My love/hate relationship with ALCTS

I'm a member of the Association for Library Collections and Technical Services. Because of ALCTS mission, it seems to be the professional organization best suited for my interests, but sometimes it doesn't feel like ALCTS wants me. ALCTS is the place to be for people involved in the hands-on management of print and other physical collections, but it hasn't sufficiently adapted to digital collections (and I'm specifically excluding licensed collections that libraries typically only link to.)

Broadly speaking, I'm interested in building digital collections hosted by academic libraries. My narrower interests include organizing born-digital resources, selecting physical collections to digitize, digitizing the collections, cataloging them, creating and managing metadata, preserving digital resources, and other activities related to the stewardship of locally built digital collections.

The other ALA divisions really aren't the appropriate place for this. LITA is a candidate, but it mostly places the emphasis on the technology, not the collections. ACRL is a possibility, but it has a strong administrative and discipline focus, so it attracts administrators and selectors. LAMA? No. RUSA? No, and so on through the other divisions.

ALCTS is the place for people who acquire, organize, and manage collections, but given its current structure, there isn't a full-blown section for those who manage digital collections. I am active with the Networked Resources and Metadata Interest Group (NRMIG), but it seems like the activities I've described above deserve a full section, with committees devoted to, say, metadata, digital library systems, intellectual property issues, digital preservation, etc.

Sometimes it seems that ALCTS is mildly hostile to technology. Take the preliminary program for the 2006 ALA Annual Meeting as an example. There are two ALCTS-sponsored programs in the "Digital Information and Technologies" track. One is a DRM/Institutional Repositories program sponsored by NRMIG. However, the other one, which is the ALCTS President's Program, is "Seeking Silence and Sanctuary in a Technological World." The description of this program includes the line "Electronic communication can have a negative impact on people's lives and work." Not only is this hostile to my interests, it is dissapointing given the growth of digital collections in libraries. It just seems self-defeating for ALCTS in the long run.

I'm optimistic that ALCTS can adapt to a networked world. They are currently circulating and seeking feedback on a new strategic plan. I want to continue to participate in ALCTS, and especially with NRMIG, but in two or three yearsI will certainly be reviewing my options for professional organizations.