The 1991 White House
Conference on Library and Information Services
(WHCLIS) was mandated by the Congress and called in 1988 by President
Ronald Reagan. Its purpose was to bring representatives to Washington
to formulate proposals for enhancing literacy, increasing productivity,
and strengthening democracy through the Nation's libraries and
information services.
The White House Conference process began at the local level with preconference forums held in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, seven U.S. Territories, the Native American community, and within the federal library community. More than 100,000 Americans participated in these meetings, writing more than 2,500 policy proposals which were then forwarded to state officials for action at that level and/or to the WHCLIS national office to be combined with recommendations from other states and territories.
States and territories selected a total of 984 delegates and alternates to represent them at the national Conference - the number determined by the size of the state's Congressional delegation. Delegates served within one of four broad categories: library and information professionals, friends or supporters of libraries, government officials, and the general public. Each category represented 25 percent of the delegation. At-large delegates (64) with voting privileges were selected by the Conference chairman.
Delegates were a true cross-section of the American people - from the young to the elderly, from those with advanced degrees to new adult readers - from all cultural and ethnic backgrounds.
Additional non-voting Conference participants included nearly 1,000 honorary delegates, international observers, and invited guests. More than 300 volunteers assisted the staff and delegates throughout Conference Week.
To help prepare delegates for their important role, WHCLIS staff prepared and compiled delegate preparation materials on Conference themes, issues, rules, and parliamentary procedures.
To make the work load manageable for delegates at the national Conference, those proposals produced at the state level which only addressed issues at that level or were duplicative of other state proposals were removed. The 1,100 remaining recommendations were merged into 10 topic areas and synthesized by a group of volunteer topic experts into 93 concise policy recommendations for on-site consideration and editing by the delegates. An issue briefing book with details on each of the recommendations was created for each delegate.
At the Conference,
delegates worked in 30 small discussion
groups, some working within the same topic area. Each group, led by a
volunteer facilitator, was charged with further refining
the recommendations into the final set for submission to a Conference
floor vote.
A Conference Recommendations Committee (CRC) of 29 people (Appendix F), two elected by each topic group and nine selected by the Conference chairman, was responsible for merging the variety of recommendations from each discussion group and preparing them for Conference vote.
Although the overall Conference plan called for the delegates to consolidate and polish the final pool of recommendations, in actuality delegates added to the number significantly. When the CRC met for the first time at the end of the second day of the Conference, a total of 765 recommendations had been created by delegates the preceding two days.
During two all-night sessions, the CRC reconsolidated all recommendation proposals down to 178. On Friday the delegates and the CRC further refined their work, debated the recommendations in their respective groups, and consolidated the number again to 126. At this point, to help the CRC with its final task, all delegates were asked to assign - via ballot - the "relative importance" of each proposal in priority order. The resulting Priority Recommendations are highlighted in this report and are also noted where they appear in the recommendations at Appendix C.
During a final session the evening of the third day, the CRC tallied delegates' preferences and prepared a final draft of 118 policy and program recommendations for a floor vote the following day. The 95 recommendations and petitions presented in this Report reflect that final vote.
