A plank in a platform
Karen Schneider has already pointed out that one of the candidates for ALA President, Barb Stripling, has her own weblog.
Ms. Stripling has an entry on library support staff and what ALA can and should do for them. Actually, us. And I'm really glad to see this:
"ALA is finally awakening to the fact that library support staff are essential to the profession and to the association. Last spring, ALA held its 3rd Congress on Professional Education -- with a focus on support staff issues. Several of the recommendations from COPE 3 stand out to me as high priorities for study and action by ALA."
In May 2003, I was the NMRT delegate to ALA's 3rd Congress on Professional Education: Focus on Library Support Staff. COPE3 was eye-opening in a lot of ways. Some support staffers are shouldering a lot of frustration and a fair amount of resentment over how they've been treated, ignored or otherwise taken for granted.
Even how to refer to library workers who don't have (and don't plan to get) an MLS was fraught with ... compromise. Long ago and not so long ago, library workers who weren't in positions that required a library degree were regularly referred to in the literature as:
non-professionals
sub-professionals
They are nouns, but to many, those terms feel like adjectives. Even the term "paraprofessional" sets people off: any implication that people who have devoted their lives to library work are less than professional in their competence, values or achievements is galling to some. Through word and deed, library support staff have been underappreciated and undervalued for many years.
COPE3 is only a start to dealing with the full, good-faith inclusion of library support staff in the library community ... but it's good to know that people are paying attention.