Welcome to the Michigan Library Association

The message was loud and clear and was 130 voices strong. The message is placed in bold at the top of this document. “Put the spaceship in a drawer.”  The spaceship is the term adopted that day to describe the current MLA governance structure. The themes highlighted in the document have served to point out to the restructuring workgroup and to the MLA Board what the new governance structure must facilitate. We took these themes as indicators of what is lacking to some degree in MLA for many members.  We wish to connect with our peers. We need professional development and programming opportunities. We need to satisfy outreach requirements  in tenure track institutions. MLA members from public libraries and academic libraries need to teach each other a new language. We use the same words in our library worlds that mean very different things.  Reading through the responses provides one with a disturbing accounting of our current state and offers a clear path to our preferred future state.