ACONDA and ANACONDA: social change, social responsibility, and librarianship.

ABSTRACT

In the context of the declining legitimacy of the war in Vietnam and widespread challenges to the authority of established institutions and cultural norms, the American Library Association (ALA) was the target of criticism by a diverse coalition of librarians who asserted two broad demands; first, that the ALA expand the scope of its activities to include consideration of social and political issues that had not, to that point, been regarded as "library" issues by the established leadership of the ALA; second, that the ALA democratize its structure of decision making. This challenge led to the creation of the Social Responsibilities Round Table (SRRT), which is still active as a component of the ALA. It also prompted the formation of two committees in response to the above demands: the Activities Committee on New Directions (ACONDA) and the Ad Hoc Activities Committee on New Directions (ANACONDA). A central concept at play in the politics of these events is the notion of "social responsibility" and its meaning in time of war and social change. This article focuses on the discourse of the challengers to the ALA and the ALA's response through the work of ACONDA and ANACONDA to examine the contesting and contested meanings of the "social responsibility" of libraries, librarianship, and the ALA. These events and this discursive struggle established an explicit professional concern for and continuing conflict over the meaning and role of libraries and librarianship in the creation of culture that before these events had been merely implicit in professional discourse.

INTRODUCTION

While not explicitly employing the term social responsibility, the July 1852 Report of the Trustees of the Public Library of the City of Boston made clear that the library had two primary social obligations. One was to provide the means of equalizing and maximizing individual opportunity to participate in civic society while combating divisive cultural, social and political influences. The second was to provide the public with a means of developing a uniquely American culture, founded on a notion of engaged citizenship. The report states: "the means of general information should be so diffused that the largest possible number of persons should be induced to read and understand questions going down to the very foundation of social order" (City of Boston, 1852, p. 281). This language reveals a set of mutual responsibilities. The public library is to provide the knowledge required by citizens for them to make rational decisions regarding the essential nature of the social order. Citizens are to use the library for this purpose. The notion of social responsibility has long been at the center of the professional ideology that grounds thought and justifies practice in librarianship. And it is an essentially contested concept (Connolly, 1993). Its meaning is central to professional identity, yet that meaning is historically and politically contingent, like the notion of professionalism itself (Larson, 1977).

During times of "normal practice" professional ideology can remain peacefully embedded within practice, going unrevealed and unexamined. However, given librarianship's close ties with the terms of discourse that generally articulate the legitimacy of American democratic culture, when the latter experiences a crisis of meaning, so does the former. Just after World War II, America confronted self-imposed questions regarding its surprising ascendance to the role of world leader at the same moment mutual assured destruction was about to become military doctrine. The Cold War caused problems for the meaning of peace. The peace of 1945 assured a victory for democracy on a global scale over its fascist challengers but left a sense that democracy, at home as well as abroad, was not as secure as we might like. These conditions triggered a professional crisis leading to the Public Library Inquiry (Raber, 1997).

The inquiry was organized by the American Library Association (ALA) and was conducted under the direction of Robert Leigh of the Social Science Research Council at the University of Michigan. The Carnegie Corporation provided about $200,000 to fund the study. Its goal was to determine the status of the public library and, based on that empirical assessment, define an appropriate and legitimate purpose for the library in American culture. The inquiry repeatedly and explicitly links library services and the essential values and requirements of a democratic culture in a way not unlike that of the Report to the Trustees of the Boston Public Library. In both, the library is broadly identified as an institution whose services are necessary for the existence of a vital public sphere (Habermas, 1991).

A generation later, a new crisis associated with a new war and new questions regarding the meaning of democracy arose from perceived and experienced contradictions between idealized and practiced democracy. Social problems associated with race, gender, and class raised questions regarding whether or nor the pubic sphere admitted genuinely democratic participation. These questions were accompanied by political unrest and cultural division that also posed questions for librarianship. If librarianship's fundamental moral commitment is to the progress of democracy and democracy is threatened by social problems, including a war whose legitimacy is questionable, then does not librarianship have a moral responsibility to address these problems? Is not this responsibility especially acute when the source of the social problems is the denial of equal opportunity to participate in the pubic sphere? But even if the answer to both of these questions is yes, what is librarianship to do?

LIBRARIANSHIP AND SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITIES

Questions of this kind gave rise to a professional discourse within librarianship that explicitly addressed the political nature of library service and the meaning of professional social responsibility. In the early 1960s the specter of social responsibility haunted librarianship. The term was not to make its debut in Library Literature until 1968 and then only as a subheading (Curley, 1974, p. 81). But the troubling relationship between racial discrimination and the exclusion of African Americans from access to libraries bothered enough librarians at the 1961 American Library Association annual conference in Cleveland that an "Access to Libraries" study was commissioned. The final report by International Research Associates surprised and shocked the ALA members at the 1963 Chicago conference where the report was presented. The report revealed that the problem of racial discrimination with regard to library service was hardly unique to the South. At the 1964 ALA conference in St. Louis during what at first promised to be an otherwise typically uneventful membership meeting E.J. Josey of the New York State Division of Library Development rose to remind the ALA of its 1962 action in Miami Beach that barred chapter status to state library associations whose constitutions denied membership to African Americans. Several state associations had withdrawn from ALA membership as a result of that action. Josey noted that black librarians were still not allowed to attend the meetings of these associations, and he protested the continued participation of ALA officers and staff. Arthur Curley, director of the Montclair, NJ., public library, caught the moment well when he wrote: "From that moment on, ALA membership meetings would never be the same. The auditorium came to life" (Curley, 1974, p. 85). Josey was asking if librarianship's or at least the ALA's response to racism in library practice as well as in society at large was morally adequate.

The ALA's reluctance to engage the issue of racism was not necessarily a sign of a general stance toward the political implications of library service arising from questions of its role in the solution of social problems. Through its Washington office, the ALA had actively lobbied for federal support of libraries. Beginning in the late 1940s library advocates argued that rural Americans were deprived of the opportunity for full social participation because they were deprived of access to information and knowledge. The Library Services Act of 1956 established federal funding for rural library development. In the context of the Johnson administration's War on Poverty, the Washington office pressed the case for an extension of federal support to the cities, and the Library Services and Construction Act was signed into law in 1964. In both cases, the ALA's argument was based on the claim that library services, if appropriately funded, could empower the socially and economically disadvantaged and contribute to the realization of genuine equal opportunity to participate fully in civic life (Raber, 1995).

