A few years back, when AALL was mainly an educational and social organization
for law librarians, I would have agreed with Mary Lu Linnane's position that
the information about candidates should be more about their career-long
record and interests rather than their current positions on the hot issues of
the day. But of course in those days we didn't have contested elections, so
the issue didn't come up at all.
Today the AALL regularly takes public positions on controversial issues,
often in areas that I feel are tangential or unrelated to law librarianship.
When the Executive Board speaks, as the elected representatives of the
national organization of law librarians, they are claiming to speak in my
name.
Under these new circumstances, I want to know the candidates' positions on
any issues that we can foresee will be controversial during their terms.
Citation isn't the only important issue of the day, but it is certainly on
the short list of controversies central to the profession. And the Executive
Board has recently taken an official position on one side. Why does it seem
odd that we should want to know in advance what sort of pronouncements we can
expect, before casting our ballots?
The League of Women Voters surveys political candidates each fall for
statements on just these sorts of issues. This is very different from
campaign literature--focused on the issues, giving each candidate an
opportunity to respond to the same questions--and I find it very helpful in
making up my mind before voting. I would like to see something similar for
the AALL candidates. The brief statements they write for the Newsletter are
totally inadequate to inform an election based on issue and policy
differences. Or was the change to contested elections supposed to be a
"beauty contest"?
Greg Koster
CUNY Law School
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