Why do we put up with this?
It must be conference season again. Several colleagues of mine are working their little tails off to get preconferences and presentation ready for CIL and TLA among others. With all the work each of us have to do, I can’t believe the audacity of conference organizers when they pull this sort of stuff (even though Jane found out she doesn’t have to pay to teach her preconference, if she did want to go to the conference she would have to pay). In fact, I had to deal with the same thing last spring after my Dean asked me if I would participate in a panel of privacy issues in libraries at TLA. Since TLA was in Houston I was literally coming to the panel for a hour and a half then leaving and going back to work. So, I basically ignored their request for me to pay registration. My plan to show up and just go to my talk then leave worked like a charm. No fuss whatsoever. The fact that they asked me to pay and the stressful decision about how to deal with the situation that followed was awful though. (So you see Jane isn’t the only one who thought that the form meant a speaker had to pay for registration.)
The really sad part is that TLA isn’t the only offender. ALA is of course an equally big offender, not comping their speakers even the registration of the Annual conference if they are or should be members. I’m still waiting to see if I get asked to register for the preconference I’m contributing to at Annual this year. I have reason to believe that this is a slightly crazy but distinct possibility.
I’m not a greedy person when it comes to getting paid to speak at conferences. Normally, I don’t expect much, just a waiver of my registration fee. Any else on top of that is icing. However, if I’m teaching 4-8 hours for you and you are specially CHARGING people for it then I expect a piece of the pie. At least a big enough slice to cover my expenses. Anything else is exploitation in my opinion.
The game that these organization try has a variety of arguments and tactics
- you should feel privileged to be invited to speak
- your an academic librarian and this should be part of the service piece of your promotion/tenure package
- you were going to come to the conference anyway
- you should be involved in supporting the state library association as part of service to the profession.
As far as I’m concerned, none of these justifications are good enough. While I’m honored to speak at conferences, conferences are work and incredibly exhausting. So much so that I’m taking an extended break from the circuit before I lose my mind. I won’t be attending CIL this spring and I’m seriously considering scaling back my fall commitments. As far as service, if I don’t contribute to the organization in some other way already (I’m a co-chair of a LITA Special Interest Group), I consider my “service” is the time I spend researching and putting together the presentation. Many people make the argument that the state organization can’t afford to comp their speakers their registration but somehow this doesn’t ring true for me. I was part of the conference organizing committee for the SUNY Librarian’s Association for two years and we found a way to make sure speakers didn’t have to register (although we did have rules about how many speakers per session could get their registration paid for). Although some smaller conference may have difficulties comping all the speakers registrations (code4lib only comped the keynote speakers), I don’t feel like state library associations are necessarily in this situation.
If you feel like taking me to task to by say that I’m not a person willing to “volunteer” my time. Take a look at my track record, I’ve given my time often, most recently on the 5 Weeks to a Social Library project. An endeavor that sought to make continuing education and learning available to a group of librarians unable to afford more formal opportunities for continuing growth.
The bottom line is that I don’t think these policies treat all speakers fairly or equally. The impression that I’m often left with is that the conference organizers don’t value their speakers and would be content to get whoever is willing to do it for the least money. Additionally a side effect of this is that certain people never present a particular conference because they refuse to (or cannot afford to) pay for a conference at which they are speaking. While I agree in principle of refusing to speak at a conference where I have to pay for registration, this creates a situation where some speakers voices are suppressed in certain venues. This does not serve the conference attendees or the organizational membership.
As many others have already weighed in on this topic, I think it is time for conference organizers to get serious about thinking about alternatives to this policy. The solution isn’t necessarily to out right refuse to speak but to work within the system to try to find fair solutions that help the conference put on the best and more affordable program.
In the old days we put up with it because conferences were crucial to our professional development and also were important communication mechanisms. Much as I appreciate the f2f model, most conferences operate on the assumption that it’s 1955 and we would never have another opportunity if it weren’t for their “benevolence.” That, and a certain implied sexism that we should be grateful for the opp.