By the mid-1960s, however, political meanings that once might have been taken for granted had come unhinged from their assumptions. Looking back, Arthur Curley observed that many library programs designed to provide meaningful service to marginal populations were both well-conceived and effective. Programs at the New Haven and Brooklyn public libraries were exemplary. But he is insightful when he writes: "Persistent doubts about the sincerity of librarians concern for the 'disadvantaged' are hard to dispel. The very choice of the term suggests a lack of the basic human empathy for which social responsibilitarians have called" (Curley, 1974, p. 87). Library outreach efforts sometimes unfortunately suggested opportunism and perhaps also an implicit encoding linking "disadvantaged" and "urban black" as signifier and signified. Admittedly for a different purpose, in the 1968 presidential election campaign other political interests deployed a code that linked the need for "law and order" with "violent urban ghettos." In either case, real people were given a role to play as tokens in someone else's discursive formation. It is still difficult to sort out the various effects of race, class, neglect, despair, and raised hopes that fueled outbreaks of social violence in Harlem and Brooklyn in 1964, Watts in 1965, and Newark and Detroit in 1967 (Graham & Gurr, 1969, p. 34). A number of questions arose for librarianship. What should we have done? What could we have done? Is it our role to do anything? Curley's remarks reveal librarianship's uncertainty regarding its own role and motives in the context of political uncertainty. On the other hand, there were voices, among them Ervin Gaines, director of the Minneapolis public library, who later argued that racism and urban social violence, although serious problems, were not public library problems and must be left to other agencies because those agencies and libraries have their own but different moral imperatives (Gaines, 1980).

By 1968 the legitimacy of the war in Vietnam began to collapse. President Johnson's pursuit of guns abroad and butter at home began to raise questions about the coherency of his political agenda, let alone his policies, especially as neither effort seemed to be achieving its desired end. In retrospect, and to be fair to the "Establishment," American political culture was struggling with moral questions as well as the realization that politics were not as usual. Essential meanings of democracy and its ends were at stake. By the time the ALA met in Kansas City, Missouri, in 1968, the confluence of discontent, contradiction, and ambiguity of meaning that lead historian David Caute to call it the "Year of the Barricades" was in full evidence (Caute, 1988).

THE ROUND TABLE FOR SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITIES IN LIBRARIES

Social responsibility was on the table in 1968 in the form of a movement to create within the ALA a Round Table for Social Responsibilities in Libraries. (1) Samek traces the beginnings of the Round Table for Social Responsibilities in Libraries to ten ALA members who met in 1968 to discuss "an alternative library agenda" (Samek, 2001, p. 49). These ten people came from a wide variety of libraries and represented a growing discourse on the implications of the Library Bill of Rights. Rather than neutrality toward social and political issues, this discourse argued that the Library Bill of Rights implies an activist political agenda. The group included Dorothy Bendix of the Graduate School of Library Science at the Drexel Institute of Technology and Kenneth Duchac from the Division of Library Extension at the Maryland State Department of Education, both of whom became organizers of the Round Table. From its discussions, the group concluded that for its voice to be heard throughout the profession it needed a formal organization within the ALA.

In May of 1968 Bendix initiated the Organizing Committee for the ALA Round Table on Social Responsibilities. Duchac spearheaded the drive to gather the fifty signatures required for a petition to the Council to form a new round table. By mid-June he had seventy-eight signatures, and he submitted the petition to the ALA Committee on Organization, whose task was to gather opinion from various ALA Divisions and issue a report of recommendations to the Council and the Executive Board. The cover letter from the Organizing Committee expressed concern "that the American Library Association does not provide in its structure a place to focus attention on the major issues of the day." The committee recognized that given the size and diversity of ALA membership, the ALA was not in a position to speak in one voice for librarianship but argued "that within the Association it all too often appears that there is no voice at all." The petition identified the function and responsibility of the proposed round table as follows:

   To provide a forum on the major issues of our times--war and peace,
   race, inequality of opportunity and justice, civil rights,
   violence--and the responsibilities of libraries in relation to these
   issues; To examine current library programs on these issues;
   To propose activities which will increase understanding of these
   issues; To promote action toward resolution of attendant critical
   problems. (2)

Although the positions on critical issues of many of those who supported the establishment of the Round Table for Social Responsibilities in Libraries might be guessed without difficulty, it is important to note that the petition only called for a formal mechanism within the ALA to discuss these issues and to propose the ameliorative action the ALA might take toward their resolution. The committee never called on the ALA to take particular positions on issues. Its purpose was to gain the association's acknowledgment that issues of war and peace, race, inequality of opportunity and justice, civil rights, and violence were library issues.

Some in the social responsibilities movement suspected that the Committee on Organization would use the ALA bureaucracy to delay considering the petition to avoid confronting its substance (Thomison, 1978, p. 224-25; Samek, 2001, p. 51). When Duchac presented the petition to establish the Round Table for Social Responsibilities in Libraries to the membership meeting in Kansas City in 1968, he also called for quick action by the Committee on Organization Council and the Executive Board to approve the establishment of the round table before the end of the conference. Duchac's motion found widespread support and was passed with meager resistance (Samek, 2001, pp. 51-52). Explicit opposition to the petition was not based on a principled stance against considering social responsibilities but rather on issues of procedure. This was especially evident at the special session of the Council called to consider Duchac's resolution the day after the membership meeting. Points of oppositions arising in that session included the claims that the resolution was a matter of pressure tactics to force change; that the normal machinery of the ALA was appropriate to consider such a resolution and there was no need for haste; that the establishment of an additional round table might place a financial strain on the association; and that the political activism implied by the presence of a Round Table for Social Responsibilities in Libraries might threaten the association's tax-exempt status. The Council was curiously unwilling to engage in the substantive matter Duchac's motion put before it, but it finally voted to approve the formation of the round table. Formal establishment of the round table, however, was to be delayed until the ALA midwinter conference of 1969 (Samek, 2001, p. 53).

THE ACTIVITIES COMMITTEE ON NEW DIRECTIONS (ACONDA)

At the ALA Atlantic City conference of 1969, the spontaneously organized Congress for Change brought a number of specific demands to the table, among them that ALA take particular stands on critical social issues; that there should be a structural reorganization of the ALA to allow for greater member participation; that, given the behavior of Chicago's political machine during the 1968 Democratic Party convention, the city be reconsidered as a site for conferences; and that the war in Vietnam be condemned (Samek, 2001, pp. 62-63). The Round Table for Social Responsibilities in Libraries actively embraced the Congress for Social Change's agenda for an activist librarianship that would address issues of war, peace, and social injustice. While the round table did not always agree with the congress's positions and consensus on the meaning of social responsibility remained elusive, the concept had found its full voice in Atlantic City (Samek, 2001, pp. 63-66). A ten-hour membership meeting addressed the issues raised by the Congress for Social Change as well as motions for the active and funded support of intellectual freedom defenses and the formation of a high-level activities committee to review the purpose and structure of the ALA. (3) Problems related to defining the scope and meaning of social responsibility surfaced, but despite the chaos of the membership meeting, there was a consensus that it was time for the ALA to examine its goals and determine if its structure could support their achievement. The idea for a committee to study these issues and recommend change arose from both the membership and the leadership of the association, and a resolution establishing the Activities Committee on New Directions for the ALA (ACONDA) was easily passed on June 25, 1969, with the enthusiastic support of incoming ALA president William Dix, from Princeton University (Samek, 2001, p. 61).

