ACRL New England Chapter News Online

ISSN 1527-0106

Spring 2007, Number 111

In This Issue (Home):

President's Letter

Chapter Professional Development Scholarships Available

Board Election Results

Happy Centennial!!

ACRL Legislative Network Report

Student Conference Summary

Board Minutes, June 18th Retreat
Calendar Listings

President's Letter

Judith S. Pinnolis
Brandeis University

June 8, 2007

Recently someone asked me, “What’s the best thing in your life?” Those taking stock of life can usually find so many things to be thankful for: our families, our health, our community. We can also ask ourselves the question: “What’s the best thing in our work life?” As librarians, we are looking for more than a paycheck: job satisfaction, interesting challenges, and good colleagues. We believe in the value of the work we are doing for our institutions and for our society.

ACRL New England is an organization that epitomizes our values and provides encouragement to those that participate with us. We find common concerns. At ACRL NEC meetings, we can exchange ideas, find new solutions, and learn from helpful colleagues. Librarians can rely on our conferences, workshops and local training opportunities for their professional development, and for keeping up with the changing nature of our work.

For me, one of the great values I’ve experienced through ACRL New England has been meeting librarians and other library staff who are dedicated to their profession, and who are willing to voluntarily join together to accomplish even more. I’ve had just such an experience with the incredible group that helped plan our recent conference “Space: The Final Frontier” held on June 1, at my home university of Brandeis. We had some fine speakers with new information and ideas, good food, time to talk to vendors, go on tours, and especially meet and discuss with each other.

All of this was possible because many fine people came together and made the details happen. I’d like to say, on behalf of ACRL New England and myself, a very loud THANK YOU to members of the ACRL Program Planning Committee, and also the many librarians and staff at Brandeis who volunteered and formed our “local arrangements group” that aided in the logistics. Members of our committee included Cynthia Churchwell, Kendall Hobbs, Suzanne Wones, Susan Raidy Klein, Naka Ishii, Bob Schieier, Nancy George, Matt Sylvain, Stephanie St. Laurence, Colleen Anderson, Jody Walker, Janet Spiller, Sandy Hurd, Shin Freedman, Beatrice Pulliam and Diane d’Almeida. At Brandeis, we had help from Darwin Scott, Lisa Wiecki, Jason Bernard, Joanne Adamowicz, Kathy Button, Amira Aaron, Kathy Cannon, Jenny Hart, Anne Woodrum, Ralph Szymczak, Karla Fribley, Sarah Walkowiak, Tim O’Neil, and Amy Kolosseus. In addition, I’d like to thank students at Brandeis who helped stuff conference packets, including Vicky Bell, Phuong Ho, and Ari Fertig. A special thank you to Brandeis’ Chief University Librarian, Sue Wawrzaszek, for supporting our efforts to hold the conference at Brandeis, and for sponsoring our conference breakfast.

Soon our ACRL NEC Board will be considering and planning for next year. We will be examining how our organization can improve in several areas: attracting more librarians and library staff from around the region to become involved; how best to meet the training and educational development needs of our members in our technologically driven environment; and collaborating with other library organizations and discovering new paths we can explore to address issues that face libraries.

If you have ideas that you feel should be a priority for ACRL New England, please bring this to my attention. I welcome your involvement, your advice, and your creative thinking.