I think one way of preventing frustration on the part of speakers is to make it clear to speakers that they will have to pay registration before they apply to speak. I looked all over for that information and didn’t find it anywhere on the CLA website or the site where people are supposed to have submitted proposals. Other associations (Arizona Library Assoc. comes to mind) make these things very clear, and thus, you know what you’re getting into when you choose to submit a proposal.

The California Library Association, like all membership associations, is run by its members for the benefit of the members, and in our case because we are a non-profit, also for the benefit of greater library community in California. If it were possible for CLA to offer free one day or full registration to our presenters, we certainly would. However, out of our 1200-1500 attendees each year, 300+ of them present at one of our 90 breakout sessions. These presenters constitute approximately 25% of our attendee costs. Our member/leaders have chosen to deeply discount conference registration for students, support staff, retirees and members who are unemployed. Registration fees barely cover the out of pocket costs of the keynote and invited speakers, convention center rental, the water coolers in the convention center hallways, printing, internet access, etc. We keep our registration rates low by asking our exhibitors and sponsors to help support the association, and they do, which is how our conference generates revenue for some of our other programs and member services.

Being chosen to speak at CLA means someone has undergone a rigorous peer review process by 12-15 library staff from a variety of library settings. We accept not quite 40% of the proposals we receive each year.

Meredith, we hope your friend decides to present at this year’s conference. The exposure, the networking, and learning opportunities will be well worth his attendance.

I wonder if it is worth inquiring to your friend if the conference he got invited to speak at, has a speaker budget?

From what I know of my own state association, all the roundtables, and sections have a small budget set aside for speakers. They would have a small budget to provide for the speaker’s travel expenses, but everything else is outside of the speaker’s own pocket.

If your friend wants to be a speaker, then he would have to probably only be at that one event and then leave. No over night stay needed. That’s the strategy I also noted when my professor and former classmate was invited to speak at the conference.

* If it’s a gig in Nebraska I do it for free and I’ve never been asked to pay for getting in and/r MPOW covers all costs. Hey, that’s my job. It’s what I signed up for.

* If it’s out of state and I submitted a proposal then I expect that I, or MPOW, will need to cover travel expenses. Unless the boss insists I won’t do it if they’re going to charge me or MPOW to just get into the conference. I don’t believe that speakers should ever be charged to present.

* If the conference organizers contacted me and requested that I come to speak (outside of NE) then I have my usual rate that I quote them which involves a fee for speaking and ALL travel expenses. (I even prefer that they book the flight and hotel so as to minimize the reimbursement amount.)

There are however exceptions. The first week of June I’ll be speaking at the ACURIL conference in Jamaica. They asked me but were clear that they could not pay expenses but that I would be comped the registration fee. What, I was going to say no to that trip?

I don’t exactly consider myself one of the “great library speakers” (there I going being a modest librarian) but I do accept that I’ve earned the right to not only get in for free but in other cases be directly compensated for my efforts. I have turned down invitations in which I had to pay just to get in (in fact, I think I was one of the first bibliobloggers to complain about LITA and this exact topic several years ago) but luckily that doesn’t happen too often.

As for the mailing list for writers, it still technically exists but no one ever really used it. If someone starts a wiki for conferences count me in. I’ll just admit I’m too busy to start it myself at this time.

Why are we as a profession so afraid to ask these vendors to support us every once in a while (god knows we spend enough money supporting THEM)?? And why is it that more often than not our solutions to helping one librarian is to kick another? I understand that that most of the library associations are not for profit – so make use of those associated with us who are. You’d be surprised what might happen if you just ask. I’ve been to lots of small conferences that were supported by a number of big name library vendors which payed for the food/refreshments and other conference-related things which helped to keep the registration costs down for all attending. I don’t understand why this can’t be part of the solution to covering fees (maybe even some travel costs!) for speakers.

I would like to highlight one point in this conversation that haven’t gotten enough attention. Meredith suggested offering free registration ***for the day***, not necessarily for the whole conference. That makes a difference when you’re talking about other people covering registration fees of speakers.