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The Society:
From Birth to Maturity
page
8
Introduction
SAA Membership
SAA Leadership (Council & Officers)
Research and Publication
Annual Meeting Analysis
Financial Profile
Presidential Perspective
SAA in a Comparative Context
End Notes
SAA
in a Comparative Context
(Click on
images to enlarge.)
In comparison with the national historical and library associations, SAA is
a relative newcomer. By the time of the Society's founding in 1936, the American
Library Association (ALA) was already sixty years old, the American Historical
Association (AHA) was nearly fifty, and the Organization of American Historians
(OAH, formerly the Mississippi Valley Historical Association) was nearly thirty
years old. Not only were our sister institutions founded earlier, but their
membership is considerably larger. In 1940, when SAA had 247 members, ALA's
membership was more than 15,000, AHA's was 2,642, and OAH's was 1,158. By 1965,
SAA's membership had more than tripled to 853, while ALA's had grown by 75 percent
to 27,000, AHA's membership grew to over 15,000, and OAH reported 7,637 members.
By 1990, each association had grown significantly (except for AHA which declined
slightly): ALA by nearly 90 percent, OAH by slightly more than 50 percent, and
SAA by nearly 350 percent to almost three thousand members. Although SAA's rate
of growth has been faster than its older sisters, all of the national library,
historical, and archival organizations' growth has been slight in the 1990s.26
Dues and membership
benefits are always an issue for non-profit professional associations. In 1990,
ALA dues were $75, with additional dues assessed for membership in any of its
major units, such as the Association of College and Research Libraries. The
only direct benefit of membership was a subscription to American Libraries,
a monthly magazine of news and brief articles. ALA publishes no scholarly journal.
AHA and OAH had graduated dues structures--from $25 to $85 for AHA and from
$30 to $90 for OAH--an honor system tied to salaries. For that, AHA members
received a scholarly journal five times a year and a bi-monthly newsletter;
OAH members received a quarterly scholarly journal and a quarterly, newspaper-style
newsletter. SAA also used a graduated dues structure, but with a narrower range--$45
to $75, for which members received a quarterly scholarly journal and a bi-monthly
newsletter--Archival Outlook.
SAA's significantly
smaller membership means a much smaller budget, endowment, headquarters staff,
and volunteers to accomplish as much or more than ALA and OAH. In 1990, ALA's
endowment stood at more than $5 million, AHA's at almost $1.4 million, OAH's
at more than $1 million, and SAA at $247,000. Even so, SAA consistently draws
to its annual meetings a larger proportion of its members than do these larger
organizations. In 1990, for instance, even though the Society met on the West
Coast (typically a low draw because approximately 75 percent of our members
live east of the Mississippi River), over 30 percent of our members attended.
Although ALA drew a greater percentage of attendees, this was largely due to
the fact that the meeting was held in Chicago--its headquarters city. The comparable
figures for AHA (meeting in New York) and OAH (meeting in Washington, D. C.)
were 26 percent and 22 percent, respectively.
Data on gender
in the historical organizations is difficult to obtain, but in ALA the percentage
of women in 1940 was 85 percent; fifty years later the figure had dropped to
under 70 percent. In 1990, ALA had a staff of 260 (including both its Chicago
and Washington, D. C. offices) and a $25 million budget. AHA had a staff of
twenty at their Washington, D. C. headquarters and a $1.2 million budget. OAH,
headquartered in Bloomington, Indiana, had a staff of nine and a budget of $900,000.
SAA had the same size staff and budget as OAH, but without the substantial subsidy
provided by Indiana University.
These are sobering
numbers, sobering because they illustrate how small the Society is in comparison
with some of our most powerful allied professions. While we try to do many
of
the same things those organizations do--provide annual meetings, publish a
journal and newsletter, develop professional standards, offer educational
programs,
seek additional funding, monitor and influence legislation, and educate the
public about archival issues--we do so with significantly fewer resources.
ALA
is more than ten times our size; AHA nearly four times, and OAH more than three
times as large. Even so, each organization needs a program, local arrangements,
awards committees, task forces, and other governance structures. Larger organizations,
of course, can spread responsibility for conducting these activities over
a
larger membership base. A smaller organization, such as SAA, does not have
the same range of expertise and influence to bring to bear on specific issues
in
a timely way or to run a national office in a major city. That is why last
year I advocated the need to build and maintain effective coalitions--because
in
many instances we are not sufficiently powerful to chart an independent course
successfully or to influence an outcome decisively. SAA certainly can do
a better
job for is members and the profession, but its success is also limited by the
size and influence of is members. When we become frustrated with SAA's slow
efforts at reform, we need to bear in mind the numbing bureaucracy of ALA
and
its glacial movement. When we become upset that SAA does not fully represent
the diversity of its membership in its elected leadership, we need to bear
in
mind the virtual lock that academic historians at research universities have
on both the AHA and OAH. When we become annoyed by the Society's inability
to
regularly publish a quarterly scholarly journal, we should remember that AHA
and OAH have a ready pool of thousands of scholars who are paid to publish
as
tenure track historians, and that ALA does not even publish a scholarly journal.
This should not make us complacent, but neither should it make us so hypercritical
that we fail to recognize the good work we have accomplished as a newer and
smaller national organization. My brief year as president has given me the
opportunity
both to participate and to observe, and through both I've experienced and seen
the talents of our members and the commitment of our staff. Others may be
bigger
or older, but none is better or more active. For that, you are responsible.
Thank you.
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