DC/SLA Chapter Notes - May/June 1999

Chapter Notes May/June 1999

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Vol. 58, No. 9 May/June 1999

Contents Annual Report Summary: 1998-1999 Global 2000 Fundraising Update Results of the DC/SLA Annual Elections 1999/2000 TeleSec Scholarship Update Minutes of the March/April, 1999 SLA DC Board Meeting 1999 Scholarship Winners!

Annual Report Summary: 1998-1999 Washington DC Chapter, Special Libraries Association

By Daille Pettit, DC/SLA 1998-1999 President, dpettit@ahma.com The highlight of the chapter year was our fundraising on behalf of Global 2000, SLA's international conference to be held October, 2000, in Brighton, England. DC/SLA's goal is to raise $15,000 to send 5-7 librarians from developing countries to the conference. The chapter is two-thirds of the way to that goal! The first event, "Global Village Performing Arts Fest," was held in April 1998. The Global 2000 Kickoff event was held at the Freedom Forum in November of 1998. A raffle took place at the holiday party in December. On April 30, a Global 2000 Benefits Concert with the American Chamber Players featuring Miles Hoffman took place at the IFC Auditorium in Washington.

The International Projects Committee has been hard at work on these events in addition to other activities. The committee developed criteria to select worthy candidates. These criteria are being used association wide. An international listserv and mentoring program are also being developed. Your president presented a report about the chapter's Global 2000 activities at SLA's Winter Meeting in San Francisco.

Another new program introduced this year is the first student membership award to be put into place the fall of 1999. The goal of the award is to increase awareness of SLA and DC/SLA on campus and to encourage students to become active in professional societies. One of the awards will go to a Catholic Univ. MLS student, and the other to a Univ. of Maryland CLIS student. The award will consist of student dues to SLA for one year and free attendance at three DC/SLA chapter events. Winners will be selected on the basis of short essay, the topic of which will be selected by the DC/SLA board of directors.

Another major change made by the board of directors was to eliminate the student loan program and replace it with a scholarship program of a $1000 scholarship a year. In addition, TeleSec Corestaff also provides $2000 a year for a scholarship.

An ad hoc bylaws committee was formed and was disbanded at their request. They examined the chapter's bylaws and determined that no changes are needed at this time. A strategic planning committee met. The committee hopes to have a new strategic plan in place by next year.

Chapter programming, in addition to the Global 2000 events mentioned above, covered a number of different topics. A professional development workshop was on "managing your priorities," and was facilitated by Dr. Phyllis Farrish. The Foundation Center Library conducted a program, "Navigating the Funding Maze: The Smart Librarian's Guide to Foundation Center Resources."

Career Day took place at Catholic University and was organized around the topic of "Alternative Careers for Librarians," with keynote speaker Mary Dzurinko. The chapter was thrilled to have the

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Chapter Notes May/June 1999

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Superintendent of Documents, Fran Buckley, give us an overview on "GPO into the Next Millennium." We participated in the Joint Spring Workshop which was organized around the topic of "Managing Web Access in Libraries." Costs for these programs were minimal. All included beverages, meals, or snacks.

Social events included "NeighborhoodDinners.come," a series of hosted dinners around the metro area, the New Members' Reception at Union Station, the Holiday Party at the Arts Club of Washington, and the Annual Banquet and Business Meeting at Childe Harold Restaurant with speaker, Anthony Pitch, a well-known author and DC historic site tour guide.

The Hospitality Committee worked very hard to support these various activities. For the first time, names of events and attendees were entered into a database so that our chapter can track interest in different types of programming, times and locations, etc. which should help us in future planning.

Although none of our nominees received national awards, our local chapter awards were presented to Greta Ober-Beauchesne, Member of the Year Award, for her work as listserv manager, Mandy Baldridge, also Member of the Year, for her hard work as hospitality chair. The Board of Directors' Award was presented to Mary Feldman in recognition of her many years of service to the chapter.

