Library Worklife

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ALA-APA seeking nominees for Dynix-ALA-APA Award for Promoting Salaries and Status for Library Workers

CHICAGO—The American Library Association-Allied Professional Association (ALA-APA) is seeking nominations for the first annual Dynix-ALA-APA Award for Outstanding Achievement in Promoting Salaries and Status for Library Workers. The award will be given to an individual, group of individuals or institution that has made an outstanding contribution to improving the salary and status of library workers in a local, regional or national setting. The recipient will receive $5,000 and be recognized at the ALA-APA Networking Breakfast at the 2005 ALA Annual Conference in Chicago.

The nomination form can be found on the ALA-APA Web site at www.ala-apa.org/dynixaward.html. The deadline for submitting nominees is December 31, 2004. Nominations must be accompanied by a statement of the qualifications and achievements of the person(s) nominated for the award. Three letters of support are required. All documents may be submitted electronically using the forms on the site; faxed using the PDF forms to (312) 944-6131, Attn: Dynix Award; or mailed to Dynix Award, ALA-APA, 50 East Huron, Chicago, IL 60611.

The recipient of the award does not have to be an ALA member or a current or past library staff member. The sole requirement is that the award recipient’s achievement(s) has been notable. Officers of the ALA or the ALA-APA are not eligible for the award, nor are members of the ALA-APA Standing Committee on the Salaries and Status of Library Workers or employees of the Dynix Corporation.

The Dynix Corporation is a leading provider worldwide of library management systems, serving more than 11,000 public, academic, school, special and consortium libraries.

Enter the "Working @ your library: For Love or Money" Video Contest

The American Library Association-Allied Professional Association (ALA-APA) is currently holding a contest to write a guide to accompany "Working @ your library: For Love or Money," a new advocacy video produced by ALA-APA. Interested parties will use the video and guide to augment related presentations during meetings and conferences with colleagues, managers, trustees, and others who are in a role to affect the salaries of library workers. Participation is free and the winner will receive a $250 prize-donation to a school or library.

Contestants will write a short (three to four page) guide showing people who use the video how to customize their presentations by type of library, geographic region, etc., and how to advocate for better salaries for library workers. The "Advocating for Better Salaries and Pay Equity Toolkit," one of the many resources that may be used to create the guide, is available at www.ala-apa.org/toolkit.pdf.

The video demonstrates the importance of library workers, examines how they are often not compensated fairly for their work, and describes what must be done to improve salaries. "In just a few minutes this film shows some of the many jobs librarians are doing and explains why they deserve to earn a lot more money than they do," said Steve Fesenmaier, West Virginia Library Commission State Data Coordinator.

Entering the contest is easy:

CONTACT ALA-APA to register for the contest and to request the video: Working @ your library: For Love or Money? [50 E. Huron St., Chicago, IL 60611-2795; 1-800-545-2433, ext. 2424; jgrady@ala.org]
WATCH the ten-minute video-or better yet, get a group together to watch it with you.
WRITE a short guide for use with the video (3-4 pages maximum). Design suggestions are appreciated but not required.
SUBMIT your guide to ALA-APA via e-mail (MS Word preferred) by January 31, 2005.

Act quickly! The contest is open to the first 20 individuals or groups who register.

Special Librarians Institute

"Find Your Customer: Drive Your Business"

By Veronda Pitchford, Metropolitan Library District, Ill.

Librarians were refueled and creative batteries were recharged on October 18 th and 19 th at the Special Librarians Institute "Find your customer: drive your business: Interactive conversations among information professionals and special librarians."

The event was sponsored by the Third Coast Learning Collaborative (the system special Libraries consultants of the Chicago Public, DuPage, North Suburban, Metropolitan and Prairie Area Library Systems—formerly METS) and the SLA Illinois Chapter. The event took place at the Hyatt Lodge on the McDonald’s Campus in Oakbrook, Illinois.

Featured speakers included Cindy Romaine, corporate archivist at the Nike headquarters in Beaverton, Oregon, Steve Mongelluzzo of FIRST communications, Kathryn Deiss of the Metropolitan Library System and a panel of best practices from Margaret Hill of Kirkland and Ellis, Roberto Sarmiento of Northwestern’s Transportation Library, Cynthia Lesky of Threshold Information and Nalini Mahajan, Marianjoy Rehabilitation Hospital. The panel was moderated by Veronda J. Pitchford also of the Metropolitan Library System.

Featured resources during the conference include presentations on the MyWeb Librarian, Illinois Clicks and SILC projects from the Illinois State Library. Attendees engaged in interactive conversations throughout the event and innovation was at the forefront of the conference. Here’s a sampling of the panel presentation that has applications in ALL types of libraries.

Top Ten Successful Ways to Drive your Business from the panel presentation "Find your customer-case studies panel" moderated by Veronda J. Pitchford, Metropolitan Library System.

Have a vision and mission (the right one) for your group and be true to it (forever, amen).
Identify customers with the greatest information need-whether or not they are current customer and get to know their business.
Be creative, don’t be afraid to fail.
Be a shark: keep moving and looking for new and better ways to do business.
Imitate and adapt successful strategies.
Uncover the ultimate client.
Develop new services and don’t be afraid to eliminate services that are not valued by the customer.
Identify the competition.
Get to know your business very very well.
Talk to your customers and get them involved.

Compilation of questions answered by panel participants Margaret Hill, Kirkland and Ellis; Roberto Sarmiento, Transportation Library, Northwestern University; Cynthia Lesky, Threshold Information; and Nalini Mahajan, Marianjoy Rehabilitation Hospital.

ALA-APA Featured in the November Associates

ALA-Allied Professional Association—An Introduction and Invitation

USF Faculty Union Ratifies Contract Overwhelmingly

TAMPA, Fla.—The United Faculty of Florida (UFF) Chapter at the University of South Florida (USF) announced on November 19, 2004 , that members of the General Faculty Bargaining Unit at USF have overwhelmingly ratified the proposed collective bargaining agreement negotiated between UFF and the USF administration.

Union president Roy Weatherford said, “This is the largest absolute vote on ratification we have ever had at USF. Faculty normally don’t bother to vote unless they either are worried about the substance of the contract or they want to make a political statement for or against the union. This extremely strong vote indicates that faculty are very supportive of their union and the contract.”

The official vote count was 663 in favor and 12 against, or 98.2 percent in favor and 1.8 percent against. In addition, 89 ballots were irregular and were not included in the official tally, but their votes were separately tabulated as 88 for and 1 against or 98.9 percent in favor and 1.1 percent against.

“Of all plausibly expressed opinions,” Dr. Weatherford said, “751 supported the proposed contract and 13 opposed it. This 98.3 percent to 1.7 percent favorable ratio on a very large turnout is an overwhelming endorsement of the union position.”

The contract goes into force when the Board of Trustees ratifies it. Raises will be retroactive to August 7. The master contract remains in force for two more academic years, with salary issues and selected articles renegotiated each year.

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