VISION! VITALITY! VOICE!

Imagine great libraries! Imagine a great library association!

My name is Camila Alire and I am running for ALA president. I am asking for your vote because there’s no better time to imagine great libraries. In our current environment, we are called upon to articulate the value of libraries as institutions that are crucial to our democratic society and our value as librarians and library staff. As an experienced ALA leader, I have the skills, knowledge, and strategies required to communicate our value to others. I know how to use our resources effectively. I have the vision, vitality, and voice to do this.

Vision!

A truly effective vision is a shared one. In our organization, ALAHead to 2010 is the strategic plan we follow. As your ALA president, I will engage you members and listen to what you have to say. Your ideas are important to me and they are essential to the cultivation of a vibrant library association. To begin the process, we have set up a “Your Ideas for ALA” page on this website. Please post your ideas and thoughts there, and I will personally read them and respond.

This is my vision:

• Advocacy – As library professionals, we are advocates for the public (our communities, our students, our faculty, etc.) and for the public interest. Our job is to ensure that the information the public needs is freely available and accessible. This means we must have information policies that address and protect that public interest in terms of intellectual freedom, fair use, copyright, government information and related areas. Yet in order to advocate for the public, we must first advocate for ourselves. I will continue to support efforts to train librarians and staff to serve as strong advocates and spokespeople for our libraries.
• Better Funding and Better Salaries – We must ensure that all libraries have adequate funding and that we have a well-trained, well-paid, diverse workforce in school, public, academic, and special libraries. This also means aggressive recruitment for strong LIS and school media certification programs. But, recruitment is not enough. We have to work hard to keep ourselves and our future leaders – our new librarians – energized and engaged in all aspects of our profession. I will work hard with others to improve our status.
• Equity of Access – It’s not enough to say libraries provide equal access to all. Access has to be equitable. Our country’s demographics are changing, and the divide between the information-rich and information-poor is growing. We must demonstrate that our libraries are a crucial part of the cure for information poverty. I envision ALA leading the effort to help libraries reach out to our diverse and often underserved communities.
• Diversity – I am a strong advocate for diversity such as we see in our communities, our ideas, our workforce, etc. For me, diversity means respect for people’s differences whether or not those differences are reflected in the people we serve or the people we work with. My record speaks for itself; I will continue to actively support diversity within ALA and our profession.
• Literacy – A literate public is an informed public. All types of literacy skills (reading, technological, and information) are crucial for the people we serve in our libraries. We can empower them by providing access to all types of information and by helping them to learn how to find that information and apply it to their specific needs. This is what a democracy is all about. As your ALA president, I will support literacy efforts at the local, state, and national levels.

Our children are this country’s future, and it is critical that we draw them into our libraries’ services and resources. I have the utmost respect and appreciation for those who have contributed their professional lives to youth services because they have laid the foundation for those in other types of libraries. Our continuing teamwork is very important; as your ALA president, I will continue to support those efforts.

Vitality!

How will I help to accomplish a shared vision for ALA as your next president? If you have met me, you will not be surprised by my choice of the word “vitality.” I pride myself on my energy level and my engaging, contagious enthusiasm for the library profession. I will use that energy to advocate for you and to empower and engage you to advocate for yourselves and your libraries from the grassroots. I have the ability and the experience to communicate and collaborate with all types and ages of ALA members and with all units within ALA.

Of course, it isn’t enough to bring my vitality to the ALA presidency – I must foster it in others. This is where empowerment and engagement comes in. I will continue to support the use of information technology to reach out and empower those of you who do not have the resources to attend many ALA-related conferences. For example, we have found that webinars are extremely popular and well-accepted by our membership. To offer those kinds of services more effectively, we need to ensure that we have the best IT infrastructure at ALA. I will listen to our members to see how we can improve the engagement of all members in our professional activities.

…..And, I will still make time for fun! We must constantly seek and discover joy in our efforts and in our colleagues to make the challenging work of librarianship enjoyable and rewarding on a personal level.

Voice!

One thing that I have learned, as a local and national leader, is that strong advocacy works. My commitment to you as your next ALA president is: I will work with you to speak loudly and clearly about our value as librarians and library staff and as a profession. We must be proud of who we are and what we do! I want to see that value reflected in better funding for all types of libraries and better salaries for library employees.

I will bring to the ALA presidency a strong voice and experience at the national and international level. My strength in communication skills in part comes from speaking and providing workshops on topics such as marketing and advocacy for multi-type libraries. It also comes from leadership and advocacy as a library administrator.

My voice, as your next ALA president, is everyone’s voice. My voice will be a universal voice – speaking for all types and ages of ALA members and for all types of libraries. I will speak for all of you.

I ask for your vote. Together let’s imagine great libraries and a great library association! Together we can make it happen. Thank you for your support.

Camila Alire