Professional organizations and professional respect

I get a chuckle out of reading Jenny Levin’s The Shifted Librarian blog. One of her more recent entries was a vent about having to pay a full day of conference fees in order to be a part of a conference panel when her non-ALA counterpart did not. (Why I'm Not Joining ALA Right Now After All) She writes:

“… I recently received an email from PLA noting that I have to register in order to speak at their conference, and I’m pretty angry about it. I don’t have any money left in my budget to pay a registration fee (for half a day, no less!) for the privilege of accepting an invitation to speak at their conference. So I pursed this with the person who put my program together, and today I was told that I have to pay a full day’s fee if I’m a member of ALA. If I’m not a member of ALA, I get a complimentary day pass instead.”

She vows:

“I will never accept another invitation to speak at an ALA-related conference until they reverse this ludicrous policy of CHARGING THEIR SPEAKERS TO SPEAK. It’s insane, absurd, surreal, and unethical. You don’t have a conference without your speakers. I understand they can’t reimburse speakers for travel expenses, but the very least they can do is comp their speakers’ conference registration fees. And the whole conference, too, not just a day. You either value your own professionals or you don’t, and the current policy tells me you don’t.”

This one hit home since I have always vociferously advocated for complimentary registration for lead presenters at our state MEMO conferences. Our organization has been divided about doing so in the past, and I believe this decision is now left at the discretion of the conference committee. (I don’t remember one recently that hasn’t.) For our district librarians, this is a real incentive to put in a session proposal. It greatly increases the likelihood of being able to attend the annual conference if our librarians can say, “Gee I am presenting and I don’t have to pay the registration fee.” Gets new blood into the spotlight too. And it says, "Thanks for working on behalf of MEMO."

One problem of course is that conferences tend to be major revenue generators for professional organizations. Sara Johns, in a recent AASLForum listserv posting, states that ALA would lose $100,000 in revenues if it were to comp registrations for session presenters. (At $200 per day registration fees, that would be comping 500! presenters?) IMHO, ALA would be better off diverting some funds from high profile, very expensive keynote speakers who have nothing to teach us about library service or education, and use at least some of these funds to forgive conference fees. It’s a lovely way for an often impersonal organization to say “we value our members expertise and contributions.”  (I may be moved or motivated for an hour by the keynoters, but the things I learn I can put to use come from practitioners’ sessions.

On a side note, I deeply respect and admire the seeming 5-10% of any organization’s members who actually DO  necessary volunteer organizatio work for nothing more than jewels in their crowns. Volunteer organizations exist only because of these folks.

My question is: Why does it seem such a small percentage of people in any organization actually does more than just pay dues? (Oh, and offer “suggestions for improvement?”) This seems to be the rule for Kiwanis, ISTE, AASL, MEMO, the German-Jefferson Lakes Association,  – well, every organization to which I belong. I’ll give people with small children a pass, but everyone else has the same 24 hours in their day that I have. Does Jenny’s complaint suggest a reason?

Comments

[John Pederson]

I know I won't replace conferences all together...in fact, I've come to appreciate them a bit more through the connections I have made in the blogosphere.

I still think that http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/8392 model for putting together a gathering would be an extremely powerful experience in education. The ideas keep waking me in the evening. :)

[Doug Johnson]

Hi John,

Guess I'd like a bit more structure than what Searls suggests, but I agree that on the whole, conferences as they are today have their problems.

Thanks for passing along this interesting piece.

Hope you staying warm and dry and plowed-out.

Doug