President's Message

As my term comes to a close, I looked back at our goals for the chapter for my 18 months as president. I’m proud to say that we’ve accomplished these goals, and I hope that you’ve participated in the programming that has gone on across the chapter, whether virtually at your desktop, or live in your city. We focused on meeting your needs in two areas over this term:

• Providing more professional development
• Demonstrating the value of SLA membership

Professional Development

In the fall of 2005, we began offering free desktop access to virtual programs for our members, as well as free registration for live events that use the SLA virtual programs. This was possible thanks to the generosity of our vendor partners, particularly Micromedia ProQuest, our program sponsor for 2006. The other key players were our Virtual Programs Chair, Suzanne Nykoluk, and our Fund Development Chair 2005-2006, Deborah Copeman. For 2006-2007, Daphne Bruce has capably taken on Deborah’s role, and Suzanne will continue to coordinate virtual program access for our members. This began as a “pilot” and the board is pleased to be able to continue offering free virtual programs to Western Canada Chapter members.

In the cities where we have the most members, we’ve been able to offer many live programs to increase your knowledge and skills. A few topics we’ve covered include:

• Calgary: Making the business case, entrepreneurial librarianship, competitive intelligence
• Vancouver: Making the business case, records management, better background research

The highlight of the term was the recent joint conference with the SLA Pacific Northwest and Oregon chapters on content management. I hope that many of you were able to attend the conference and learn about the opportunities and skills in this field. We had great attendance, and enjoyed quality speakers from all over our region, including our featured speakers Bob Boiko and SLA President Rebecca Vargha. The conference was a great accomplishment for the chapters, and continued a long tradition of pooling our resources to benefit our members.

We can’t forget the value of partnering to increasing our professional development opportunities. In every region of our chapter, we work with other associations to make our programs happen and increase attendance. In this term, our partners and promoters included: Association of Records Managers and Administrators, CASLIS, Government Libraries Association of BC, Content Management Professionals (CMPros), Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals, and provincial library associations.

Demonstrating the Value of SLA Membership

For most SLA members, the key values of membership are professional development and networking opportunities. In our chapter, we chose to decrease the cost of our programs to members, as well as increasing their availability by providing regular virtual programming, so that programs can be more accessible to everyone.

We provided networking opportunities at social events throughout the year. We also hosted the Canadian Reception at SLA 2006, a chance to network with SLA members across the country. Finally, the conference in October gave members and non-members a chance to discuss their common interests in content management.

In October we officially made the SLA WCC discussion list “members only.” This change took effect after the conference, on October 9. We’ve chosen to allow existing non-members to stay on the list, and I hope that we’ll see those interested parties join our chapter in the future. Although we won’t be accepting new non-members, we will continue to publicize our events widely, and offer non-member rates to our programs so that anyone can attend. The benefit of this discussion list change to members will be decreased spam on the list, and the knowledge that your membership dollars are offering you tangible benefits that aren’t available to non-members, like the weekly employment postings.

No matter what services SLA and the Western Canada Chapter board find to offer you, and how we grow in the future, the best way to benefit from your SLA membership is to get involved. I hope that when you see a great speaker, or think of a new skill you’d like to learn, you tell your local program director or another member of the board. I know that incoming SLA WCC President Robyn McDowell will be happy to hear your view on the next steps for our chapter, and how you'd like to be involved.

Most of all, you benefit from SLA when you take the opportunity to participate by volunteering on the chapter board or a committee. There isn’t a better way to develop leadership skills than within the safety of a professional association. It gives you the chance to take risks and to expand your skills. We all struggle with balancing work, family and social commitments, but we need to find time to become involved in our communities. The benefits are always worth the extra effort.

Christina Zeller
President, SLA Western Canada Chapter