Chapter Notes was published 10 times this year. You may have noticed the change in the format which has produced a more readable, fresher look. For the first time, abridged versions of the minutes of the board of directors/advisory committee meetings were included thanks to the efforts of the recording secretary.

Our Consultation Committee received 11 inquiries for consultation services, and eight consultations were successfully completed this board term. The three remaining consultations were not completed due to lack of interest on the part of the requestor. Response to the services provided by the Consultation Service continues to be positive. Inquiring organizations are typically impressed by the willingness of the information professional community to share its expertise.

The duties of the Employment Committee have changed. The current chair reports that the function has become entirely automated. The job notices she receives are all now electronic. Her major function has been to forward the distribution list and keep the list up-to-date.

The Government Relations Committee followed closely the many developments legislatively on the national level that affect special librarians and relayed that information to the chapter membership in a prompt manner.

The Internet Committee and the Listserv manager worked very hard to keep the site up-to-date, adding a very large section on the Global 2000 activities along with a graph of our fundraising results! For the first time, your president added a welcome message to the site. Listserv usage continues to rise and has become an integral part of chapter communications.

The Membership Committee continues to be active. Each new member is sent a "welcome" packet. The names of the new members are sent to Chapter Notes as well as to the board members so that the new members can receive a personal call of welcome. Deactivated members also receive letters from the membership committee.

The Public Relations Committee was diligent in supporting the activities of the chapter. Public Relations helped publicize a number of the chapter activities, particularly the Global 2000 fundraising efforts. The Public Relations chair also helped write the scholarship criteria mentioned below.

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Chapter Notes May/June 1999

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The Student Affiliations Committee has stayed in touch with the student groups at Catholic Univ. and the University of Maryland. Presidents of both these groups each attended a board of directors' meeting. The chair of the committee arranged for 20 students to participate in a "Spend a Day with a Special Librarian Program" at 12 different institutions. The committee also wrote the scholarship criteria for the new DC/SLA scholarship program and the TeleSec scholarship.

Thanks to all of you who helped in some way to help make the 1998-1999 chapter year a success.

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Global 2000 Fundraising Update Global 2000 Congratulations to everyone who came or supported the evening of Chamber Music with the Miles Hoffman American Chamber Players. Held at the IFC Auditorium, the music and ambiance were just what we needed to soothe the soul at the end of the week... really superb. Financially the event raises our total to over $10,200. In addition the San Diego Chapter has donated $500, and the San Andres Chapter has donated $2,000 and pledged $2,000 more. We are currently focusing on contacting the SLA Divisions and Chapters, and will include Washington area law firms and grants in our next efforts to raise funds. Please get in touch with me with offers of help or ideas (sjohnson3@worldbank.org).

The funds will be used to pay for Fellowships for librarians from developing countries to attend the SLA Global 2000 meeting in Brighton England.

I'd particularly like to thank Liz Farley, Sharon Lenius, Greta Ober, Daille Pettit, and Mandy Baldridge for their extra efforts to make the fund raiser a success. Many thanks to the following Sponsors and Patrons who supported the event.

PATRONS $25.00 SUPER SPONSORS $200 AND UP (monetary donations or in kind services) Iris Anderson BNA, Inc. Jane and Clive Armstrong Elizabeth Crayford Mandy Baldridge Disclosure Inc. Drs Marion and John Ball Dow Jones Indexes Inc. Ellie Briscoe Information Handling Services Mr and Mrs Fran Buckley San Andres Chapter, Special Libraries Assoc.

Elizabeth Cline San Diego Chapter, Special Libraries Assoc.

