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Also, I would point out that libraries increasingly hire non-librarians in
technology positions. That likely means that even if said persons might
eventually find Code4Lib, their allegiance to a profession as epitomized by
ALA is unlikely.
Roy

On Mon, Jan 5, 2015 at 8:37 AM, Debra Shapiro <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> LITA is now the smallest ALA division.
>
> Personally, as someone who’s been involved with LITA for 20 years, I think
> the decrease is due to all the reasons Kevin cites below, and also because
> of something of an identity crisis - related to the advent of the Internet,
> as Eric says.
>
> LITA is the technology division of the ALA. *Everything* in libraries is
> done with technology now, so ALA members who once might’ve chosen to join
> the technology division choose instead to join other divisions, related to
> their other interests. Look at the list of ALCTS (the cataloging division)
> programs for any given ALA conference, or ALCTS list of CE webinars, and
> it’s all topics that might’ve once been more the purview of LITA.
>
> Of course I ran for LITA prez on that platform 6 years ago and lost so
> what do I know …
>
> deb
>
>
> On Jan 5, 2015, at 10:28 AM, Kevin Ford <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> > > I think this just goes to show, with the advent of the
> > > Internet, centralized authorities are not as necessary/useful
> > > as they once
> > > used to be. —ELM
> > >
> >
> > -- Maybe.  I think it it recession-related.  The high water mark for
> nearly all of the groups on that list is 2007 (2006 for one or two). The
> overall stats for ALA show the same membership pattern (increasing until
> 2007, decreasing thereafter):
> http://www.ala.org/membership/membershipstats_files/annual_memb_stats
> >
> > I'd be interested to know if LITA's membership decrease is greater (as a
> percentage) than the others.  Perhaps that would suggest forums such as
> code4lib peeled off some of those would-be LITA members.  Otherwise, it
> just looks like a broader decline in ALA membership, probably for a few
> reasons: fewer librarians in the workforce, fewer institutions willing to
> pay professional membership fees, less willingness to pay those fees out of
> pocket, etc.
> >
> > Yours,
> > Kevin
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On 1/5/15 10:12 AM, Eric Lease Morgan wrote:
> >>>> I’m curious, how large is LITA (Library and Information Technology
> >>>> Association)? [0] How many members does it have?
> >>>
> >>> Apparently it has around 3000 members this year. I found this on the
> ALA
> >>> membership statistics page:
> >>>
> >>> http://www.ala.org/membership/membershipstats_files/divisionstats#lita
> >>
> >>
> >> Interesting and thank you. Code4Lib only needs fifty more subscribers
> to equal LITA’s size. I think this just goes to show, with the advent of
> the Internet, centralized authorities are not as necessary/useful as they
> once used to be. —ELM
> >>
>
> [log in to unmask]
> Debra Shapiro
> SLIS, the iSchool at UW-Madison
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