Dix called the Atlantic City conference disorganized, brilliant, and stimulating. He praised those who challenged ALA authority for bringing a new awareness of "broader issues" to the profession's attention. He went on to say that the ALA had not been prepared for Atlantic City "because we as an association had not considered in the light of 1969 just what sort of organization we want to be" (Dix, 1969, pp. 900-901). Dix was a centrist and a pragmatist. He knew that change was coming but believed that the "good qualities" of the ALA were worth preserving. In a letter to Frederick Wagman, director of libraries at the University of Michigan and the first chair of ACONDA, Dix lamented the confrontational nature of the membership meeting that had produced the ACONDA resolution. Referring to statements made at the meeting, however, he said that "these statements, with all their idealism, incoherence and plain wrong headedness, are worth pondering carefully." (4) On June 25, 1969, the ALA membership passed a resolution specifying that six persons would be nominated for the new committee by the Round Table for Social Responsibilities in Libraries and six by the Junior Members Round Table (JMRT). The president of the ALA was to select three people from each group. In addition, twelve members were nominated by the Executive Board and the president was to select six. (5) The idea was to create a mix of the ancient regime and its challengers, but Dix put his stamp on the committee in a way that soon led to be known as "the Dix Mix."

Dix was concerned that ACONDA's actions might be approved by narrow majorities that would leave questions about its legitimacy, but "the Mix" took seriously its charge to prepare a report and recommendations for council review by midwinter of the 1970. The committee was a remarkably hard-working and like-minded group, and its decisions were usually a matter of consensus that votes merely formalized. ACONDA's charges included the following:

* Reinterpreting "the philosophy of the ALA in order to provide a meaningful foundation for the organization"

* Determining priorities for action that reflected the needs and desires of the members

* Re-examining "the organizational structure of the ALA" (6)

Based on the discussions at Atlantic City, feedback from the ALA staff and the membership, and their own inclinations, ACONDA worked quickly, and by its meeting of September 26-27, 1969, it had approved priorities for action. (7) When the priorities were agreed upon, the committee established a subcommittee (often referred to as a panel) to study each priority. (8) As early as that fall, the committee realized that the issues presented by ALA's organizational structure merited special attention. The name of the Panel on Democratization of the Association and Alternative Patterns of Organization for the ALA reflected ACONDA's interpretation of its charge to re-examine the structure of the ALA. Chaired by Katherine Laich, assistant city librarian at the Los Angeles Public Library, the panel reported in November to Frederick Wagman, chair of ACONDA. The report held little back. It observed that there was widespread dissatisfaction with the ALA among its membership on a number of points, including the accusation that the association was wrongly directed toward libraries rather than librarians and issues related to their working conditions; that the ALA was undemocratic; and that its machinery was ponderous and sluggish. (9) The panel expressed doubt that these dissatisfactions could be addressed by structural change but nevertheless proposed three broad alternatives and then sought ALA staff input regarding them. The issue of democratization and alternative ALA organization structures was to take a great deal of ACONDA's time and the ALA's attention. While the issues of democratization and social responsibility are intimately related, and ACONDA engaged them as related issues, the following examination of ACONDA's Final Report will focus primarily on the issue of social responsibility. The story of ACONDA's recommendations on democratization and ALA response deserves a separate analysis that available space here will not permit, but it should be kept in mind that democratization of the ALA was regarded by ACONDA as a social responsibility.

THE FINAL REPORT

ACONDA's Final Report to the ALA is a fascinating document. It articulates a vision of an activist association engaged in support of librarianship to use the power of libraries to solve critical social problems. It is a plan and a call for action, identifying specific steps the association must take to realize the articulated vision. Finally, it is an invitation to discourse--to explore the moral responsibility of the profession to society and to discover ways to put principle into practice through service. Despite its remarkable coherence and thoroughness, the report also reveals internal tensions and signs of compromise that may have contributed to its fate. In September of 1969, before ACONDA's meeting later that month, Arthur Curley wrote to William DeJohn of the Missouri State Library, "It will be a major miracle if the Committee on New Directions for ALA accomplishes anything, but I'll be in there trying." (10)

At the midwinter conference in Chicago in January of 1970, ACONDA presented its Interim Report to the membership. Lively and informal discussions regarding the report and its recommendations lasted three days, and the committee left with work to do (Samek, 2001, pp. 76-77). However, the Final Report was ready by the Detroit conference in June 1970. From the beginning, ACONDA worked with the assumption that the ALA was and "should continue to be an organization for both librarians and libraries." In that context, the report notes that the ALA needed to strengthen its focus on librarians, but it also reminded its audience that "librarianship is not an end in itself but ... it finds its justification in the service it renders to society. As the needs of society change, so must the service priorities of the library profession." (11) In light of its second charge, ACONDA proposed six program priorities for the ALA, accompanied by recommendations for further action. For each program priority, the report of the subcommittee that addressed that priority was included to provide context and justification for the committee's proposals. The recommended ALA program priorities were as follows:

* Social Responsibilities: ALA action was to be directed at "ameliorating or even solving the critical problems of society."

* Manpower: The ALA was to take greater responsibility for the welfare of librarians, particularly with regard to wages and working conditions, and to develop recruitment programs for a new generation of librarians.

* Intellectual Freedom: ACONDA called upon the ALA to provide both organizational and financial support for a nation-wide program to oppose censorship and defend librarians whose livelihood was threatened by censorship efforts.

* Legislation: The ALA was to recognize its status as an interest group and actively engage in promoting national legislation for the support of libraries.

* Planning, Research, and Development: The ALA was to serve as both a source and clearinghouse for information and research related to improving professional practice and library management.

* Democratization and Reorganization of the ALA: ACONDA envisioned this goal as necessarily requiring both immediate action and a long-range plan. It took on the task of developing alternatives rather than mandating a particular structure. (12)

The first and third charges are addressed through the program priorities. New ideas about the philosophy and direction of the ALA are addressed explicitly in priorities one through foul, but especially in priority one. Reorganization was the focus of priority six, and the proposals associated with priority five--planning, research, and development--applied to all of the recommendations.