Erin Clougherty, two contributions World Bank Development Data Group Lynn Dilts-Hill, Tax Analysts World Bank/IMF Credit Union Liz Farley Kathy and Robert Fishburne Roberta Geier SPONSORS $100 Susan Hunchar Melinda Beard, Tax Analysts Anne-Marie Lasowski Center for Strategic and International Studies Sharon Lenius, four contributions Infosentials, Inc. Zeina Mansour Sue O'Neill Johnson Frances & Jerome Mark Michael Kolakowski Karen Mark and A.M. Tucker Lyle and Nancy Minter Paula Silvert-Moore and Maynard Moore Sylvia Piggott Daille and Tom Pettit, four contributions Kenlee Ray Donna Scheeder Barbara Robinson Michael Stumpf Monica and Mark Romiti World Bank/IMF Africa Club Donald Ross World Bank/IMF India Club Pamela Tripp-Melby Barbara Vandegrift Benita Weber Vassallo Return to contents

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Results of the DC/SLA Annual Elections 1999/2000 Congratulations to the newly elected officers of the Washington, DC Chapter of SLA: First Vice President/President-Elect: David Shumaker Second Vice President: Karen Mark Corresponding Secretary: Linda Smith Treasurer: Catherine Kitchell Director: Anne Caputo Return to contents

TeleSec Scholarship Update: A Report from Last Year's Winner

By Honora Nerz, nerz@unity.ncsu.edu Honora Nerz, formerly a mechanical engineer who changed careers to become a special librarian, was last year's Telesec Scholarship winner. She writes: I finished my MLS at Catholic in August 98, and I was offered a job at NC State in July. I moved down here in September. I initially didn't intend to move away from DC, but the job was so good, and I was so impressed with the NCSU libraries (they're #37 in the ARL ranking), that I just couldn't turn it down!

My official title is Textiles and Engineering Services Librarian. I work on a "remote" campus at NC State (it's a mile away from the main campus). It is an "advanced technology community for university, industry, and government partners." It is still in the planning and growth stages and its innovative design was one of the things that attracted me. When construction is finished, there will be several academic departments (including all of engineering), a major sci/tech research library, lots of corporate offices (such as Lucent Technologies, which just announced their coming yesterday), a magnet middle school for math and science, a conference and hotel facility, a golf course, shops, restaurants, and residential neighborhoods, and a monorail connecting us with the main campus! Corporations and academic departments will be clustered together into "neighborhoods" based on their fields. This way the people who develop new technologies (academics) and the people who apply and sell them (corporations) will be working together. It's very cool!

Currently, there are about 3,000 people out here. The College of Textiles was one of the first to move out. They built a beautiful library facility for Textiles, and that is where my office is located.

An engineering research center is also out here. These engineers have no library (the engineering collection is still on the main campus) and thus are in need of services.

Ok, here's what I really do:

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My job is to plan, develop, and deliver responsive and innovative information services that support scientific research for both the College of Textiles and for engineering faculty and graduate students on the Centennial Campus. I design and teach classes in research methods, perform research, build web and maintain web pages, work on collection development, market the library to the Centennial Campus community, and help plan the future of library services for this community.

It is a very exciting place to be! The other librarians at NC State are wonderful, and my boss, Suzanne Weiner, is particularly so. The atmosphere is collaborative, positive, and forward looking. I miss the DC area a lot, but having such a great place to come to every day sure makes the transition easier.

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Minutes of the March/April, 1999 SLA DC Board Meeting DC SLA Board met at the Center for Strategic and International Studies on March 23, 1999.

The President announced the AALL annual conference will be held July 17-22 in Washington DC and Donna Scheeder of the DC Chapter was elected as the new president-elect of SLA. The Director briefly reviewed his report on the DC/SLA Student Membership Award. The goal of this award is to increase awareness of SLA and DC/SLA on the campus and to encourage student participation in the Association.

After the May/June issue of Chapter Notes is published, Fred Heller will resign as editor.

Contact Laura Foy, Recording Secretary, for a complete copy of the minutes at labuy@msn.com Return to contents

Congratulations to our 1999 Scholarship Winners!

The two scholarship recipients are: 1) $2000 Telesec Scholarship goes to Amy Pass, MLS student at Catholic University.

2) $1000 DC/SLA Chapter Scholarship goes to Christina Prendiville, University of Maryland MLS student.

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