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The
meeting was held on Saturday, February 3rd, at Lillian A. and Robert L.
Turchin Business Library in the Goldring/Woldenburg Hall on the Tulane
campus. The meeting lasted from 10:00 am until 12:30 pm, and 13 members
attended.
The meeting began with a fascinating and humorous presentation given by
Peter Ricchiuti, Assistant Dean of the A.B. Freeman School of Business
at Tulane. He described the innovative business school program that he
oversees, the Burkenroad Reports, which directly involves students in
providing analysis of the stock potential of small cap companies in
southern states. (Their web site can be found at http://www.burkenroad.org/)
. At the end of his presentation, Professor Ricchiuti emphasized how
crucial Bill Strickland and the Turchin Business Library have been to
the success of his program. The library has acquired numerous databases,
guides to industry reports, surveys, and directories which make the
Burkenroad students' research possible. Some of these core resources
were highlighted in the handout we received after the presentation,
"Selected Resources for Burkenroad Analysts."
After the presentation, Gerald Patout, current Chapter President, opened
the business meeting. The following topics were discussed:
SLA Mid-Winter Meeting
Gerald and John Anderson attended the SLA Mid-Winter Conference at
the end of January in Savannah, GA.
1.) Gerald commented that after having attended numerous meetings with
librarians from other SLA chapters, he came away with the impression
that our chapter is doing very well (Special mention was given to Donna
Braquet for her work on the LaSoMi website and newsletter.) He also
noted that other local chapters are facing the same kinds of challenges
that we are facing in LaSoMi.
2.) Gerald introduced the idea of developing a "Strategic
Plan." He said this was an idea that received much emphasis at
Mid-Winter. He gave a handout of a sample
Strategic Plan created by the San Andreas Chapter. He suggested that
our chapter work on developing our own strategic plan of how to move
forward over the next 3 years, and he volunteered to chair a committee
to organize this endeavor.
3.) Gerald also mentioned other ideas for public relations that
were circulating at the conference, such as E-Vites, BYOB meetings
(bring your own boss), and SLA Learning Express. Gerald suggested that
in the future the chapter should consider sending the incoming
chapter president to SLA Mid-Winter.
Other Matters:
1.) Gerald handed out a summary of the LaSoMi
financial account activity, prepared by our chapter Treasurer Jason
Weise, and a graph of our chapter's membership trend.
2.) Beth Paskoff reminded us that the Annual
conference of the Association of Independent Information Professionals (AIIP)
is being held in New Orleans, on April 19-20th. (See the January LaSoMi
newsletter for details.)
3.) Donna Braquet mentioned that the LaSoMi
discussion list may soon be limited to SLA members. This was a change
that came down from the national SLA.
4.) Gerald reminded us about coming to the upcoming
Spring LaSoMi meeting in Laurel, MS on May 19th.
After the business meeting, Bill Strickland gave everyone a tour of the
Turchin Business Library, which he oversees. The library is on the 3rd
floor of the Goldring/Woldenburg building, which houses the A.B. Freeman
School of Business. It's a beautiful library with up-to-date equipment
and furnishings, including plenty of user terminals providing access to
the electronic resources, and study carrels with outlets for laptops.
Please visit the Turchin Business Library website at http://freeman.tulane.edu/turchin
.
Bill's
tour prompted an interesting discussion of how special libraries deal
with the issues of space constraints and their users' growing need for
current information. We had a lively and interesting morning at Tulane!
Many thanks to Bill Strickland for hosting our winter chapter meeting
and to Peter Ricchiuti.
--Contributed
by Amy Baptist, LaSoMi Chapter Archivist
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