This includes setting my own speaking fee for my state association of which I am not a member. If they refuse to pay my fee, then fine, I don’t have to appear. I also choose for which venues I will speak pro bono. This certainly includes any professional association of which I am a member, but some others as well. This is my prerogative as a speaker.

The bottom line is this: as a public speaker you can only be abused by lousy terms if you allow yourself to be.

Michelle stated from the first that she wanted Internet access, and I agreed. This is a preconference about online tools, after all! She also expressed concerns about wireless access, and I agreed (it can be flaky, and I don’t like to count on it). TLA, as a matter of policy, does not provide Internet access, so I arranged it directly with the convention center. Total bill: $995 for a day for hard-line access for the presenters. Attendees can get wireless access for $12.95. I’m not happy about that, but it’s what we were able to get.

So, the reality is, if this preconference hadn’t had 100 people sign up, LIRT would have lost money. A lot of money. But it’s a good topic, and I have every confidence that Michelle (and Gary Wan from Texas A&M– let us not forget that Michelle isn’t doing this all alone!) will provide great information for the folks who attend.

And yes, it’s a shame that conferences don’t comp registrations for speakers. And I really hate that I can’t pay Texas librarians for their travel and expenses when they present at TLA. I’ve really hated that I can’t get paid, too, when I speak at state and national conferences, but that’s another story. We’ll just keep fighting that battle.

Danielle Cunniff Plumer
Chair, Library Instruction Round Table
Texas Library Association

I understand the financial issue of not waiving registration fees for every single speaker but we do in fact do it for many of our speakers already because they are out-of-state folks. It’s just the in-state non-members who are not comped. I’d be curious to find out how many folks fall into that category in Texas, and how many of those would agree to speak or teach again.

It is true that the conference is a major source of revenue for state and regional associations. However, that is what budgeting is about. You simply price and/or plan to treat speakers well.

I had always heard that Texas treated its speakers extremely well…but I may have only heard from “out of state” speakers.

Ann Ewbank, President of the Arizona Library Associaton here. This is a great discussion, and I think that you bring up a lot of points that folks get frustrated with when deciding whether or not to contribute to their state library organization. However, I would like to offer another perspective- that of being responsible for the financial solvency of a small state library association.

Rosario is correct when she says that conference revenue largely funds mid-size and small associations. Granted, we run an 18-20% profit margin on our conference (AzLA has just under 1000 members and about 800 attend the conference) but that conference has to fund ALL of our activities for the year including our administrative support.

If we waived the registration fee for speakers we would lose approximately $10,000 (100 spekaers x $100 registration fee). For a small library association, that is a lot to lose! $10,000 represents our entire author budget, to put it in perspective. I couldn’t imagine having our conference with no authors, and I think that would negatively impact our attendance.

Most folks understand why they need to pay registration fees in order to keep the association and the conference afloat. A couple of years ago, before I became involved in the financial aspects of conference planning, I would have agreed with the majority of you and your comments, but now that I have seen the bottom lines and all that goes into planning and executing a conference- and the fact that the conference keeps the association financially solvent- I have a different perspective.

We require all of our in-state speakers to register for the conference and they are not eligible for honorarium and travel. We are member driven and volunteer, and if they work in libraries in Arizona (should be members) or are members of AzLA then a session is a volunteer contribution. This is clearly stated in our proposal submission form.

We offer honorarium and travel for those who would not normally attend our conference to broaden our knowledge base. We set aside money to do this. Outside expertise is a premium and we want to bring in the best we can with the limited budget we have.

If you would like to view our proposal submission form, you can see it at http://azla.affiniscape.com/displayemailforms.cfm?emailformnbr=65080

Library associations, especially the smaller regional ones, are all non-profit organizations that survive pretty much on their yearly conference fees. They want to get good speakers, too - but that’s not their only purpose.

I should probably fill in the blanks more here - I’m seeing a difference, but not spelling it out very well.

All that to say I still agree that even in-state speakers should, at the very least, not have to pay to register for the conference - that’s simply idiotic.

I see a disconnect between what Rosario says and the fact that LIRT was willing to pay $1K for the Tubes. (Which seems preposterous, but these fancy hotels seem to be able to get away with that.)

I’m with Dorothea on speaker compensation. They need to handle in- and out-of-state speakers fairly and equally.

If you continue to talk with them about this, I’d be interested to read more about it, even if it is just summarizing conversations. Like you said, these things come up and disappear all the time. I’m hoping to continue my recent trend of presenting, but me and my student loan debt will be hard-pressed to do much for free.

Got some good stories for ya when I get back to the States.

Smooches darlin!