[aisle] personal response re. virtual conference, open leadership positions

Wed Oct 13 14:30:25 CDT 2021

Thank you Christy!  I am very much looking forward to attending the
upcoming conference in Champaign!

On Wed, Oct 13, 2021 at 1:03 PM Christy Semande via AISLE <
aisle at list.railslibraries.info> wrote:

> Hello Friends,
>
> First and foremost, I need this to be absolutely clear: this is a personal
> reaction to issues I want to address as an AISLE member and as someone with
> a "behind the scenes" point of view. It comes from my experience from
> serving on the AISLE board and on several conference committees.
>
> Many of you are probably not aware of this, but there are about twice as
> many listserv subscribers than dues-paying AISLE members. The purpose of
> the listserv is to promote communication and resource sharing for the
> betterment of school libraries. The Board has deliberately made the choice
> to keep the list open to members and nonmembers because that is what is
> best for Illinois school libraries.
>
> However, the AISLE Board’s first and foremost responsibility is to the
> people who pay to be members. The board is obligated to be fiscally
> responsible with the dues the members pay. The board takes this charge
> seriously and tries to do the most good they can with the limited funds
> that are available.
>
> Keep in mind that AISLE only has two paid staff members. To be blunt,
> these ladies make a pittance for the amount work they do for us.  Without
> them, the organization would cease to function. They deserve our respect
> and our most sincere gratitude. Their part-time jobs often require more
> than full-time hours—which they do because school libraries have remained
> their passion even after retirement.  The rest of the organization’s work
> is done by volunteers-- with full time jobs, families and other
> commitments. People just like you.
> You might have noticed in the last few elections that most nominees ran
> unopposed. We have struggled to find members willing to run for primary
> leadership roles.  The most common excuse that people give for not
> running for those leadership positions is that they do not have time. My
> gut response is that we find the time to do what really matters to us..  Our
> volunteers do this for the benefit of all Illinois school libraries.  They
> don’t sign up for personal gain. They do it for the "us" - they do it for
> you.
>
> You don’t see the discussions, the planning, the policies, or hours of
> background work that go into making the organization operate. It's not
> always a well-oiled machine, but it is a machine that has been running
> successfully for 33 years. It is easy to complain when your only
> perspective is that of the end user. Please do not dismiss the
> organization's efforts because the result is not the solution that best
> fits your personal situation.
>
> The virtual conference last year was great, and the AISLE leadership team
> is actively looking at ways to can incorporate that model in the future.
> They realize it is an option that makes the conference available for some
> who could not otherwise attend. However, we also have pre-COVID contracts
> in place with our venues that we are required to honor or suffer financial
> penalties.   These contracts are negotiated years in advance in order to
> secure the dates we need. That is just one of the reasons switching from an
> in-person to virtual conference this year would not have been fiscally
> responsible. There were multiple other reasons which, to save space, I will
> not detail here. Trust me- we looked at the numbers and crunched them in a
> hundred different ways before making the determination to have an in-person
> conference.
> The conference planning committee also has looked at ways to offer full
> conference virtual options- either concurrently with the in-person
> conference or after the fact.   After examining the technical
> requirements, the time involved to manage/present digital access, and what
> AISLE has to do to just meet ISBE’s requirements for providing professional
> development hours, the conclusion was that it was not a wise way to
> prioritize our time and resources. Keep in mind there isn’t just one
> session each day- there are dozens.  Each presenter has a contract and
> some of those do not allow recording.  It sounds simple to just say,
> “offer a livestream” or “just record it” but- as someone who saw the behind
> the scenes work that went in to last year’s virtual conference- it is an
> incredibly complex and tedious process. Ask yourself, what would happen if
> AISLE had offered a digital attendance option and then not been able to
> deliver a worthwhile experience?  Once we weighed all of the factors
> involved, we committed to providing the very best, most educational and
> safest in-person conference that we possibly can.
>
> Let me be clear: AISLE members have every right to question the
> leadership's decisions, policies, or practices.  In fact, I encourage
> members to be as engaged as possible, and am glad that participants feel
> the listserv is a safe place to share thoughts, questions, and resources.
>  The board does not always share the “why” behind the decisions that are
> made- but you can trust that there are solid, practical, and responsible
> reasons that have been discussed and debated before you saw the result. A
> bit of grace, understanding, and trust that the leadership has the
> organization’s best interests in mind would go a long way.
>
> Sorry for the rant. I cannot express how much my AISLE membership and time
> in leadership have helped me- both professionally and personally.  I hope
> you can say the same. If you want to respond to this, I welcome the
> discourse (csemande at yahoo.com), just be respectful of the dreaded "reply
> all" that clutters everyone's inbox. (I made that mistake last week).
>
> Thanks for listening-
> Christy
>
> MAILMAN_MIMEDEFANG
> _______________________________________________
> AISLE mailing list
> AISLE at list.railslibraries.info
>
> For list archives and subscription options, visit:
> http://list.railslibraries.info/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/aisle
>
> To unsubscribe, send a message to:
> aisle-leave at list.railslibraries.info
>
> https://www.aisled.org/

-- 
Andrea Perrin
LRC Director
Woodland Middle School - Gurnee, IL.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://list.railslibraries.info/pipermail/aisle/attachments/20211013/06ae3ce7/attachment.html>