I'm a little late getting to Thing 7, but here goes! I've joined professional organizations and had mixed feelings about them. Sometimes you are part of a giant organization that needs a lot of money to run and you end up paying a fortune in membership fees never to realize any return on your investment. For me, that's how I feel about ALA. Maybe it's because I'm not part of a library system that encourages participation in organizations. Maybe it's because I'm so busy with work, I don't find the time to get out into the field and see what they are doing. But as a public librarian - ALA hasn't been that relevant. Now the local, state library associations I have joined have been very nice. First I was a member of AzLA (Arizona) and now CLA (California) - by being local, they end up being more relevant, their conferences are more attendable, and you know the people in the mix. I'm always very invigorated after a CLA conference.
I've attended the conferences of JCDL (Joint Conference on Digital Libraries) and ALISE (Association for Library and Information Science Education) for librarianship. In my historian days, I was a member of AHA (American Historical Association), OAH (Organization for American Historians), and the History Honor Society Phi Alpha Theta. I'm also a member of the Library Science Honor Society Beta Phi Mu.
So far, with all of this, it's still CLA that is the most relevant. And through CLA I've gotten involved in Infopeople (as a student) and received more practical training and information than another other organization.
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