Pacific Northwest Library Association

PNLA Quarterly, Vol. 63 No.2 Winter 1999

President's Message

By the time you read this the holiday season will be past, and we will be well on our way into the last year of this century (and millennium!). I hope all of you had a happy and fulfilling holiday with those you are close to and that the brightness of the holiday sights served, albeit temporarily, to alleviate the gloom that affects the region at this time of year. The shortest day of the year is now behind us and we can look forward to brighter days ahead.

In keeping with the spirit of optimism that the season provides, I am happy to report that your organization is in good shape and is poised to go forward in new directions for the coming year and millennium. This president's column will be somewhat longer than usual as I want to share with you the proceedings of the Fall board meeting and give you a run-down on where we stand in the implementation of the new action plan which was adopted by the membership at the annual meeting in Sun Valley this past Aug.

First, I'm happy to report that the conference was a big success, both financially and critically. We were able to substantially turn around the financial loss of last year's conference and restore our treasury to a semblance of health. But just as important as this fact is, the critical comments we received after the conference were very heartening. Not only did people enjoy the beauties of Sun Valley, they felt that the conference provided a number of truly excellent sessions and a great opportunity to share experiences with colleagues from the entire region. The Board adopted a budget for the coming year which will allow us to operate successfully. We have added a new category, Intellectual Freedom, to the budget this year as a result of the Auction for Intellectual Freedom, from which we obtained over $1,200. We decided to continue doing an intellectual freedom fundraiser at the annual conference in order to maintain this fund.

We approved the plans submitted to the board for next year's conference in Calgary. Karen Labuik and her committee have been hard at work planning a stimulating program for you. This year's theme is Common Ground; the conference will focus on library and information issues that Americans and Canadians share, such as literacy, intellectual freedom, advocacy children's' services and technology. The conference will be Aug. 11-13. We hope you all will come. Remember, the exchange rate greatly favors U.S. members attending!

The implementation of the Action Plan is a process that is going to be going on for a couple of years. We have made a significant beginning, but I would ask your patience as we work through all the changes that have been outlined in the plan. At the board meeting in November, we spent the major part of a day working on and discussing the communications plan. That plan provides five objectives.

  1. Solicit input from members about PNLA directions and programs.
  2. Increase membership by the year 2000.
  3. Increase attendance at stand-alone (not joint) conferences to 300 by 2001.
  4. Increase active participation by interest groups and committees by the 2000 conference.
  5. Achieve greater awareness of PNLA in the library/information community.
The board discussed the target audience for each of these areas and the means at our disposal to carry out this program. We talked about the wide variety of means, both electronic and written, that we can and will use to get the word out. And we talked about the organization of the board. Changes have been made in that the editor of the PNLA Quarterly will no longer be attending the Fall and Spring board meetings. The position of 2nd vice-president will be terminated upon the completion of Christine Sheppard's term in 2000 and the responsibilities reassigned. It was felt that a smaller board would be just as effective, more efficient and cost the organization less money. While no decision will be made until the Spring board meeting, we began to talk about our role in assisting regional communication between state, provincial and national organizations. We discussed the importance of the Webmaster in this process and decided to make that person a member of the publications committee. We hope to return to producing a checklist of Northwest publications. We would like to publish a web site newsletter to facilitate communication among members, between regional organizations and with others in the profession. We should also be serving as a regional resource for those looking for conferences, workshops, etc.

One of our most important functions is the annual conference. While we intend to continue the pattern of both stand-alone and joint conferences, we decided that whereas stand-alone conference would focus exclusively on regional issues, the alternate year joint conferences would see PNLA coordinating with the state or provincial organization to provide sessions that support the state or provinces own sessions. It was also decided that PNLA would change the date of its annual conference to that of the state or provincial organization.

In the field of continuing education, the board felt that this subject was best pursued initially with the University of Washington School of Library and Information Science, since the current president is at the U.W. To that end, a meeting has been held with the new director of the school, Dr. Michael Eisenberg, and Susan Turner, the director of the Library and Information Science section of the U.W. Extension Office. It is hoped that they will be at the Calgary conference to promote programs now under development in this field. While it may be possible in the future to offer one day workshops in conjunction with the annual conference, it is also hoped that more extensive distance learning courses will be offered, perhaps delivered directly to a person's desk top computer. While the type of credit to be offered hasn't been decided yet, it would be graduate -level.

The Young Reader's Choice Award was discussed too. Since this is one of the most prominent programs of the organization and one of the most successful, there is not much change anticipated here. The award will have its own manual, the ownership of the award will be clarified, and promotional materials for not only our own conferences but also for the state/provincial conferences will be developed using a model proposed by Oregon.

The final two awards that are called for in the action plan will be discussed at more length at the Spring Board meeting. The board feels that there is a definite need and desire for an adult award for both fiction and non-fiction. The details will be worked out as we proceed with our discussions in March. Within two years we also will establish an intellectual freedom award for which we will have to develop guidelines, criteria and funding.

In other actions, the board voted to support funding a new edition of Library Statistics of Colleges and Universities in the Pacific Northwest, a publication not seen since the 1990-1991 edition. It also decided to pursue the conference theme of the Pacific digital library for the 2001 conference which will be held in Oregon.

From the above, you can see that considerable progress has been made in implementing the action plan. However, much still remains to be done. The board will continue the implementation process at the next board meeting in March. We solicit input from all members and non-members as we seek to make PNLA a truly great regional library association for the next millennium!

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