07.07.09
Recession Drives Membership Numbers Downward
By any measure, the American Library Association’s membership retention level has always been enviable. But the other shoe has dropped in the nation’s economic “deep recession,” as May figures show. With ALA Publishing Department revenue already in decline, membership dues revenue at $4.3 million is under budget by $127,000 or 2.8%. The number of new and renewing members has declined from 67,827 to 65,437, or -3.52%.
On the plus side, ALA continues to see growth in student membership; May numbers were up by 2.3%. Year-to-date statistics show a flat renewal rate overall for personal members and new membership enrolments are down 6.33%. The YTD statistics also show movement from reular and other classes of membership to the “continuous member” category, which is up 8.7% and no doubt reflects the retirement trend within the profession.
Of ALA’s 11 divisions, only the Young Adult Library Services division has seen growth of 1.04% over FY2008. Not surprisingly, the Public Library Association has born the severest drop at (12.67%), followed by the Reference and User Services Association (8.24%), the Library and Information Technology Association (8.18%), the Library Leadership and Management Association (7.25%), the Association of Specialized and Cooperative Library Agencies (6.05%), and the American Association of School Librarians (5.17%).
The other major piece of the ALA revenue pie (in addition to publishing and membership) is conferences. Registration for ALA in Chicago is currently strong—2,000 ahead of Anaheim last year—but not likely to be the record-breaker it could have been under normal circumstances.
Amy Kane said,
July 8, 2009 at 11:07 am
Sorry, but for many of us, expensive professional memberships (that really require attendance at equally expensive conferences to be truly beneficial) are the first thing to go when belts start getting tightened.
It doesn’t help that, to me, it appears that ALA is not managing the revenue they do have in a manner that is responsible or appropriate. I was appalled to get a call from what was obviously a professional telemarketer yesterday, pressuring me to renew my membership. I have a hard time imagining that the money ALA spent on a phone marketing firm could not have been spent in a better way. Don’t they think most librarians are organized and resourceful enough to renew their membership without this type of “help,” if they can afford and wish to do so?
Stephanie said,
July 8, 2009 at 11:11 am
I’ve been surprised to hear this week from colleagues who have not renewed their membership that they are receiving calls from telemarketers urging them to renew/rejoin. I thought there was a huge budget shortfall that required staff to be let go back in late March? If ALA can’t afford to keep those people on the payroll, they certainly can’t afford telemarketers either. I’m disappointed, to say the least.
Rebecca Meeks said,
July 9, 2009 at 1:11 pm
If possible, would the ALA and AASL consider collecting the funds in two payments rather than one lump sum amount? I have seen other organizations do this. Another suggestion is to make the payments monthly where an administrative fee is added to the payment to cover the costs of spreading out the payments. I realize that for the ALA/AASL to accept these staggered payments is not as secure a commitment, but folks are facing tremendous challenges these days. Just a suggestion.
Gigi said,
July 15, 2009 at 3:15 pm
I wanted to renew my membership but the cost went up by over 60%! This increase comes at a bad time.
The Liminal Librarian » Blog Archive » Associations with associations said,
July 27, 2009 at 11:04 am
[...] I just read on the ALA Inside Scoop blog that ALA’s membership numbers are dropping because of the recession. (Yup, this was posted 3 weeks ago — I have a lot of blogs to read, people!) With ALA Publishing Department revenue already in decline, membership dues revenue at $4.3 million is under budget by $127,000 or 2.8%. The number of new and renewing members has declined from 67,827 to 65,437, or -3.52%. [...]