SEP/OCT 2009, v.37, no. 1
The SCALL Newsletter is published electronically five times per year (September/October, November/December, January/February, March/April, and May/June by the Southern California Association of Law Libraries, a chapter of the American Association of Law Libraries. PDF versions of the SCALL Newletter can be downloaded here: http://www.aallnet.org/chapter/scall/newsletter.htm
FROM THE PRESIDENT... Brian Raphael
I would first like to express how proud I am to be serving this year as your President. I have been involved in SCALL now for over 16 years and throughout this time, I have been impressed by the commitment, dedication, and innovative spirit of our members. I feel honored to be able to lead our organization this year as we continue our professional commitment to service, education, and advocacy, both at the local and national levels.
On behalf of the SCALL membership, I want to welcome our new members of the SCALL Executive Board: Hugh Treacy, Vice President/President Elect, and Mary Dryden. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank James Senter, Past President, and Stefanie Frame, both of whom recently completed their terms as board members. It was a real pleasure working with both James and Stefanie this past year, and I know our chapter benefited from their many contributions and dedicated service during their tenure on the board.
Hugh Treacy and I were fortunate this year to be able to attend the chapter leadership training program at the AALL annual meeting. It was very rewarding to have the opportunity to meet leaders from other chapters and share ideas with them. At the program, we learned that the AALL Executive Board has begun working on a new AALL strategic plan for the next three years. The special task force that has been set up to develop the plan will be seeking input from the membership, meaning that all of us will have the opportunity to help shape the future direction of our national organization. I encourage any of you who have views about what AALL’s priorities should be over the next few years to make your voices heard.
Also at the AALL annual meeting this year, I had the opportunity to attend the Pacific Chapters Joint Reception, sponsored by West and hosted by John Adkins and his team from SANDALL. Next year is SCALL’s turn to sponsor our Pacific Chapters Reception, so even though we have almost a year before next year’s annual meeting, it’s not too early to let me know if you have an interest in helping with the planning of this event.
“Happy Place” was the theme for this year’s SCALL table in the annual meeting exhibit hall. Our table was filled with lots of smiley face decorative and gift items and was very impressive. Special thanks goes to Carolina Rose, President of Legislative Research, Inc., who was instrumental in arranging for a table at this year’s exhibit hall and who conceived of our table theme. Thanks also goes to Wendy Nobunaga, Laura Cadra, and the other SCALL members who volunteered their time to help Carolina with the planning for and staffing of the table.
One of my priorities this year will be to help our members who have been particularly affected by the economic recession so that they can continue to play an activerole in our professional organization. To that end, I will be recommending to the SCALL Board that we increase the amount that typically gets allocated for grants so that more individuals have the opportunity to attend our local and national professional meetings during the year. At our June 2009 Business Meeting, our membershipdid approve two consecutive $10.00 increases in our SCALL membership dues, which will go into effect in 2010 and 2011. The purpose of these increases is to put SCALL in line with other urban chapters of our size and enable us to proceed with new initiatives for our organization. I am sensitive to the fact that the first dues increase will likely be taking place before the effects of our economic crisis have been completely reversed. In the spring, the SCALL Board voted to waive the annual 2009-2010 membership dues for any active member who is unemployed. Since this was just a one-time arrangement, one of my first initiatives as President this year will be to propose that we continue to offer fee reductions for unemployed individuals.
This year, we will also be examining the viability of subscribing to a membership database management system that would integrate our membership data management with other functions such as e-mail communication, event registration, and surveys. Earlier this year, SCALL Membership Committee Chair Pauline Aranas submitted a proposal in which she recommended that SCALL subscribe to such a management system. This proposal was distributed at the June 2009 SCALL Business Meeting. This year, the SCALL Board will examine Pauline’s proposal in detail and decide whether to adopt her recommendation.
Another important document distributed at the June Business Meeting was the report of the special committee to examine the future of our annual institute. Chaired by Past President Diana Jaque, this committee surveyed SCALL members as well as our institute exhibitors to assess their satisfaction level with the current format of our institute and to see whether alternative formats would be preferred. While our members are not unanimous in their views on this topic, the committee’s report does suggest that members are generally pleased with the current two day format of the institute but that at least some members would be willing to experiment with different formats and locations in the future. For the 2010 Institute, we have decided to return to Ventura Beach, where we had our Institute in 2008. We did look at hotels in and around the Los Angeles area as well as a number of San Diego hotels, but determined that both locations would result in significantly greater costs for both our association and our members. Given the current economic climate, we felt it was particularly important this year to do our best to choose a location that would be appealing to our members, yet at the same time, allow us to minimize costs as much as possible. We feel that returning to Ventura will accomplish both of these goals..
Additional projects and initiatives some of our committees will be working on and considering this year include the development of a mentor program that would match new librarians in SCALL with more experienced librarians, new types of educational programs for our members, such as brown-bag lunch sessions, and a redesigning of the SCALL website. While all of these projects are very exciting, they do require an investment of time from our members. If you have an interest in helping with any of these or other SCALL activities, please let me know. I am very appreciative of all of you who have already volunteered to serve on a SCALL committee this year, and I want to let everyone else know that it’s still not too late to volunteer. The more individuals who become actively involved in SCALL, the more we will be able to accomplish. I look forward to meeting and working with as many of you as possible this year as we continue to build on our past successes, enhance our services and programs, and meet the challenges that lie ahead.