Letter from the President,
July 2003
Welcome to our first electronic-only edition of NC/SLA. Your trusty editor, Rebecca Vargha, has been looking forward to this transition for many months. The move to an electronic-only newsletter is a financially responsible and technologically savvy move ... only fitting for an association of information professionals, right?
In early June, I thought there was a chance I'd be writing my first column as president of the NC chapter of Information Professionals International. But the vote at the annual conference didn't quite get the 2/3 majority needed to make the change. The Association is now committed to improving and marketing the name Special Libraries Association.
On a more local level, our chapter of SLA is doing well. We currently have 247 members. Although that's a decrease from our all-time high in the mid-90's of over 300 members, it seems to be in line with the Association as a whole and the economic times we find ourselves in.
With three accredited library schools in the state, it's not surprising that about 20% of our members are students. That's good news for the future!
We have committed volunteers leading the chapter's programming efforts. Erin Knight, your president-elect, is planning must-attend meetings for September, December and April, as well as our traditional neighborhood networking events in February. And Connie Childers is seeking hosts for various professional development activities, including “group viewings” of SLA's Virtual Seminars. We hope you'll be able to attend at least one of these programs this year – and bring a colleague.
All chapter and group meetings will be announced on the chapter's discussion list. If you're not already on the list, please subscribe by sending a message with subscribe SLA-CNC firstname lastname in the message body to lists@lists.sla.org.
If you know of members who are not connected to the Internet or can't get the NC/SLA Bulletin online, please have them call Rebecca at 919-962-8361 to be put on a mailing list for a printed copy. By the way, Rebecca is looking for feedback, as well as volunteers who may want to help improve the design in future issues.
One last note … if you haven't already read about the librarian ‘action figure' that's pictured on this page, check out the article, “Toymaker finds librarian who's a real doll,” which appeared in The Seattle Times on July 15. (http://tinyurl.com/gjw7). The doll goes on sale in September. I can't wait to get one!
Sperry Krueger
President, NC/SLA
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