The first priority the Final Report addresses is social responsibilities. Essentially, ACONDA asserted that libraries can and should contribute to the solution of critical social problems. Libraries have the opportunity to do this directly by providing services relevant to the needs of the "underprivileged and semi-literate." Beyond this immediate imperative, libraries can indirectly contribute by providing the knowledge required for informed citizenship and thoughtful public resolution of critical problems. In this view, libraries have a vital role to play in the sphere of open public discourse and decision making that is necessary to a democratic society, yet they must also do what they can to ensure equal access to that sphere. To achieve these ends, ACONDA called for the creation of an ALA Office of Social Responsibility. (13) The January 1970 report from the Subcommittee on Social Responsibilities is more expansive. (14) The subcommittee first identifies a traditional form of professional social responsibility defined in terms of libraries as neutral sources of information rather than a promoter of ideas. They wait to meet the manifest information needs of their users. The subcommittee rejects this definition and cites the alternative offered by the Committee on Organization: "Social responsibilities can be defined as the relationships that librarians and libraries have to non-library problems that relate to the social welfare of our society." Although the reasoning is not entirely transparent, the subcommittee's text uses the Committee on Organization definition for a jumping off point to argue that libraries cannot avoid being involved in nonlibrary issues. Using services to the disadvantaged as the exemplar, the subcommittee makes the point that libraries have an obligation to focus efforts on those who are excluded from full social participation by virtue of class, race, gender, or any other characteristic that unjustly disenfranchises them. From this perspective, if libraries exist to promote the progress of meaningful democracy, then the apparently nonlibrary problems of the disadvantaged, and more acutely the problems that cause disadvantage, are library problems. They have an information component. Libraries have a role to play in helping communities reach "a state of political effectiveness where they can demand proper, self-tailored library services and be sure of getting it."

Perhaps the most striking aspect of the subcommittee's report is its stance on the political "neutrality" of librarians, particularly with regard to nonlibrary issues. It notes that the claim to neutrality is "rather dubious," adding that librarians have always supported democratic aims and taken liberal positions on social issues beyond intellectual freedom. It criticizes the association for too often erring on the side of caution when confronted by a need to engage social problems. The following passage nicely captures the feel of the subcommittee's report:

   The cry is that we are an association of libraries, not librarians
   and should only exist to promote library services. Yet our
   institutions (libraries) are surrounded by pollution and violence
   and under threat of nuclear extinction. Racial tension and social
   unrest upset their daily routines constantly. For a national
   association to ignore these threats, seems the height of folly. Yet
   we are daily advised by some of our members to eschew involvement
   with these dangers, lest we render ourselves subject to reprisals
   and tarnish our golden neutrality. (15)

The subcommittee report closes with the observation that librarianship is already involved "at every level" with such issues, and the next step for the ALA was to determine the action to take rather than to debate whether to take action.

This language resonates with earlier Congress for Social Change's demands that the ALA take political positions on a wide variety of issues, but the Final Report avoids stating this explicitly. ACONDA recognizes a wide variety of nonlibrary problems that librarians as librarians might take an interest in, but it maintains political neutrality in its assertion that "our position should be support for all efforts to help inform and educate the people of the United States to the gravity of these problems." On the other hand, and in the same sentence, ACONDA emphasizes that libraries must do this so that the people "in the exercise of their democratic prerogatives ... will not be guided solely by the relatively restricted number of points of view represented in the mass media or by prejudice, passion or ignorance." In the political context of 1970, this statement might not have been regarded as politically neutral by a variety of interests. It also raises an interesting problem of intellectual freedom that went unaddressed. To what extent do libraries have a responsibility to actively redress the public sphere's failure to represent alternative political positions that are routinely and systematically excluded from its agenda?

Differences in understanding of social responsibility and intellectual freedom between the Final Report and the subcommittee disappear in the subcommittee's second report in June of 1970, (16) and it seems clear that ACONDA's members agreed that clarifying their meaning was a priority for the ALA and that responsibility for doing so belonged to the members themselves. ACONDA's final recommendation on social responsibilities (4a) reads as follows:

   (1)Define the broad social responsibilities of ALA in terms of (a)
   the contribution that librarianship can make in ameliorating or even
   solving the critical problems of society, (b) support all efforts
   to help inform and educate the people of the United States on these
   problems and to encourage them to read the many views on, and the
   facts regarding, each problem, and (c) the willingness of ALA to
   take a position for the guidance and support of its members on
   current critical issues. (17)

The Final Report's section on intellectual freedom is curiously instrumental, however, and it contributes to our sense that ACONDA could not quite come to grips with how to identify and frame the tensions between social responsibility and intellectual freedom. It also reveals these tensions in the differences between the recommendations of the full committee and the report of the Subcommittee on Intellectual Freedom, chaired by George Alfred of the Walden Branch Library in San Francisco. After affirming the need for the ALA to remain firm and pursue strategic action in defense of intellectual freedom in the context of "increasing incidents and increasing threats of censorship," the Final Report primarily addresses the debate regarding the purposes and organization of the Freedom to Read Foundation (FRF). The Freedom to Read Foundation was created by the ALA Executive Board in 1969 and was incorporated as an independent not-for-profit organization whose "purposes were patterned on the ACLU Foundation and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, but oriented to the support of librarians and the freedom to read" (Samek, 2001, p. 69). ACONDA's report cites the purposes of the FRF with evident approval. These were to "promote and protect freedom of speech" and libraries as "repositories" of knowledge to which the public has a right to access; to support unfettered library selection choice; and to provide for legal counsel for librarians suffering "injustices by reason of their defense of freedom of speech." (18)

The subcommittee did not challenge the purposes of the Freedom to Read Foundation but questioned its adequacy. It proposed that the functions of the foundation be brought into the ALA formally and become the responsibility of a strengthened Office of Intellectual Freedom. This was important, the subcommittee claimed, because reliance on voluntary contributions for financial support of the Freedom to Read Foundation was insufficient. The subcommittee report states that "[i]ntellectual freedom is so fundamental to library service and so crucial to every practicing librarian, that the national association itself must assume responsibility for its defense." The subcommittee drove home its point by declaring that the ALA should not fear political intimidation" "Fear of possible loss of tax-exempt status cannot be allowed to determine the policies and practices of the American Library Association, just as a practicing librarian should certainly never succumb to the censor for fear that his own salary or budget will suffer. If we believe in the importance of intellectual freedom, we must be willing to take risks in order to defend it." If intellectual freedom is to be perceived as a partisan cause, then so be it. From the perspective of the subcommittee, the protection and enhancement of intellectual freedom is a professional social responsibility, and this responsibility extends to the provision of material support for librarians who attempt "to provide public access to materials of a controversial or unconventional nature" and who are "frequently weakened in [their] defense of this freedom by the widespread failure of neighborhood libraries to provide such materials." (19)

The Final Report gives full recognition to the subcommittee's concerns and agrees that the Freedom to Read Foundation was an inadequate response to the challenges to intellectual freedom. Nevertheless, it also notes that the majority of the committee did not "fully share the conclusions of the Subcommittee." (20) Instead, ACONDA recommended that the Freedom to Read Foundation be given more time to show what it could do and that the ALA should closely evaluate it while it did so. The cautious activism of the committee is revealed in its statement that should the FRF come up wanting, "and if there is evidence to indicate that performance would be improved by bringing the functions of the Foundation within the Association, then action should be taken toward that end." (21) ACONDA wanted to hold at arm's length any activity, including the defense of intellectual freedom, that might be construed as explicitly political and partisan. In the spirit of intellectual freedom, and its presumed benefits, ACONDA recognized that the ALA had to engage issues that by strict interpretations were not library issues. It recognized that the defense of intellectual freedom was not uniquely a library issue. On the other hand, it was reluctant to declare political positions the ALA ought to take and preferred to avoid the appearance of self-interest by keeping the ALA at a distance from the legal and political implications of a partisan defense of intellectual freedom in specific cases.

