After DC Meeting, Burger's National Library Agenda Gets Going

-- Library Journal, 12/14/2006

It is no mean feat to bring together over 40 individuals representing different stakeholders inside—and outside—the library community to develop a national library agenda, but that's just what American Library Association (ALA) President Leslie Burger did in ten hours on December 10-11 at ALA's Washington Office. In addition to ALA executives Keith Fiels, Mary Ghikas, and Emily Sheketoff, the group included presidents of the various ALA divisions and representatives of college, school, public, and special libraries, as well as nonlibrarians. Though there much discussion about conflicting "agendas"—e.g., for ALA, for libraries and librarians, for users— the final result encompasses all of these groups. Burger's goal is to have a document ready for ALA Legislative Day in May, so it can be used for legislative purposes on "the Hill," as well as by librarians locally. The agenda will be circulated at ALA's Midwinter Meeting next month in Seattle, especially at various division meetings, then revised and circulated more widely for "testing."

Burger smartly expanded the conversation beyond librarians themselves to bring in other views. Among the nonlibrarians were Cynthia Nikitin from the Project for Public Spaces, David B. Smith from mobilize.org (which empowers youth to become involved in public policy), Ann Arbor District Library's Superpatron Ed Vielmetti, and the Mellon Foundation's Ira Fuchs, who is also on the board of Princeton Public Library, where Burger is director. Both Smith and Tracie Hall, formerly with the ALA Diversity Office and now assistant dean at Dominican GSLIS, stressed generational differences. While previous generations may have thought "If we build it they will come," they noted that millennials think "If it's useful we will build it." Hall, like others, contended that "we [librarians] pander too much to ourselves."  Burger observed that the library's mission is broad: "It's the first time we've served four generations." The agenda includes the library role in community, education and learning, democratic participation, and collective memory, among other things.