I’ve been following this thread for a while now, and I want to make sure that we don’t take a few egregious examples of speaker abuse and generalize the wrong solution. I am firm believer that we should support the professional organizations to which we belong, which means I speak for free, and pay registration to attend, and my own expenses, for conferences of the professional associations I support. That only seems right.
From there it gets hazy, since there are a number of other conferences (for example, Access and Code4Lib) that are not attached to a professional association. For those, I choose which ones I will support by speaking for free and paying my own way (although if offered, sometimes I will take a waived registration fee or some other partial expense). But it’s my choice.
For all others I simply state the terms and they can either take it or leave it. This includes state associations of which I am not a member. So I guess I don’t understand all the sturm und drang over this. At least in this case, it seems fairly simple in most cases how to prevent abuse. Simply be clear about terms before accepting the gig.
Oh, and I forgot to mention something that doesn’t seem to get as much airtime in this discussion as it deserves. The other folks in the equation here are the conference attendees, of whom they are many more than our ilk. What they appreciate arelow conference registration fees, which is pretty much diametrically opposed to speakers being better compensated. This is exactly why, for example, we (collectively) decided when putting Code4Lib together to compensate only the keynote speakers. We strive hard to keep the registration fee as low as we can, especially since many attendees are paying for it mostly or completely out of their own pockets. So again, I think the solution is for speakers to decide what terms they are willing to accept for any given gig and allow conference planners to decide what their attendees can afford.
“Implied sexism?” In this context I don’t understand that at all.
Roy,
I agree low conference registration fees are important to allow as many people to attend as possible. However, I also think that a conference needs to think about getting a diversity of view points. It is much easier for academic librarians to speak at conferences because many of their workplaces fund such endeavors. This is much less common in public libraries. I would like to see conferences take this into consideration when they decide whether or not to compensate speakers.
Secondly, just because I live in a give state does that mean that I should HAVE to belong to and support the state library association? This doesn’t seem fair particularly if the organization offers nothing of value to me in terms of programming. I often have the same gripes about ALA in terms of programming, but I’m working within the system to change that. If I’m a member of an organization/association then yes I agree then I should support organization. However, I want the right to choose which organization/associations I belong to and support. The current model adopted by more state association doesn’t allow for that.
I can’t believe I keep wasting time on this, when I have two sessions of my own at TLA to prep for… but I want to thank Roy for providing a voice of reason.
As the LIRT chair who set up this whole pre-conference, my philosophy was to keep costs low. It’s a pre-conference, because I know that many people don’t want to attend a whole conference or can only take one day off (as a former public librarian), and it can be cheaper to attend a pre-conference. We priced it at $40 for a full day, making it by far the best value on the schedule. I recruited Texas speakers both to promote the great people we have here in state and because it’s cheap (although I would prefer to pay travel and expenses, TLA policy prohibits this).
We’ve had a tremendous response — almost 100 registrations, which freaks me out a bit! — but even so LIRT isn’t making a lot of money because one of my commitments to Michelle and Gary was that we would have Internet access. The cost for that? $995 for a day. We’ll break even and maybe be a bit ahead after paying for the Internet, equipment, and breaks, but we’re not getting rich. So don’t sue me — no deep pockets here!
Danielle Cunniff Plumer
Chair, Library Instruction Round Table
Texas Library Association
$40 for a preconference?! Yay!
“The impression that I’m often left with is that the conference organizers don’t value their speakers and would be content to get whoever is willing to do it for the least money.”
This is a sad statement and, I can truthfully say, I have yet to meet anyone who brings in a speaker that doesn’t look for the best they can and who doesn’t truly appreciate the efforts made in preparation, presentation, and travel. Although money isn’t irrelevant, it usually isn’t the only factor.
As for your statement of having to become a member of your state association, I think we can safely say that you’ve pretty much stated that TLA has little, if anything, to entice you. Not becoming a member makes sense. However, change usually comes from within an organization, although it might be stimulated by an outside event. If you aren’t happy with how TLA works, then you’ll have to join and help us make the needed changes. :-)
Christine Peterson
Past Chair, Digital Libraries Round Table,
Texas Library Association