Regarding active political advocacy for legislative interests, however, ACONDA and its Subcommittee on Legislation were more or less on the same page. The Final Report stresses that "[t]he ALA Washington Office must provide all branches of the Federal Government with authoritative, comprehensive, and non-partisan information on all aspects of library services," and it urges an increase in financial support for the Washington office. (22) Once again, a subcommittee report is more explicit. It recognizes that the ALA does have a legislative agenda that extends beyond libraries to include issues of "postal rates, taxation, copyright, social security, and international programs," and it concludes that "[m]uch more needs to be done at every level of government, from the grass roots to the highest level to show decision makers and government leaders that good library services are indeed basic and essential to educational, social, economic and cultural progress." (23) This language is used, slightly modified, in ACONDA's recommendation to the ALA. (24) This kind of nonpartisanship, however, extended only as far as remaining neutral with regard to which political party might best serve the interests of librarianship and library users. Regarding those interests themselves, there was no doubt among the members of ACONDA that the ALA should be an assertive political voice.

The second (Manpower) and fifth (Planning, Research, and Development) of ACONDA's recommended ALA program priorities carried less ideological weight than those examined so far, but both were perceived by ACONDA to be crucial for a strong and well-organized profession. Priority five is quite straightforward. ACONDA pointed out that research and planning will be needed to accomplish the objects it proposes and that research "on the problems of effective library service" was needed, particularly for planning for library service on a national scale. It recommended that the ALA, through a strengthened Office of Research and Development, take the lead on addressing these problems. (25) The most interesting aspect of the Final Report's section on manpower is ACONDA's assertion "that ALA's activities on behalf of its members may in the past have been under-stressed or even somewhat neglected." (26) In light of its recommendation that the ALA be an organization for both librarians and libraries, ACONDA provided a number of specific proposals for ALA action regarding the issues of salary, status, and welfare of librarians, library education, and recruitment. The committee's proposals were accompanied by a lengthy subcommittee report that filled in the details of ACONDA's recommendations. (27) There are references to social responsibilities issues in the Manpower section, particularly the need to address gender and racial discrimination within the profession by means of policy and active recruitment of minorities, but this section is primarily concerned with the welfare and status of librarians as professionals. An interesting statement in the introduction to this section, however, highlights the ideological tension already identified in other sections. The report asserts that the "ALA should be neither purely an educational organization nor an organization designed exclusively to benefit its members personally," though it is not clear from the context what ACONDA meant by "educational." (28) It seems clear, however, that ACONDA believed that the ALA must simultaneously work as a politically disinterested organization with the objective of improving the quality of library personnel and of educating the public regarding the value of library service as well as a politically self-interested organization with the objective of improving the status and welfare of librarians.

Priority six, Democratization and Reorganization, deserves special attention because both ACONDA and the ALA gave it special attention. After the ALA midwinter meeting in 1969, ACONDA concluded that "organizational concerns were so vital that it should become, in effect, a committee of the whole on these matters." (29) Instead of a subcommittee report, the Final Report was accompanied by a long working paper prepared by ACONDA's Panel on Democratization of the Association and Alternative Patterns of Organization for the ALA. It was the longest appendix of the Final Report and included a detailed diagnosis of the ALA's organizational problems, comparisons to other professional associations, a summary of a Committee on Organization Report on the pros and cons of reorganization, and comments from a number of ALA staff. (30) The Final Report provided three sets of recommendations based on the time frame of their likely completion and three relatively detailed alternative reorganization plans. (31) This section also prompted the only minority report. A. P. Marshall of Eastern Michigan University Libraries argued that ACONDA had overstepped its charge by proposing a reduction in the size of the council and the elimination of state chapter representation on the council. (32) One of the primary expectations of the Round Table for Social Responsibilities in Libraries as well as the ALA'S Congress for Social Change was that the ALA would become more responsive to the membership and its actions more relevant to social issues understood as library issues. ACONDA acknowledged these expectations. The Final Report states: "In reaching conclusions on organizational matters, the Committee was animated by two objectives: to discover ways in which the Association could become more responsive to the interests and desires of the membership, and to suggest organizational changes which would achieve early implementation of the ALA's current priorities." (33) Given the context provided for this statement by the Final Report as a whole, it seems safe to conclude that the members of ACONDA believed that without reorganization, and specifically without democratization, the ALA would not likely achieve even its most modest goals, let alone meet the obligations of the moderate social responsibilities that ACONDA had identified as appropriate for the ALA. Arguably, between 1970 and 1972, the issue of democratization and reorganization dominated and marginalized the discussion of the issue of social responsibility in the ALA even if social responsibility was still the driving underlying force of that discussion.

REACTION TO ACONDA's FINAL REPORT

In Detroit at the 1970 ALA conference, ACONDA presented its Final Report for ALA action. The membership meeting that considered the report ran between fourteen and fifteen hours long. Motions were made to table the report; refer it to a membership mail vote; and accept it as an interim report only. Substitute motions and amendments were offered. Signs of resistance to the report's call for social responsibility began to appear prior to the conference. A typical response is revealed in a letter from Betsy Burson, educational projects coordinator at the Phoenix Public Library, to Richard Waters at the Dallas Public Library. Ms. Burson, while agreeing that librarians must lobby for measures to improve library services, states bluntly that a "professional association is on the wrong foot when it begins to take political stands." She was in favor of social responsibility that involves helping people to improve themselves, but opposed to interpreting that responsibility as "political responsibility." (34)

Some hours after the start of the membership meeting, ACONDA's first three recommendations were passed. The first recommendation called for the ALA to be an organization for librarians and libraries whose "overarching" objective was the promotion and improvement of library service. The second asked that the six program priorities identified by ACONDA be adopted as ALA priorities, and the third called for "substantially increased" budgets for the implementation of these priorities. Recommendation four, addressing the six specific program priorities and actions to be implemented, caused things to bog down as process finally took precedent over product. Recommendations (4a) on Social Responsibilities, (4c) on Intellectual Freedom, and (4d) on Legislation were at the heart of the debate. (35)

