I think there is grassroots movement to change how the committees do business — at least I’m trying to get committees I’m involved with to change their working styles.

I really do think the resistance is coming from the fear of adding more work to one’s life. I does take time and effort to keep up and the task is endless.

I’ll ride the SL rides; try making one that looks like this

In regards to the leadership talks, maybe we can involve LAMA (http://tinyurl.com/3bhd7f) or an Emerging Leaders project to help, too. And we’ll be launching a new video channel soon through American Libraries, so we could help disseminate content for you.

I also have this idea I’ve been toying with to build a theme park on our half of ALA/Arts Island. Each ride would be a unit/division/piece/whatever that you go through in order to make it more fun (and experiential) to learn about. I haven’t fully fleshed out the idea, but I think it could help with the learning curve. I mean, have you seen our organization chart?!

I’m VP of NMRT this year, and one of my presidential initiatives is a series of leadership talks presented completely online. Many of our members don’t receive funding to attend conferences, so they can’t benefit from our conference programs. Broadcasting online is the only way to reach them with this content. As far as I know, we’d be the first group within ALA to do such a thing, so keep your fingers crossed that they have the technological capability to handle it. (If they don’t, I may work with OPAL to make it happen…)

We’ve also transitioned our clunky, web-based, rarely-updated NMRT Handbook to a wiki, which should keep it more current. Some of the committees’ pages haven’t been updated since 2000 because the ALA CMS is such a pain to work with.

I’m also planning to put together a virtual version of the ALA orientation program that NMRT presents at each conference. That way, people who are unable to attend the program can access the information, especially the information about divisions and roundtables of ALA.

NMRT and its members are trying our best to innovate and encourage online participation. I think it helps that we’re all librarians who are new to ALA, so we’re not entrenched in one particular way of doing things. If you’re not familiar with the status quo, it’s so much easier to go against it!

Since we finally have some folks doing this instead of just talking about doing it, can we advance the discussion to how to replicate it with committees and a national organization? Needless to say, I am really looking forward to your EL group’s final project!

My NMRT committee started a wiki this year which was underutilised, but I will be looking at its purpose and role for next year. Another committee I was on used Yahoo Groups which I really dislike.

Locally, here in Australia most of the committees I have been on met by teleconference. This was painful because it had to be scheduled during work, and most participants didn’t have an office so it was disruptive for participants and co-workers. They haven’t yet allowed (!) wikis and the chat room uses proprietary software. On the plus side, no committees require conference attendance to join.

There must be a happy medium between the two.