PNLA Quarterly, Vol. 62 No.1 Fall 1997

Annual Reports of the Officers, 1996 - 97

President Karen Hatcher

It has been an interesting and challenging year as PNLA President. The most rewarding part of being PNLA President is the interaction with the WONDERFUL PNLA officers, representatives and PNLA members.

Officers. Your 1st VP has been hard at work with exhibits for the 1997 conference, attending OLA/WLA conference and planning for PNLA's future. Your 2nd VP has maintained the membership database AND worked with Interest Groups. Your treasurer has strived mightily to keep us solvent. Your secretary has keep us on an even keel with minutes, and our Past President worked diligently for a slate of new officers.

Representatives. The 2 provincial and 5 state representatives have kept a communication link open between PNLA and the states and provinces. Their advice at the two board meetings we have outside of conference has been invaluable.

PNLA Members. My visits have taken me to the Washington Library Association, Montana Library Association, and Library Association of Alberta conferences where I meet really great librarians all dealing with similar problems of funding, censorship, service, and technology.

The following are the major accomplishments made possible by the entire board.

Change of editorship for the PNLA Quarterly meant a shift to copy ready publishing for the PNLA Quarterly at less cost.
I tried to reach more members and non-members through the use of PNLA-L, through individual calls and letters thus encouraging more membership and better retention.
The PNLA web page, www.pnla.org, was developed to have continuous membership and conference information to members and non-members though the volunteer help of Gloria Ostrander, Boise State University.
A challenge from the Oregon Library Association to drop PNLA membership caused the Board to focus more strictly on PNLA's role in the Pacific Northwest with planning by the 1st VP for more strategic planning during his Presidency.
Free PNLA Conference Registration given out at each provincial and state association meeting.
Half price first year membership was passed by the Board to encourage more new members.
PNLA members can now register for member level registration at several state library association conferences and this is being considered by the other state and provincial library associations.
Site of 1999 PNLA Conference was set as Calgary, Alberta, Aug. 11-15, working on Asia Pacific Conference in Seattle area for 2000.

First Vice-President President-Elect Gordon Ray

Working with the PNLA Board over the past year has been very interesting and rewarding. Board meetings while infrequent are quite intense during which the board is involved in a detailed discussion of the many issues affecting the association. Those discussions have given me a good understanding of the challenges that PNLA is facing in the future.

The challenges facing the association in the short term are quite critical. The possibility of the withdrawal of the Oregon Library Association from PNLA makes a thorough review and refocusing of our activities an urgent priority. To this end, on behalf of President Hatcher, I attended the joint conference of the Oregon and Washington library associations and spoke to their annual meetings and received some positive support for the association and for the proposed review. The board will be making decisions about the process of the review during our Seattle conference.

I have also worked on the Seattle conference by organising the Trade Show. This has been a very time consuming and challenging experience made possible and enjoyable by the strong support of Cindy Cunningham and her conference team. We all owe them a great debt of gratitude. The low registration figures for the conference are a disappointment and are indicative of the problems that we face.

I have very much enjoyed working under the leadership of President Hatcher in addressing the needs of the association and express my appreciation to her for her leadership and counsel and to my fellow board members for their enthusiasm and collegiality. Thank you to the members of PNLA for affording me the privilege of working on their behalf with such a great team.

Secretary Marg Anderson

Minutes for the Board meetings have been completed with highlights in the Quarterly.

This year, for the first time nominations and the election were held prior to the annual conference. The transition to the new method of elections resulted in both positions being filled by acclamation.

Work on simplifying and updating the Manual continues.

My thanks to the members of the Board for their assistance while family matters prevented me from attending the March Board meeting. Special thanks to Karen Labuik for completing the minutes from that meeting.

Annual Reports from Interest Groups

Academic Interest Group

Janet Strong, Albertsons Library, Boise State University, Immediate Past Chair
The Academic Interest Group and the Library Instruction Interest Group met together in the Bell Harbor Dining room. There was some discussion of combining the two groups permanently but concensus was against it. Both groups re-certified for 1997/98.

After introducing ourselves, we discussed service to students regarding distance education and several folks shared what they are doing in their respective libraries. There was a brief discussion of the Western Governors University and its potential impact on libraries.

Another topic was what states are doing about providing statewide access for periodical indexes. We learned that Oregon has signed an agreement with Information Access to provide full text to four databases. The state is coordinating the effort but individual libraries are paying into the contract which will run for three years. There are 27 cooperating libraries at the outset but libraries will be added each year and the cost will go up each year.

We exchanged ideas for the 1998 conference. Linda Pitts at the University of Washington Library agreed to be the new chair.

Management Interest Group Meeting

Karen A. Hatcher
About seven people gathered in Seattle for a brief discussion on the fate of the Management Interest Group. There is no active chair of the group and no one volunteered to take over. Purposes of the Management Interest Group are sharing information informally, continuing education at a management level, opportunity to bring in top notch speakers, promote the use of PNLA listserv for management information, and mentoring.

Topics of interest discussed involved: how to manage without seeming to manage; team work in shifting situations; internet service to the public; advocacy of libraries. It was suggested that the Management Interest group could work on setting up a mentoring group for new managers in the PNLA region.

ALA is being contacted about bringing the "Advocacy Now" workshop to the 1998 PNLA conference in Sun Valley.