Why Join CAL? Do you want to ride the rides or just watch?
by Jennifer Kutzik, IT Tech II, Colorado State University

In January of 2004 after attending ALA Midwinter meetings in San Diego, I motored north to Anaheim to reclaim my lost youth. It had been twenty-five years since my last trip to the self-proclaimed “happiest place on earth.” It didn’t take long to realize that my memories of gentle-floating, slow-moving rides were a thing of the past. Guests boarding the Indiana Jones jungle transports are jerked violently back and forth, tossed, jostled, and nearly smashed by gigantic boulders. Riding Splash Mountain, visitors ascend into a vista of endless blue sky then plummet 52 feet (5 stories) into a backwoods bayou pool. The Star Tours space orbiter movements and visual effects were so sensational that I felt the motion-sickness of a lifetime!

But no attraction summed up the changes at Disneyland better than Innovations, the reinvented Carousel of Progress. As a teenager visiting the New York World’s Fair in 1964, I marveled at the rotating scenes of an American family (all robotic) dramatizing how improvements have come to everyday living through the use of electrical appliances. Walking into the new Innovations, I saw more changes than just the name. Gone was the audience seating and in its place were open areas filled with computers, music synthesizers, virtual reality exhibits and even Segway™ Human Transporter (HT) vehicles. We were encouraged to make music, enter VR, and try our hand at piloting a Segway. We were touching, creating, interacting and participating, not just passively sitting in a seat and watching events unfold.

Just as Disneyland offers attractions that shake, jostle, and interact to increase visitors, CAL membership brings the opportunity for full participation. Organizations must be ever mindful of the truism that brought many of our ancestors to this country. As a pilgrim in America, I can choose to go elsewhere. What will convince me and my fellow library employees to join and stay members of CAL? For many support staff, it will be an active role in advancing the mission and goals of our professional organization. We will find energy in participation, and celebration in having a say in the future of our careers. We will make contributions not merely by joining, but by becoming actively involved. So, why would I encourage support staff to join CAL? You need to ride the rides to get the full experience.

• Adapted from "A Carousel of Progress: Revisiting Disneyland" by Jennifer S. Kutzik, published in Library Mosaics, Vol.15, no.3, May/June 2004 and ALA/APA Library Worklife: HR E-news for Today's Leaders. Vol.1, no.3, March 2004.