December 18, 2005
All Members Pay Cash
Posted by Kevin | Print This Article
Jenny “The Shifted Librarian” was asked to participate in a panel for the Public Library Association, and then told that if she’s a member of the American Library Association, she has to pay a full day’s registration fee … but non-members who are speaking get a complimentary day pass. Not surprisingly, she’s a little irate. She says:
“So while I had planned to join ALA this week using the money from the ALA TechSource blog, I’ve now been officially told by ALA itself that I should wait until after March if I don’t want to have to pay them to present at their conference. Read that again and weep.”
This ties into an earlier conversation prompted by Jeff Jarvis (“Panelists, Unite!”) and I’m sure represents a bit of a “yikes!” moment for the association in question. Policies that may seem to make sense within an organization’s bubble don’t always look so smart in the light of day … and now people can complain about them in a very public manner.
Hmm, from the looks of how the conversation is shaping, it looks like it is no more than a momentary bump in the association in question’s road. I am just staying out of it, or trying to.