After Neela Taub posted her message, I went and checked my
listing. Indeed, it does include much more than it used to -- including
membership number, type of membership (institutional), and race.
Laura Orr suggests that only basic contact information be listed
(perhaps name, institution, address, phone number, email address), but I
think there might be a good middle ground. Isn't there some value in some
of the other information -- e.g., education and past leadership positions?
We haven't had a new edition of the Biographical Directory in years;
perhaps the expanded listings on the web were a response. We can go to
Martindale Hubbell or West's Legal Directory to find out what school a
lawyer went to; why shouldn't we be able to find out what school a
librarian went to?
What seems clear is that the membership data isn't something that
should be loaded simply because it is available in electronic format and
*can* be loaded. How much to load should be discussed. I assume there is a
committee that advises headquarters staff on the content of AALLNet
(perhaps the Publications Committee?) or perhaps the Board has oversight.
In any event, a group should consider the options. In the short term, I'd
suggest going back to the information that was available before -- the
basic contact information and current committee assignments. The "Ethnic
background" field seems to be the hot button, but members might also feel
differently than I do about the desirability of listing the other
biographical information, too.
Mary Whisner, Head of Reference
Gallagher Law Library, University of Washington
whisner@u.washington.edu
Library's website: http://lib.law.washington.edu
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed Nov 14 2007 - 20:50:02 PST