Selling your association for a mess of pottage

Excellent post by Joe Hodnicki at Law Librarian Blog, about the AALL Executive Board proposed bylaws change.

One of my big questions is, if this bylaws change to broaden the definition of “active membership” is such a great development, why was it being slithered in such secrecy? Would they have actually announced it to the membership in a realistically transparent way if Michael Ginsborg had not stumbled upon it in the Board Books and said something on this Caucus list? And thanks to Gail Daly for speaking up as well.

I am not completely against the idea of vendor membership, but I am deeply troubled by the way this has been brought in... and it is making me more and more suspicious of the motives and future plans for the bylaw change. The more I think about this the more uneasy I become....

Our association already has a great deal of trouble separating the interests of our user groups -- the Consumers of legal information -- from the its own (or perhaps HQ's own) interests in deriving revenue from vendors, having comfy relations with vendors, and not antagonizing vendors! They have truly lost their credibility with me as far as INTEGRITY goes. Sold for a pen and a plastic cup.

The illustration is from Wikimedia Commons, originally from the 1728 Figures de la Bible, illustrated by Gerard Hoet (1648-1733) and others, and published by P. de Hondt in The Hague.