Bob McClarren, treasurer of the ALA, claimed that ACONDA's legislative and social responsibilities priorities "could cause the ALA to lose its tax exempt status" (Shields, Burke, & McCormick, 1970, p. 672). David Berninghausen, chair of the ALA Committee on Intellectual Freedom, was more direct when he rose to argue that the ALA should take positions on issues that only directly affected "the professional activities of librarians and libraries." ACONDA's recommendation on social responsibilities, (4a)(1)(c) called on the ALA to define its responsibilities in terms of "the willingness of ALA to take a position for the guidance and support of its members on current critical issues." When this recommendation came to the floor, Berninghausen moved that the words "of direct and demonstrable relevance to librarianship" be inserted after the word "issues." After much debate, which ALA Bulletin observers described as procedural rather than substantive, the amendment was defeated (Shields, Burke, & McCormick, 1970, p. 673). In a letter to Publishers Weekly after the Detroit conference, Berninghausen complained that the vote took place at an unscheduled meeting, effectively depriving the membership of a meaningful vote, that the Council is the elected representative of the ALA and it had voted "overwhelmingly" in favor of a motion that ALA position statements clearly indicate their relevance to professional issues, and that the ACONDA report "advocates the rejection of the central and fundamental concept in the Library Bill of Rights, the neutral stance on substantive issues. (36) Although defeated on the floor, Berninghausen had identified the tension between social responsibility and intellectual freedom that ACONDA's report left unresolved.

By the end of the marathon membership meeting, ACONDA's recommendations regarding social responsibilities remained intact and were finally passed. The Council, however, had its own ideas about ACONDA's recommendations and made two telling changes. The original language of ACONDA's recommendation on social responsibilities, (4a)(1)(c), again came under attack. Margaret Monroe of the University of Wisconsin, echoing if not exactly repeating Berninghausen's motion at the membership meeting, moved to change this language to read that the broad social responsibilities of the ALA will be defined in terms of "(c) the willingness of ALA to take a position on current critical issues with the relationship to libraries and library service clearly set forth in the position statement." (37) The original language of ACONDA's recommendation (4a)(2) read "Establish an ALA Office for Social Responsibility to carry out programs for (a) library service to the disadvantaged, (b) international relations, (c) communication with the membership." (38) The Council had the final word by changing this statement to read: "Establish an ALA Office for Library Service to the Disadvantaged and Unsaved." (39)

These relatively simple changes narrowed considerably the intent of ACONDA as evidenced in its Final Report and turned the association back toward the focus it held on the confluence of professional and political issues prior to the 1968 Kansas City and 1969 Atlantic City conferences. ALA Bulletin observers are worth quoting at length not only because they capture the reality of the moment but also because of the way they reveal an attitude of resignation regarding the actions of the Council that likely characterized the attitude of many social responsibilitarians:

   Call it weariness. Call it ennui or maybe that old feeling that
   captures Council from time to time. Whatever it was they didn't
   like the idea of an office devoted to social responsibilities
   although a few hours before they had named that as one of the
   Association's priorities. Instead they created an Office for
   Library Service to the Disadvantaged and Unserved. There was no
   charge given to the office or even an indication of just how it
   was to be created. (Shields, Burke, & McCormick, 1970, p. 680)

The Council made minor changes to the recommendations on intellectual freedom, and no action was taken on the recommendations regarding manpower, legislation, planning, research, and development. The recommendations for democratization and reorganization were also deferred. To cope with this rather large number of unresolved issues, the council established its own committee: the Ad Hoc Committee on New Directions (ANACONDA) (Shield, Burke, & McCormick, 1970, p. 681). It also voted to extend the life of ACONDA and charged the two committees to work together to address the items of the ACONDA report that were "not discussed or acted upon by Membership and/or Council" at the Detroit conference. They were to prepare a report so that the ALA might arrive at its Dallas conference the following year "ready for action." (40)

Reaction to events in Detroit went both ways. The Association of State Libraries issued a statement asserting that the Council's action on social responsibilities was still ambiguous. It was supportive of the ALA's effort to develop service to the disadvantaged and unserved but was not certain whether the establishment of an ALA office was the best means to this end. It recommended further study. (41) Members of ACONDA, however, were clear and direct about their feelings. Maurice Travillian, director of the Marshalltown Iowa Public Library, and Bill Hinchliff, in media services at the Federal City College, both wrote to Katherine Laich, now the chair of ACONDA. Travillian, in what he identified as a frank afterthought, said that "the essence of our social responsibility recommendation was emasculated" and that a "slight majority of the librarians present were not yet ready for a great deal of social activism." (42) Hinchliff was depressed about a wide variety of things, including the "disemboweling [of] ACONDA' s commitment to Social Responsibility 'particularly in the crucial area of human survival and uncontrolled militarism'" in order to win acceptance by the Council. (43)

ANACONDA AND ACONDA

Following the Council's charge, at their first joint meeting in Chicago in October 1970 the two committees sorted out their various responsibilities. ACONDA was to address issues of democratization and reorganization of ALA, and ANACONDA was to address everything else left undone in Detroit. In a discussion of personal impressions of the State Library Association's reaction to ACONDA's Final Report, David Kaser, the director of libraries at Cornell University, noted "a misunderstanding about social responsibilities." Arthur Curley agreed and added, "[w]e aren't suggesting that librarians take a stand on outside issues, but about how these issues relate to us." (44) Nevertheless, the focus of the meeting was on the restructuring of ALA and its activities in the areas of manpower, legislation, and planning, research, and development. ANACONDA later reported to the Executive Board that "It is our interpretation that those items in ACONDA's report which were acted on by Council are properly outside of our purview." (45) Having been voted on by the Council in Detroit, the committees were compelled to regard the work on social responsibilities as finished.

This was unfortunate because the idea of social responsibility was far from clearly articulated. It was rather assumed that everyone knew what it meant. This lack of clarity, as Curley noted, served the purpose of allowing a wide range of voices to be heard and facilitated the formation of a social responsibilities coalition within the ALA. By 1970, however, while the ALA prepared for the midwinter meeting in Los Angeles, this same lack of clarity allowed for a bureaucratic resolution of a philosophical issue that was never fully confronted. The Council's action on ACONDA's recommendations (4a)(1)(c) and (4a) (2) also allowed the ALA to continue to rely on an ambiguous status quo meaning of social responsibility without sorting out its different implications for libraries, librarians, and librarianship, a condition that still troubles the profession.

