NCSLA President,
Eliza Robertson

Letter from the President,
April 2006

Hello, NCSLA members,

First, huge congratulations to Tamika McCollough on her election to the Board of Directors of SLA; she and Rebecca Vargha, the incoming SLA president, will represent our chapter interests well and enthusiastically in the next three years while developing the strength of the international organization. For his thoughtful and reasoned campaign, which included wonderful travel and networking all over the country, commendation to Dav Robertson on his run for presidency. He assures me his activity and interest in SLA will remain lively.

Second, recently I've found myself in the happy position of connecting with folks at the extremes of the history of SLA in North Carolina: our founding and early members, who are now retired, and students in the state's three fine information professional programs, who are looking to their own futures. It's a blast to be in the middle of these two exciting groups!

To spread word of the Fortieth Anniversary of the NCSLA chapter in 2006, I've been in contact with some of our founders and early members, to invite them to our Awards Banquet and share their memories with us. They are people who, early on, discerned that emerging technologies could contribute to innovative ways of adapting standard library practices to their specialized environments. We owe them a huge debt for their courage and tenacity in establishing the North Carolina chapter of Special Libraries Association.

On the other extreme, I've met graduate students at several functions recently, and am in awe of their composure, wit, and readiness to leap into their lives as information professionals. In spring students become particularly interested in seeing how specialized libraries work. You may have met some at the February Dine-Arounds. About 20 attended the mentor program reception at UNC's SILS in early April. Groups or individual students may have contacted you about touring your library, as I've been contacted. The National Humanities Center seems to attract a disproportionate interest; maybe it's our unusual but familiar-sounding setting (sounds like college, perhaps). [This reminds me to put in a plug - if you're interested in showing off your library to student groups, please let the schools know, or Mike Crumpton, chair of the Student Advisory Committee of NCSLA.]

Listen to the new vocabulary of the present-day information-professionals-in-training; their words reflect the new tools and methods that are being used to deliver the old familiar and additional services to clients. Our students have in the palms of their hands technologies and tools hardly conceived of when the chapter began.

I'm looking forward to the meeting of the inhabitants of these two worlds -- and those of us with bits of ourselves in both -- at the banquet April 27 in celebration of the fortieth anniversary of our chapter. See you then!

Eliza