Who Pays to Attend ALA Conference Survey Results

84 librarians have completed my survey Who Pays for ALA. While that is a small sample, not enough to be significantly statistically accurate, it is enough to show that librarians are finding a variety of ways to attend the annual conference of the American Library Association each summer. It also is enough to show an inconsistency among libraries in whether they support their employees attending professional conferences.

The Questions

My survey only asks two questions.

The first asks who pays for the attendees to attend. The choices for the survey takers range from the attendees' employing libraries paying the costs to the attendees paying all the costs themselves. In between are other options.

The second asks the attendees types of libraries.

The Results

Here are the results, starting with the largest respondent group and descending to the smallest, with non-categorized respondents at the end.

Academic librarians:
12 - my library is paying the conference costs
15 - my library is paying part of the conference costs
1 - I am earning my way working for a vendor
6 - I am paying all the costs myself

Public librarians:
16 - my library is paying the conference costs
5 - my library is paying part of the conference costs
1 - I got a scholarship to attend
1 - I am earning my way working for a vendor
5 - I am paying all the costs myself

Non-profit agency librarians:
3 - my library is paying the conference costs
2 - I am paying all the costs myself

Job-seeking unemployed librarians:
3 - I am paying all the costs myself

Corporate librarians:
1 - I am earning my way working for a vendor
1 - I am paying all the costs myself

School Librarians:
1 - my library is paying part of the conference costs
1 - I got a scholarship to attend

Retired librarians:
1 - my library is paying the conference costs
1 - I am paying all the costs myself

Vendor librarian:
1 - I am paying all the costs myself

Others:
4 - my library is paying the conference costs
1 - my library is paying part of the conference costs
2 - I am paying all the costs myself


Totals:
36 - my library is paying the conference costs
22 - my library is paying part of the conference costs
21 - I am paying all the costs myself
3 - I am earning my way working for a vendor
2 - I got a scholarship to attend
0 - I am earning my way as a paid speaker

You can see all the survey submissions by clicking this permalink.

My Thoughts

Because the sample is small, I do not want to make grand pronouncements. Also, I see some flaws in my questions, as I did not specify exactly what conference costs were. I was thinking registration, hotel, meals, and transportation, but I did not list these. I think most respondents assumed this, but some may not have.

Still, I see some interesting results.

1. The portions of academic and public librarians having to pay all their costs themselves is relatively equal. Early in the poll I thought I saw academic librarians having to pay their own way and public librarians getting more library support, but the numbers approached each other as more librarians took the poll.

2. More public librarians had all their conference costs paid for by their libraries than academic librarians who often had to pay part of their costs. This is where I wonder if my questions were too vague.

3. It makes sense that the three unemployed job-seeking librarians paid their own way.

4. The number of school librarians in the poll seems rather small. As a group, this poll did not find them.

5. The results for non-profit agency and corporate librarians are not what I expected. I thought many non-profits would not have the funds to support librarians at conferences, while I thought corporate librarians would get support. The sample is small.

6. There are seven respondents from uncategorized libraries. Librarians work in a greater variety of situations than I allowed for in this poll.

7. I can see that there are stories behind all these responses. I wonder about the retired librarian who still has a library to pay the conference costs. I wonder about the person working for a vendor who had to pay his/her own way; was he/she actually the vendor/entrepreneur?
Did the public and academic librarians working for vendors get to attend any presentations? Who were all the librarians wanting to come badly enough to pay all their own expenses?

What Now?

I admit that I have not looked to see if anyone has studied the financing of ALA conference attendance. No one has commented yet to say that I should look at existing reports. I am sure that it can be done again in a more planned manner with more reliable results. This might be helpful in the future.

Why does it matter? I think the results show that high percentage of attendees do get support from their libraries. Paying all or part of the costs for an attendee is an accepted and good policy for libraries wishing to further staff development. Perhaps more thoughtful library administrators can use such findings to initiate programs to support their employees for future conferences.

Update on Who Pays for ALA Survey

So far, 58 people have taken the short survey on who is paying for their attending ALA in DC this year. At first, it appeared that the majority were paying their own expenses, but later submissions have turned the trend toward their libraries paying their costs. The tide flows back and forth like totals on election night.

Here is what we have so far:

16 people are paying all their costs themselves.
13 people have libraries paying part of their costs.
27 people have their libraries paying their costs.
2 people are working for vendors to cover their costs.

The survey is still open for submissions. Tell us who's paying for your ALA experience.

Who Pays Again

I am reposting to correct some design problems. Zoho staff gave me some suggestions.

I am attending the Annual Conference of the American Library Association in Washington, D.C in a few days. I am fortunate for my library is paying for me to attend. It was not always so, as I was not in line to get conference funding at several libraries. Being of modest income, I did not attend conferences when I had to pay the costs. I suspect this is the case with many other librarians, but do I really know? Maybe there are librarians paying their own way or finding creative ways to pay to attend.

If you are among the fortunate attending this week's ALA conference, please take my brief survey about who is paying. I am not asking any confidential information, so there are no privacy issues. Perhaps this results of this survey will show how important or unimportant employer support is for conference attendance.

(If you are using an aggregator, like Bloglines or Google Reader, you will need to come to the original blog to take the survey.)





Thanks for taking the survey.

Follow-Up on Who Pays for ALA Survey

The Zoho survey that I embedded in a post earlier today is causing some problems. It looks okay (not great) in Mozilla Firefox browsers, but the bottom part of the box with the submit button is not visible for users of Internet Explorer 6.0. I do not know about other IE versions yet.

A second problem is that Blogger will not let me edit the post with the embedded Zoho survey. I remember that this happened before when I pasted in code for the Zoho survey. When I try to edit, I find the word processing box is empty. I can not see anything to edit it.