Looking back on its work, ACONDA saw that its work appeared "to have had a dual focus: philosophical (determination of objectives and priority interests) and practical (determination of a structure most likely to facilitate achievement of those objectives and to implement those priorities)." The committee admitted that the distinction between the philosophical and practical aspects of their work had not always been clear, adding that "[t]he organizational recommendations were a quagmire." (46) The effort to engage the idea of social responsibility and the democratization of the ALA, the sources of ACONDA's mission, had become a lengthy, detailed, ambiguous, and ambivalent debate over the structure of the ALA. ANACONDA admitted that the task was one to which the membership and Council had brought "unrealistic expectations of what ACONDA should accomplish, for the time provided was inadequate." (47) Philosophical issues sank into the quagmire of the difficult and complex task of reorganizing the ALA.

Social responsibility movement concerns did not disappear entirely, and the legacy of the movement was apparent in the package of documents received by registrants at the 1971 annual conference. (48) Providing these documents represented an extraordinary effort to inform and engage ALA membership in the reform discourse. ANACONDA supported ACONDA's original recommendations with only slight modifications. For example, regarding manpower, ANACONDA stressed the principle of equal opportunity and urged that ALA take a strong leadership role. ANACONDA did not shy away from explicit political activity in the interest of library development and service and noted that whatever the ALA's goal and programs might be, their implementation required "an adequately supported Washington Office." (49) Most of the ACONDA-ANACONDA recommendations were passed by the membership and Council with little change at the 1971 conference with the exception of a "one-man, one-vote" process to elect the Council. Finally, the Council approved the establishment and funding of an Office for Library Services to the Disadvantaged (Eshelman & Plotnik, 1971, pp. 20-22). Upon recommendation of the ALA Coordinating Committee on Library Service to the Disadvantaged that was established in 1968, the term "unserved" was dropped from the name of the office and its purpose. This committee feared that a charge to serve the unserved was unrealistic in scope and properly belonged to the type of library divisions and to the Public Relations Section of the Library Administration Division. (50)

CONCLUSION

In one of the few efforts to re-examine the events described here, Boris Raymond argues that by 1972 "[t]he goals of the ALA, verbally at least, had been expanded to include most, if not all, of the pressing demands by various interest groups within its membership ... the basic reasons for the confrontation had been removed." He adds that many of the original challengers of the ALA's direction and structure had become the new leaders of the association and found themselves confronted by the realities of governing such a large and diverse organization. Despite the "oligarchial tendencies ... inherent in all large-scale organizations irrespective of democratic constitutions, bye-laws, and free elections," Raymond's essential conclusion is that the inherent liberalism of the ALA allowed it to broker effective compromises regarding both direction and democratization (Raymond, 1979, pp. 358-59).

Despite change instituted as an outcome of ACONDA and ANACONDA recommendations, however, including a somewhat sharper focus on intellectual freedom issues, and the active institutional presence of the SRRT, by the 1972 Chicago conference the ALA was generally back to business as usual. Social responsibility, as introduced in Atlantic City in 1969, was fading from mainstream association concern. In his history of the ALA, Dennis Thomison nicely captures the final results of ACONDA's work when he writes, "The successes of ACONDA and ANACONDA were not conspicuous. New offices for the disadvantaged and unserved as well as research were established, but funding remained limited." He adds, "In retrospect, the accomplishments seem short-lived in relation to the problems they were meant to deal with," resulting in "rather minor changes in view of the demands, the promises and the amount of time devoted to ACONDA and ANACONDA" (Thomison, 1978, p. 231).

Two observations are worth making here. Throughout the discussion of the ACONDA recommendations, the idea of social responsibility remained unclear. No one precisely articulated what it meant. This condition allowed a diverse set of interests and people to come together as an effective political coalition and successfully challenge the established ALA leadership. On the other hand, it can be read as a sign that librarianship lacked a theoretical understanding of social responsibility on which to ground the development of a meaningful discourse concerning its implications. As Curley notes, the movement never came to grips with the fact that the context and meaning of social responsibility would likely depend on whether one was speaking of libraries, librarians, or librarianship (Curley, 1974, p. 80). Each might need to approach critical issues from a different perspective.

Once again, Arthur Curley is worth quoting at length:

   By 1970, the country had already begun to show clear-cut signs of
   exasperation with proponents of radical change. Finally having to
   accept the notion that something is basically wrong with the
   country, the "middle-Americans" and the self-styled silent
   majority, and the hard hats found it a short jump to the conclusion
   that what was wrong with America is those who keep saying something
   is wrong. So, just as the social revolution of the sixties had
   spurred on the social responsibility movement within the library
   field, so the decisive swing of the national pendulum to the right
   at the start of the seventies produced a parallel backlash among
   librarians. (Curley, 1974, p. 97)

By 1971 words associated with and describing change were easily accepted in the discursive economy of librarianship even as their original meaning and intent was slipping away. A kind of change fatigue had overtaken the country, librarianship, and the ALA. Challengers to a dominant mode of thought usually have only a brief window of time through which to overturn that mode or make a substantive difference in it. By 1972 the window of change was closing.

The Final Report of the Activities Committee on New Directions for the ALA and its subcommittee reports are still worth reading. Most of what is found there is relevant to the current situation of librarianship. The social responsibilities movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s represents a negotiation within librarianship and between librarians to articulate their professional obligation to their clients and to society; to identify the good the profession ought to do for both, and to clarify the terms of librarianship's social contract with its patrons, regardless of their status as library users. It also represents a negotiation over the extent and way it should lead or follow. This is not an easy question and it deserves constant attention.

ARCHIVAL SOURCES

American Library Association Archives, University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana. Referred to as ALA Archives.

American Library Association, Activities Committee on New Directions for ALA, Final Report of the Activities Committee on New Directions for ALA and Subcommittee Reports, June 1970. ALA Archives, University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana. Referred to as Final Report.

REFERENCES

Caute, D. (1988). The year of the barricades: A journey through 1968. New York: Harper & Row. City of Boston. (1852, July). Report of the trustees of the Public Library of the City of Boston. Boston: J.H. Eastburn, City Printer.

Curley, A. (1974). Social responsibility and libraries. In M.J. Voight (Ed.), Advances in librarianship, Vol. 4 (pp. 77-90). New York: Academic Press.

Connolly, W. E. (1993). The terms of political discourse. 3rd ed. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Dix, W. (1969). Memo to Members. American Library Association Bulletin, (July/August), 900-901.

Eshelman, W. R., & Plotnik, A. (1971). ALA 1971: Notes & comments. Wilson Library Bulletin, 46, 8-28.

Gaines, E. (1980). Let's return to traditional library service: Facing the failure of social experimentation. Wilson Library Bulletin, 55, 50-53, 78.

Graham, H. D., & Gurr, T. R. (1969). Violence in America: Historical and comparative perspectives. A Report to the National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.

Habermas, J. (1991). The structural transformation of the public sphere: An inquiry into a category of bourgeois society. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Larson, M. S. (1977). The rise of professionalism: A sociological analysis. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Raber, D. (1995). Ideological opposition to federal library legislation: The case of the Library Services Act of 1956. Public Libraries, 34, 162-169.

