The first professional association that I checked out was the Public Library Association (www.ala.org/pla). I chose this first because as of right now I want my future career to be within a public library system. Their mission is "to advance public library interests and to cooperate in the promotion of library service in general." (www.ala.org/pla) Since public libraries are so essential to communities, it seems like their main goal was to maintain funding so that they could all be technologically up to date and be able to serve patrons to the best of their ability. Other projects/ programs that they had available included The Edge Initiative which set benchmarks for public access to technology, a program called Every Child Ready to Read, and Smartest Card, which had the goal of making a person's library card their most used and most valued card that they had. One of their big publications was named "Libraries Prosper with Passion, Power and Persuasion: A PLA Toolkit for Success." It seemed to focus on making sure they were catering to the needs of the public and what the best way to connect with the community was.
Their benefits included:
(I really want to look into the 20% discount on online education and see what that's all about....!!)
With a membership, which is $25 dollars for a student and $65 dollars for a regular member, you also can get a free subscription to the journal, Public Libraries and an e-mail newsletter on all important PLA news.
I think I really might check out joining this association in the near future. I really want to find out about that 20% discount but I also know that if I want to work in a public library setting, it's going to be important for me to learn about how different systems and states run their own facilities. That way I can figure out if spending my career in the public library setting is truly for me or not. The student membership is also very doable so I might as well just go for it seeing as I can only benefit from the membership.
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The next association I looked into was MLA--or the Michigan Library Association (http://www.mla.lib.mi.us/). I wanted to take a look into this because a lady I work with was discussion renewing her membership and I thought it would be interesting to see what Michigan's mission and values were when it came to our library systems. Their mission, "Helping Libraries and Library Professionals Succeed" was short at to the point. Their values include focuses on access to information, professionalism, sharing, leadership, and sustainability.
They had separate lists of benefits that pertained to whether or not you came in with an organization or individually. The Individual benefits included:
- Statewide Support for Libraries and Library Professionals
- Professional Development
- Statewide Networking and Collaboration
- Current Information & Library Trends
- Member Discounts
- Leadership and Career Advancement
I did try to find publications but the web page I found said "coming soon." I wasn't sure if this meant that they hadn't had any publications yet but I thought that maybe they were just tweaking the website and hadn't gotten around to finishing that page yet.
When it came to MLA's advocacy projects their main focus was on "the betterment of the Michigan library community as a whole. They have lobbyists, GCSI, and members that review over the relevant state legislature which will hopefully impact our libraries in a positive way.
The fees for regular, individual member was $84 and $50 for students--a bit more than for PLA.
While I have lived in Michigan my whole life and love it dearly, I don't exactly know where my career path will take me. That being said, I'm not sure I would want to join MLA if I knew I wasn't going to be living and working there for the rest of my life. On the other hand, being a library lover and being a part of several here in Michigan, I think it's important that libraries stay so important and stay funded here in Michigan. Also, just a random fun fact--I was surprised and delighted to see on the MLA homepage that the director of the library that I am currently working at is featured on the front page of the website! It made me proud to see that our library is doing so great.
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