I have to renew my ALA membership over the next few weeks and I am going to join LITA because of BIGWIG and the unconference.

I repeat, I would not be joining LITA if it were not for BIGWIG and the Social Software Showcase. Obviously BIGWIG mentioned LITA enough to convince me to join.

Social software has a HUGE impact on training needs. If we don’t go with it, it could eliminate the need for many instructor-led trainers. Mine the existing knowledge, and all that. Personally, I evangelize it – adults learn more discussing things at the watercooler than in any instructor-led session.

However, there is a huge fear of technology. Everyone talks about informal learning, but moving forward is like walking through quicksand. The bureaucracy is stupid, and the red tape is thick.

I want to implement a CMS for our local chapter (Ack! You mean not basic HTML!) and I’ve built a board wiki that is like pulling teeth to get people to use. They asked for it, you know. I guess they didn’t figure I’d deliver. (They don’t realize pbwiki is so easy to set up.) I sat through a board meeting yesterday and wanted to just bang my head against the wall the whole time.

So it’s not just ALA. It’s any volunteer organization that has done so well for so long by just staying the same.

Still, did they not notice the URL for the wiki? It says “lita” there quite prominently.

Ah well, such is life, I suppose.

1. The perfunctory “good job” message… as in, “good job, BUT…”
2. The use of the word “serious.” Serious, as in open-heart surgery or nuclear warhead? Hmmm, maybe not.
3. The focus on LITA-LITA-LITA.

That said, I can understand to a small degree why LITA might like to get its name connected to BIGWIG. You’re doing a fabu-wonderful job, BIGWIG is hot as a pistol, and BIGWIG is a LITA IG. Hitching wagons to stars and all that. If I were a LITA muckety-muck, I would have smarmed up to you as much as possible. “OOOOOOOOOOOOOOh, Jassssssonnnn, what a cooooooool wiki, can we get our LITA logo on it, kissy kissy kissy?” The teachy-preachy finger-wagging message is just dumb, though not entirely unexpected. LITA is still scrabbling around for half a clue.

Any endeavor required to turn a slow-moving barge (thank you, Karen Coyle!) will of necessity require miring oneself in a bureacracy of frightening proportions. But another way to look at it is that ALA is a city of about 70,000 librarians, and with enough effort you, my friend, can be mayor.

Keep the oars in the water. Do not give up, and when messages like this arrive, do what you have done: refute them.

As for libraries that are less dysfunctional than ALA, mazel tov for you to have found them. Most bureacracies are dysfunctional by nature.

Anyway, fabu job on BIGWIG and don’t be dissuaded by the occasional dumb-**s comment floating to the surface.