Raber, D. (1997). Librarianship and legitimacy: The ideology of the Public Library Inquiry. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.

Raymond, B. (1979). ACONDA and ANACONDA revisited: A retrospective glance at the sounds of fury of the Sixties. Journal of Library History, 14, 349-362.

Samek, T. (2001). Intellectual freedom and social responsibility in American librarianship, 1967-1974. Jefferson, NC: McFarland.

Shields, G. R., Burke, J. G., & McCormick, E. (1970, July/August). Detroit, 1970. Another opening, another show. American Libraries, 1, 660-684.

Thomison, D. (1978). A history of the American Library Association, 1876-1972. Chicago: American Library Association.

NOTES

(1.) The change of name of the Round Table for Social Responsibilities in Libraries (RTSRL) to its current name, Social Responsibilities Round Table (SRRT), was approved by the Council at the Dallas ALA conference in June 1971.

(2.) Organizing Committee for ALA Round Table on Social Responsibilities to Colleagues, June 11, 1968, ALA Archives.

(3.) "ALAiad or A Tale of Two Conferences," Wilson Library Bulletin, 44 (Sept 1969): 88-89.

(4.) William S. Dix to Frederick H. Wagman, August 19, 1969, ALA Archives.

(5.) ACONDA Revised Recommendations, January 1971, ALA Archives.

(6.) Final Report of the Activities Committee on New Directions for the ALA and Subcommittee Reports, June 1970, ALA Archives.

(7.) Final Report, Appendix B-3. History of ACONDA, p. 28.

(8.) Final Report, p. 5.

(9.) To: Frederick H. Wagman, Chairman, Activities Committee on New Directions for ALA. From: Panel on Democratization of the Association and Alternative Patterns of Organization for ALA, Keith Doms, Albert P. Marshall, Glenn F. Miller, Katherine Laich, Chairman. Interim Report on Democratization of the Association, November 26, 1969, ALA Archives.

(10.) Arthur Curley to William DeJohn, September 2, 1969, ALA Archives.

(11.) Final Report, p. 7.

(12.) Final Report, pp. 1-4.

(13.) Final Report, p. 9.

(14.) Final Report, Subcommittee on Social Responsibilities, January 1970, George J. Alfred, Chairman, A. P. Marshall, Shirley Olofson, Appendix C-1-a, pp. 29-31, ALA Archives.

(15.) Final Report, Subcommittee Report on Social Responsibilities, January 1970, Appendix C-1-a, p. 31, ALA Archives.

(16.) Final Report, Subcommittee on Social Responsibilities Report, June 1970, Appendix C-1-b, p. 33, ALA Archives.

(17.) Final Report, p. 1.

(18.) Final Report, p. 13.

(19.) Subcommittee on Intellectual Freedom, Report, June 1970. Final Report, Appendix C-3, quotations from pp. 52 and 53.

(20.) Final Report, p. 13.

(21.) Final Report, p. 14.

(22.) Final Report, p. 15.

(23.) Subcommittee on Legislation, Report, June 1970, Final Report, Appendix C-4, p. 55.

(24.) Final Report, p. 15.

(25.) Final Report, p. 16.

(26.) Final Report, p. 11.

(27.) Subcommittee on Manpower, Report, June 1970, Final Report, Appendix C-2, pp. 34-50.

(28.) Final Report, p. 11.

(29.) Final Report, p. 5.

(30.) Panel on Democratization of the Association and Alternative Patterns of Organization for the ALA, Working Paper, January 1970, Final Report, Appendix C-6-a, pp. 61-92.

(31.) Final Report, pp. 17-22.

(32.) Minority Report on Democratization and Reorganization by A. P. Marshall, Final Report, Appendix A, pp. 23-24.

(33.) Final Report, p. 17.

(34.) Betsy Burson to Richard Waters, January 16, 1970, ALA Archives.

(35.) Final Report, pp. 1-2.

(36.) David K. Berninghausen to the Editor, Publishers Weekly, August 31, 1970, ALA Archives.

(37.) Report to the Executive Board 1970-71, Information #5, August 18, 1970, ALA Archives.

(38.) Final Report, p. 1.

(39.) Report to the Executive Board 1970-71, ALA Archives.

(40.) David Clift, Report to the Executive Board, 1970-71, Information # 5, August 18, 1970, ALA Archives.

(41.) Statement of the ASL Board on the Report of the Activities Committee on New Directions for the ALA, DRAFT, attached to a letter [President, ASL] to Lillian M. Bradshaw, September 29, 1970, ALA Archives.

(42.) J. Maurice Travillian to Katherine Laich, September 23, 1970, ALA Archives.

(43.) Bill Hinchliff to Katherine Laich, October 30, 1970, ALA Archives.

(44.) Memorandum Report on the Joint Meeting of the Activity Committees on New Directions for the ALA and the Ad Hoc Council Committee to work with ACONDA, October 17-19, 1970, ALA Archives.

(45.) Report to the Executive Board, Ad Hoc Committee on ACONDA, October 22, 1970, ALA Archives.

(46.) American Library Association Activities Committee on New Directions for the ALA, Revised Recommendations on Democratization and Reorganization. A Report Presented for Consideration of Council and Membership, Midwinter Meeting, January 1971. DRAFT, November 27, 1970, ALA Archives.

(47.) American Library Association, Ad Hoc Committee on ACONDA Report for Consideration of Council, Midwinter Meeting, January 1971, December 7, 1970, ALA Archives.

(48.) This package included the ACONDA-ANACONDA Joint Report, ACONDA's Revised Recommendations to ALA Council, Recommendations from ANACONDA, ACONDA's Revised Recommendations on Democratization and Reorganization, and the Summary of Major Recommendations excerpted from ACONDA's Final Report of 1970.

(49.) Recommendations from ANACONDA. A Report by the ALA Ad Hoc Committee on ACONDA for Consideration of Council, Midwinter Meeting, January 1971, ALA Archives.

(50.) Proposal for the Establishment of an ALA Office for Library Service to the Disadvantaged and Unserved. Prepared by the ALA Coordinating Committee on Library Service to the Disadvantaged at the Request of the Executive Board of the American Library Association June, 1971, ALA Archives.

Douglas Raber is an associate professor in the School of Information Science and Learning Technologies at the University of Missouri, Columbia. He teaches courses related to information policy and public libraries.

He has written extensively about professional ideology in librarianship, including Librarianship and Legitimacy: The Ideology of the Public Library Inquiry. From 2003 to 2005 he served as the interim director of the School of Information Sciences at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. In 2005 he was presented with the Tennessee Library Association/SIRS Freedom of Information Award. His latest book is The Problem of Information: An Introduction to Information Science.