ACRL College & Researc Libraries News

College & Research Libraries News

The View from HQ

Hal Espo

ACRL Deputy Executive Director

Editors Note: Written in response to membership requests, this column features news from ACRL headquarters and discusses features of the office’s operations.

Hal Espo

We have all had similar experiences. One finds oneself at a party and someone asks what you do for a living. In the past I have easily replied that I was a librarian, and though most people conjure up the stereotypical images of librarianship, at least they knew something about what I did at a reference desk or occasionally in classroom instruction. I am still a librarian by training of course, yet what I do as the deput executive director of a national library association has very little in common with what most librarians do and how they were irained in library school. I have discovered that not only do my friends not know what I do on a daily basis, but more importantly many if not most of the ACRL membership does not know what role I play within ACRL. With the opportunity to tell my story, I hope the membership will have a greater appreciation for the size, complexity and scope of the Association.

Since I arrived at ACRL in May, 1978, the Association has grown in responsibilities, programs, budget, and staff. The position of deputy executive director is of a managerial nature in assisting the direction of the headquarters office. Perhaps the best way to describe some of what it is that I do each day is to review my programmatic and administrative responsibilities and to briefly outline what these entail.

1) Support of ACRL committees, sections, chapters, discussion groups, editorial boards, and the Board of Directors. A major responsibility of any administrative position is to make certain that the structure of the organization is maintained sufficiently so that the people who are responsible for programs will be able to function adequately. In order to provide proper support to various ACRL units, we have developed a monthly calendar file. Through the approximately 150 mailings in the file the headquarters office keeps in touch with various unit chairs about ACRL’s seemingly endless organizational detail. To further explain, listed below is the description of what is listed in a single month (May) of the file:

1) reports which have been submitted to headquarters by section and committee chairs are prepared for distribution at annual conference;

2) ACRL Guide to Procedures and Policies is updated and distributed to all officers and ACRL unit chairs;

3) an announcement of the recipient of the ACRL Academic or Research Librarian of the Year Award is prepared for C&RL News and distributed to the national library news media;

4) a mailing is sent to section and division election candidates informing them of the election schedule and their responsibilities should they be victorious;

5) thank you letters are sent to all ACRL committee members whose terms have expired following annual conference;

6) all ACRL units are notified of the budget and board orientation meetings at annual conference to assist them in becoming accustomed to how ACRL operates;

7) notice of the annual conference board meeting is sent to all ACRL units with information on how to place items on the board agenda;

8) annual conference board agenda and support materials are sent to board members and section chairs;

9) the Speakers Bureau is prepared and distributed to chapters;

10) file folders are prepared for the upcoming program year (250 files);

11) midwinter board meetings are scheduled by the ACRL President;

12) signs for annual conference program and board meetings are prepared;

13) information on the spring activities of ACRL chapters is solicited;

14) discussion group chairs are reminded to submit incoming officers’ names for inclusion in next year’s ALA Handbook of Organization;

15) next year’s ACRL Academic or Research Librarian of the Year nomination form is prepared and distributed;

16) budget information is sent to new members of the budget committee;

17) guest registrations at annual conference are forwarded to the ALA Executive Office.

As you can imagine, simply keeping ACRL and its various parts functioning on schedule is a fairly time-consuming task. Without our having designed such a system of reminders, the office would be unable to assist units in meeting ALA and ACRL deadlines and as a result we would be unable to provide any of the programs or services we know today.

2) Supervision of ACRL membership services and promotional activities. There are actually two operations here though they are certainly related. ACRL must work very hard to retain its membership each year and at the same time encourage new people to join. Though exact figures are not available, approximately 25% of the division’s membership in any given year fails to renew the next year. Several years ago we undertook a campaign to reduce the number of non-renewals. At the same time, ACRL began to actively recruit new members through chapters, state association meetings, the division’s national conferences, and the expansion and development of programs. Letters are sent encouraging people to renew, welcoming new members, and following up on nonrenewing members. Brochures have been created seeking new members. Advertisements in library newsletters have been produced. Programs of the association have been expanded—a Fast Job Listing Service and telephone Jobline have been instituted, two national conferences have been held, a continuing education program has been developed, preconference activity is increasing— all of these are partially responsible for the 800 personal membership increase over the past three years (500 this year alone).

Along with the increase in promotion and retention activities has come a concerted effort to provide better membership service. Though ACRL has no direct control over ALA’s membership, order or subscription department records, we make every effort to assist members if their records are not in order. One of the roles this office takes most seriously is providing ACRL members a place to seek help in their dealings with ALA.

3) Coordination of ACRL publications including production, marketing, sales and distribution. Here too ACRL’s operation has expanded greatly in recent years. From a time where we were distributing little more than library standards and position papers, the office now is responsible for a wide variety of publications ranging in scope from a survey of academic status among librarians, to materials on collection development, travel policies, bibliographic instruction, and continuing education.

Because of our success in this area, we find ourselves at headquarters responding to approximately fifty orders daily for one kind of publication or another. We are very excited about the outcome of our publishing endeavors, yet we realize that a great deal of time is spent at both the clerical and professional level in support of the program.

Editor’s Note: This month’s “View from HQ" column will be concluded in the January issue.