Another problem is that Bloglines and Google Reader are also failing to show the survey box. Users of aggregators need to come to this blog using Mozilla Firefox to actually take the survey.

That said, 11 people have taken the survey so far. 6 of them are paying all of their expenses themselves, 3 are getting some help from their libraries, 1 is working for a vendor during the conference, and 1 is lucky enough to have her library pay her expenses. This is not what I expected.

Please, keep taking the survey to see if the trends hold up or change. Thanks.

Who Pays to Attend the ALA Annual Conference?

I am attending the Annual Conference of the American Library Association in Washington, D.C in a few days. I am fortunate for my library is paying for me to attend. It was not always so, as I was not in line to get conference funding at several libraries. Being of modest income, I did not attend conferences when I had to pay the costs. I suspect this is the case with many other librarians, but do I really know? Maybe there are librarians paying their own way or finding creative ways to pay to attend.

If you are among the fortunate attending this week's ALA conference, please take my brief survey about who is paying. I am not asking any confidential information, so there are no privacy issues. Perhaps this results of this survey will show how important or unimportant employer support is for conference attendance.




Thanks for taking the survey. I will report the results after the conference.

Core Biography Survey Results

Maggie of Maggie Reads reminded me that I have not reported the results of my survey about biographies in the public library. Six weeks ago I asked, "what famous persons should have books in the biography section?" I suggested a few important people and posted a survey box for readers to submit other names.

Thirteen people accepted the invitation and submitted 108 names. Sacagawea, Golda Meir, Nelson Mandela, Stephen Hawking, Malcolm X, Sigmund Freud, and Jim Henson are just a few of the interesting names. Some readers agreed, so Cleopatra, Joseph Stalin, Andy Warhol, Al Gore, Frank Sinatra, and Benjamin Franklin were submitted more than once.

Click here to see the Zoho Creator table with the names.

I will keep these names in mind as I work on further biography projects. Thanks.

Pew research on Public Knowledge on Public Affairs

The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press has released a new report Public Knowledge of Current Affairs Little Changed by News and Information Revolutions: What Americans Know: 1989-2007. In this report, statistics show that knowledge of current events and names of public officials is no better now than in 1989, despite the fact there are now many more 24-hour news sources. You can look at the figures and say that knowledge has fallen, though the commentators we heard on National Public Radio today cautioned against making that judgement.

What Bonnie and I found interesting were the scores according to what news sources people cited as their regular sources. Viewers of the Daily Show and the Colbert Report tied with readers of major newspapers for the highest percentage in the highest knowledge category. Users of online news services are down the line. Viewers of Fox News are nearly at the bottom of the list, beating only viewers of morning television shows.

I expect there will be more analysis of these finding in the next few days.

Aggrevating Aggregators: A Note to Bloglines, Google Reader, and Other Readers

If you are reading this blog through an aggregator, you have missed some content. Several times lately I have posted pieces in which I embedded a form from Zoho Creator. Bloglines and Google Reader do not show these. So, if you notice a gap in the text and wonder what should be there, click on the item title and come to the home site of the blog. There you will find a form and be able to easily contribute to a survey.

Yesterday, I asked for help identifying who should be on a core biography list. Click here to see the post with the embedded form. The data you submit goes directly into a database. I will report the results later in another posting.

It is a good idea to occasionally go from the aggregators to the originating sites because there are often sidebar material that you are missing. Many bloggers have posted their favorite links, and some bloggers have created special features, like their own search tools, which you can access from their sites.

The aggregators are great help to readers trying to keep up, but you should not stay within their lines. Stray a bit to see what you might find.

How Readers Are Finding Their Books Survey Results

It has been over a week since I posted my poll using Zoho Creator. To date twenty-six responses are in, including two of my own to see if the form worked. Here are the results, showing how select readers are finding the books they read:

I read a review - 11
A friend recommended the book - 3
A librarian recommended the book - 2
I was given the book - 0
I was assigned the book - 1
I found it on a library shelf or display - 7
I found the book at a bookstore - 1
I found the book online - 0

One person made creative use of the title field to tell me they learned of the book by seeing its author on television.

I only added the "librarian recommended" choice after a comment from a reader who had chosen "friend recommended" because there was not a closer choice. He said he did consider the librarian a friend, so it was okay. The upshot is that the counts are fuzzy.

Reading interests of the respondents are diverse. Fourteen of the books are nonfiction and twelve are fiction. Three of the books are not held by libraries in the Metropolitan Library System (Chicago area). One is in German. One was published in Australia.

Click here to see the Zoho table where the responses reside. Included are the titles that readers entered. You can also search or filter the table, which is pretty cool.

The form still resides on my previous post if you wants to respond and then see the table change.

Thanks, everyone.

Survey Results: Use of ricklibrarian Book Reviews

Three weeks ago I posted a survey about the use of the book reviews on this blog. Ten very nice people took the time to take the three-question survey. While the number of respondents is low, I did get an answer to my question "Has anyone ever used the book reviews?"

Of the ten people responding, six have purchased a book (for themselves or their libraries) based on a book review on this blog.

Nine of ten people have read a book I recommended.

Also, nine of ten have used my reviews in choosing items to recommend to their readers.

I am pleased. 6.5 billion more people to reach. Thanks.

ricklibrarian's Second Anniversary

Two years ago today, I started this blog with a review of Hannah Coulter by Wendell Berry. According to Google Analytics, that review is still occassionally read - four visitors so far in February, three of whom are from North Carolina. Lots of the reviews have continued to be read.

I know you read the reviews, but do you ever buy, read, or recommend the books reviewed? If you will, please click here to take a quick survey. There are only three short questions. It will only take you seconds.

I promise to post the results no matter what they are.