ALA Councilor's Report - December 2023

In our November Special Council meeting the Committee on Accreditation brought their report on updating the Standards for Accreditation of Master’s Programs in Library and Information Studies to a vote for council adoption. Council passed this vote and the Standards written in 2015 will be revised.

These revisions include:

• Place the importance of program-level learning outcomes in the forefront to align with the expectations of the Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA) and regional accrediting organizations
• Place more emphasis on equity, diversity, inclusion, and social justice making it clear what programs should demonstrate
• Identify standards that need to be revised or updated to reflect the current institutional context of LIS education and/or the needs of the profession
• Revise standards that are difficult to interpret and/or not clearly written
• Reduce redundancy and omit standards that are not relevant to achieving educational quality
• Make sections of each standard more explicit
• More clearly differentiate between what should be covered with respect to evaluation, decision making, and improvement of the program and planning for the future
• Transfer some sections to a different standard in order to create more coherent groupings

Additionally at this meeting, ALA Executive Board announced the appointment of the new Interim Executive Director, Leslie Burger. Burger will assume the role previously held by Tracie D. Hall who held the position from 2020 until this past October. Burger formerly served as ALA President from July 2006 to July 2007. She retired from her position as the Executive Director of the Princeton Public Library in 2016 after 16 years in the role. ALA welcomes Leslie Burger to this new role while the search continues to find the new Executive Director for ALA.

By Tashia Miller
ALA Councilor, MLA Board of Directors