While for those folks there is a lot of truth to it, it could (and should) be expressed in a more “acceptable” way–and I mean by them, by the way. I think you expressed the feeling I get from the same conversations quite well.

Maybe something along the lines of, “You aren’t really (considered to be) *involved* in ALA unless you are on a committee.” To me anyway, that is far more palatable, and far more accurate.

I do wonder about when students are going to find the time to be involved, but knowing many practicing librarians I wonder about them, too. I am on the Standards Committee in ASIST, but we do most of our work via email. Getting involved was as simple as showing up; at least for this committee. I showed up to another one prior, but the committee itself never showed up.

As for ALA involvement, I understand getting involved with NMRT is fairly easy. We even have a local connection in Nanette Wargo Donahue. ALCTS is near impossible to get into except as a visitor. Not sure about ACRL, but we have another good local source in Lisa Janicke Hinchliffe. As for LITA, I can’t say. Been a member since November and have never heard a single word from them!

My recommendation. Do as you are, start “local” with state associations, NMRT, etc. and remember there are plenty of smaller, specialized professional organizations that may actually care that you are a member. ALA (and some of its Divisions) has a serious ego problem.

I only just this semester joined any ALA sections, mostly because I didn’t have the time or desire to delve into that particular aspect of my career until now. NMRT is potentially very useful, especially since they have a resume review service. And it’s cheap.

I, myself, joined a few sections in ALA, but I’ve decided not to delve into committees and such just yet. Instead, I’m trying to get involved in local associations- I find the schedules are easier and it gives me that face to face time I miss being a distance ed student.

I think ALA will be a blast. I’ll be the one blindly stumbling around with a confused look on my face. You may occasionally find me in the corner playing my Nintendo DS.

To be fair, I should say that I’ve only talked to faculty so far. So the perspective will be skewed toward people needing plenty of activity examples for their tenure review. I’d be very interested to know the demographic stats of ALA committees — is the ratio of academic to public, school, or special librarians roughly the same as the ratio of members overall? How many committees are geared toward each kind of professional group?

Also to be fair, no one said, in so many words, the offensive quote — I used those words because that was the strong impression I came away with from several different conversations. I also noticed that people were very happy to give a strong sales pitch for their respective committee. I can see the value of library students participating in these opportunities, but how do library students have the time? I was really hoping to get a student perspective at the brown bag discussion, but it was postponed, alas.

Maybe that’s why they take my $$ and put me in whatever Divisions regardless of my intentions. I’d love to know who made that statement, but I do not need anyone else to intensely dislike. I will also assume that there was a bit more context there (it’s Friday morning and I’m feeling generous); nonetheless, that statement is offensive and unrealistic.

It is offensive on several levels but, more importantly, there are not enough committee appointments for everyone (thankfully!) which means only a certain % of “elites” ever get to be members of ALA. Hmmm, where have we heard such similar things across history?

I do hope you enjoy yourself, though. It is certainly an experience. And, yes, I say go for the meeting of people (networking) and parties. Don’t miss the blogger party if OCLC hosts it again!