How and When do we get the ALA involved in this site and how involved do we let them get?

Obviously the American Library Association is a big organization and their involvement could be a massive boon to our community. Alternatively it could end up being a boondoggle and waste of time. I'm sure others have more experience dealing with the ALA and I'd wager we probably have some ALA members or staff on the site already. So, what do we do about the ALA and other such professional organizations?

Kode

• discussion
• site-promotion
• us
• ala

Comments

• blunders: +1 @Kode: Huge fan of site promotion, and agree that having ALA as a partner might be a huge help. That said, having help do marketing and partnership deals with associations: (1) what would we as a site have to offer ALA? (2) or, we need members that know (or are willing to attempt to develop relationship with) someone within ALA that's able to act on behalf of the site in a meaningful way.
• Ed Summers: Why involve ALA at all? I can see promoting it there, but I wouldn't like to see ALA and or one of its committees exerting some sort of editorial influence here.
• blunders: @EdSummers: Agree, about ALA influence, though it's possible that for whatever reason they'd promo the site without asking for anything in return. To make that choice though, they first have to be aware the site exist.
• KatieR: I agree with @EdSummers and ALA influence.
• Joe: But it's "Libraries and Information Science" ... what about ASIS&T to cover the 'and Information Science' bit? (I'm a member of both, but I actually go to the ASIS&T conferences) I'd say to include SLA, too ... but they wanted to rename themselves to 'ASKPro', so I'm not sure what they'd try to do here. And there's also ARMA.

Answer by Ashley Nunn

Well, if nothing else, it should most likely wait a while - we want to get our site established and running, decide the scope, what is on/off topic, etc. before we rush out and get big groups like ALA interested

Comments

Answer by jambina

i say spread it to all of our networks (loudly! and talk about how useful this forum is!) but the beauty of stackexchange is that we can do this - ask questions, solve problems, start revolutions - without any association involvement. refreshing, no? (and i love me some SLA, so don't think i'm anti-association or anything.)

Comments

Answer by Peter Murray

My question would be "ALA corporate" (e.g. the staff at 50 E. Huron in Chicago), "ALA organization" (e.g. the folks the membership elect to do things), or "ALA members" (e.g. dues-paying folks)? I think of Stack Exchange sites as communities onto their own, so direct involvement by the first and second could cause friction if their goal is to regularize and integrate with other ALA activities. The third are most welcome to join and shape this community.

-- From a 20-year dues-paying member of ALA

Comments

Answer by Deborah Mould

Coming from an overseas point of view, ALA can be involved, but if so, we should also extend the invitation to ALIA, CILIP and others.

I would prefer that responses came from individuals rather than entities, but it would be good to use the resources of our national organisations to keep the list of participants varied and the answers informative!

Comments

• Jakob: Yep! From my perspective, ALA is far away and IFLA may be a better target.
• Deborah Mould: Agreed Jakob. The best point about these forums is that we can tap into experiences around the world, so IFLA would be a logical place.