Update: CLA / Library Association Stakeholder Meeting

February 6, 2015

On January 31, 2015, CLA Executive Committee met with upwards of 40 representatives from library associations across Canada to discuss the recent CLA Executive published concept paper, Canadian Library Association: A Proposed New Vision for our National Association [PDF].

As noted in the paper, which was shared with CLA members on January 2, 2015, the first step after sharing the paper was to discuss the proposed approach with the major library associations in the country to determine whether there was interest. This was the purpose of the January 31 meeting.

CLA Executive would like to express our sincere appreciation to the association representatives who attended the meeting and actively participated in a constructive and productive conversation about CLA and the ideas expressed in the paper. Two key themes that arose during the discussion were:

• An agile and focussed national voice for libraries and information rights in Canada is critical;
• There was a willingness to continue to further explore the federated model for CLA, recognizing that the direct membership model is no longer sustainable for our national association.

Over the next few months, CLA Executive Council will convene a working group of library association representatives to further refine the proposal, articulating options for funding, membership options, and governance structures. These ideas will then be shared back with the library association stakeholder group – we are hoping for a meeting during the CLA 2015 conference.

Broad member consultation will take place once a further refined model is available, as such a model would answer many of the outstanding questions for all stakeholders: CLA members, library associations, and members of the library associations participating in the discussion. That said, any CLA member is welcome to send feedback to any member of Executive Committee and/or the Executive Director of CLA. We anticipate that stakeholder associations will also be in touch with their members to provide updates if this has not happened already.

CLA Executive Council would like to thank all the people – members and non-members -who have reached out to us in the past month to provide constructive feedback on the concept proposed in the January 2nd paper. It is clear that we have a lot of work ahead of us, but we are part of a thoughtful and collaborative library community so we know we can get there. We are looking forward to the next stage of work with our library association stakeholders and to sharing this work with our membership and the broader library community.

Sincerely,

CLA Executive Council:

Marie DeYoung, President
Sandra Singh, Vice President
Michael Ridley, Treasurer
Pilar Martinez, Past President
Jane Schmidt, Councilor-at-Large
Valoree McKay, Executive Director