You've seen the indignant headline: "Top library job goes to nonlibrarian." It can be hard to swallow and does little to boost the profession's self-esteem. Yet when it comes to inviting keynote speakers, a different logic seems to apply, at least as far as the American Library Association (ALA) is concerned. In recent years, a number of high-profile individuals have been invited to be Opening General Session speakers at ALA's annual conference. I'm not suggesting that ALA is the only professional organization to tap "big name" speakers to fill such slots―many groups like to bathe in reflected glory―but there is something strangely inconsistent about this practice, given how the profession typically reacts to the appointing of outsiders to high-visibility positions.
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