I am writing on the train home from Philadelphia and am happy to share news of the ALA conference with you all. Before conference began we were told of a resolution to open nearly all ALA listserves for read only access to all members. The general principles of open access were strongly supported but the resolution was referred back to committee for more study during our first council meeting. The entire issue of electronic access and online meetings was hot at this year’s conference. There is a task force on electronic communications which continues to study the issue. At our first day of council meetings we were introduced to a resolution requesting that computer access at the conference be handicapped accessible. The resolution passed easily at our final council meeting today. During our second day at council we were introduced to a change in the ALA code of ethics. The changes were in language dealing with fair use and balancing the rights of users and producers of materials. We also voted to accept some changes to Standards for Accreditation of Master’s Programs in Library Science and Information Studies.

I’ll post once more about this conference in the next day or so and, as always, please let me know if there are any issues you would like to discuss.

Your voice at the American Library Association,

Nancy Wilson

Posted on Thursday, January 17th, 2008 at 10:55 am in the ALA category.