Public Policy in Public Libraries Meeting Highlights

ALA Midwinter Conference, Philadelphia, PA

Kathryn Robinson, chair
1/20/08

Issues and Concerns: Public Policy in Public Libraries

The group discussed the changes proposed to make the organization more nimble and better able to take advantage of volunteers and how that might affect the work of the group. We discussed the topics that we had started work on by gathering and adding links to relevant content on the Best Practices Wiki. Our plan is to continue to add content through the end of March and then begin marketing the resource to our state associations and to PLA members. Some revisions to the topics and to responsibilities are reflected in the following list:

• Disaster and Emergency Planning-Mary Monahan
• Challenges to exhibits, displays, meeting room use, materials-Helen Moeller
• Rules of Conduct/Patron Behaviors-Mary Jo Scala
• RFID as a privacy issue- Need a volunteer for this topic
• Unattended Children/Unattended Adults in Children's areas-Kathryn Robinson
• Library Cards for Persons in Transitional Houseing-Melissa Jones
• Collection Agencies-Mary Monahan
• Social Networking by Minors-John Sheller

Members Presemt: 
Kathryn Robinson
Melissa Jones
Mary Monaghan
John Sheller
Mary Jo Scala

Members Absent
Helen Moeller
Michelle Ornat has withdrawn from the committee

Visitons
Neel Parikh (Board, Liaison)
Johm Sondheim

ALA Midwinter Conference, Seattle, WA

Helen Moeller
1/21/07

Members voted to accept PLA's proposal to allow committee members to participate electronically.

Members voted to accept the redirection of its work plan to that suggested by PLA; to use a wiki format for sharing policy information with ALA members.

Questions posed:  what content would be posted on the wiki, who would manage it, who would compile it, who would maintain its accuracy and integrity, how often it would be refreshed and reviewed.   Is committee involvement necessary if everyone can edit and add wiki content?

Neel invited Kathleen Hughes to join the discussion and provide guidance in the development of the wiki.  Kathleen described the wiki and its current status and suggested that Andrea Mercado, who accompanied her, could explain the committee's role. 

Andrea suggested the committee begin by posting to the wiki.  She advised posting stubbs and seeking additional content from wiki users.

Kathryn suggested starting a policy section on Best Practices, posting three seed articles for the encyclopedia of librarianship wiki, and stubs for other policy areas.

The 3 seed articles will be policies for:  Disaster Planning, Unattended Children/Unattended Adults, and Library Cards for Persons in Transitional Housing.

Other areas to be addressed in the future include: 
Exhibits and Displays
Copyright, Intellectual Freedom
Confidentiality of Minor Circulation Records
Confidentiality
Free publications
Blogs, Chat, Interactive Social Spaces
Employee’s rights and responsibilities on blogs
Teen Behavior

Members present:
Helen Moeller
Melissa Jones
Kathryn Robinson
Mary E. Monaghan

From ALA:
Liaison: Neel Parikh
Andrea Mercado
Kathleen Hughes

Members absent:
Mary Cosper-LeBouef
Diane MacDougall
Michael C. Mahaney
Michelle V. Ornat
Visitors (please name):

Guests:
Glenda Cornelious
Detroit Public Library

ALA Midwinter Conference, San Diego, CA

Kathryn Robinson for Carol French Johnson
1/11/04

Members present: Joan Clark, Elaine Ross Cline, Martha Hale, Victoria Johnson, Michael Mahaney, Norm Maas, Kathryn Robinson

Members absent: Carol French Johnson, Therese Bigelow, Mary Cosner-LaBoeuf, Diana MacDougall

Visitors: Luis Herrera

Recommendations developed during Mid-Winter Meeting:

• PLA policy should encourage librarians to speak with a consistent message about library's impact on the community and should encourage/support the creation of tools for this purpose.
• One such tool is the OCLS "Libraries: How they stack up" We encourage PLA to promote this tool.
• PLA is encouraged to partner with others (such as OCLC) to develop more tools for public libraries to use to promote value of libraries to community.
• Consider article for Public Libraries that presents a template for public libraries to fill in and use to promote value of library to local politicans, community members etc..
• Recommend that PLA provide assistance/quidelines to deal with impact of CIPA-responsive to need of public libraries to deal with community enviornment and implement requirements of CIPA.
  

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