"Borrowing" Language from Another Library Association's Strategic Plan for a "Big Audacious Goal" Statement ...

... but intending to execute any tactics based on that?

I doubt I was the only law library AALL member who thought that AALL's Strategic Plan for 2013 - 2016 (or 2015? or 2017?) sounded familiar for its stated long-term goal. The Strategic Plan's "Big (Hairy) Audacious Goal" statement is a pastiche from ALA's Strategic Plan, 2011-2015 except for the "(Hairy)" thing.

Hey, no problem. Those of us who have been in the legal practice business for sometime, know there is no point in reiventing the wheel. We all grab content for briefs, memos and opinion letters because the sig line only represents that the authors certify statements made are "good law" arguments, not that the content is original.

In the case of AALL's current Strategic Statement, however, one has to wonder if our association intends to back-up borrowed words from ALA with certified actions like ALA has executed since that library association adopted its big audacious goal in 2010. For just one example, take a look at what ALA has been doing to advocate for eBooks for their member institutions and user populations recently. Similar but independent actions by AALL-represented institution buyers would be deemed as "going rogue" unless AALL actually intends to match words with deeds in 2013 for all to see. 

At the moment it sounds like AALL's Vendor Liaison intends to "advocate for transparent and library-friendly policies and pricing structures for e-books" with "our current vendor partners."

• Flying solo?
• Behind closed doors?
• Only our association's so-called "vendor partners" based on their business plans per the Guide to Fair Business Practices for Legal Publishers (2012 ed.) ("The AALL Guide does not explicitly cover publishers' internal operations, understanding that the publisher is in the best position to fully implement the guidelines in a manner suitable to its business plan.")?
• What about private, public and academic library institutional buyers and their business plans?

[JH]