on a shoestring of a budget. It has always been run by a librarian.

Why would ALA abandon that great tradition? "It's a different time, and a different place," said ALA President-elect Nancy Kranich, who was on the search committee. Kranich pointedly added that ALA's issues have evolved far beyond lobbying for money, and that the policy arena is both more complicated and less friendly. "A lot of public policy is not only developed on Capitol Hill, it's developed with public opinion. We were looking for someone...to work more in the broader community, with partners and interest groups, to have a lot of media savvy, experience working with stakeholders as well as with policymakers.... We wanted to look at the Washington Office in its new configuration." She added that while the lobbying team remains librarians, the office includes "technology specialists, attorneys, and other nonlibrarians."

What Kranich forgets is that under the management of and with help from librarians, ALA gained more on policy issues like copyright. In recent years ALA has actually lost ground on the policy front, despite hiring all those media consultants, political professionals, lawyers, and techies at ALA, Washington. After all, ALA's shallow pockets can never carry enough cash to match experts with the information industries. ALA can't afford a hired gun like Pat Schroeder, who lobbies for the publishers. Having watched the lobbying professionals for years, I think ALA might be better off with a librarian amateur.

It is also an open question whether a Clinton administration policy wonk like Sheketoff will be more effective than a nonpartisan librarian. She may do all Kranich says, and I hope she does, but I'm worried. The President's people have been effective in many ways, but they have never prevailed upon Congress to do anything they wanted done. I truly hope Sheketoff can preserve the crucial nonpartisan position of libraries in Washington despite her Clinton ties.

Of course, a nonlibrarian with no library experience can do most of the job; the Librarian of Congress and the general who is his second-in-command are evidence of that. So are the chiefs of other federal libraries. The Institute of Museum and Library Services administers library laws under a nonlibrarian, and both the chair and executive director of the National Commission on Libraries and Information Science are nonlibrarians. Do they work better as a result? ALA strongly protested all of these appointments and suggested lists of librarians for each post.

Maybe the ALA search committee (every member a librarian) decided it was time to throw in the towel about filling high-level Washington library positions with nonlibrarians. Maybe they think we need a nonlibrarian to work more effectively with all the other nonlibrarians that run the federal libraries and make federal library policy.

Maybe they just think Emily Sheketoff is so terrific that she transcends any library experience or credentials. I wish her great success. I hope ALA has not made a mistake and that others in Washington don't think ALA has given up on librarians. I hope ALA's Council and Executive Board will require librarian credentials and experience in future candidates for all the top jobs at ALA, including the next time they fill ALA's top job in Washington.