From Mary Markland, 2008 Midwest Chapter President
Library of the Health Sciences, University of North Dakota, Fargo, ND
I hope everyone got their License to Learn and License to Lead in Omaha! It was a great conference and I want to thank everyone who worked on the conference planning for making it such a success. The Midwest Chapter meeting is always the highlight of my fall. It helps me get energized for the long winter ahead.
2008 Officers:
President-Elect Deborah Lauseng, President Mary Markland,
and Immediate Past President Chris Shaffer
Besides seeing old friends and making new ones, I kept busy attending the sessions and helping with some of the work that makes this such a great chapter. Our executive board is top-notch and I am excited to carry on from Chris Shaffer. As you know, we changed our bylaws and this last year has been spent implementing some of the changes. We’ve established our committee charges and we are ready for the next task, an updated policy and procedure manual. It seems like we have a lot of verbal lore and miscellaneous notebooks that get handed down from committee chair to committee chair. We want to get that organized and up on the web so everyone knows their duties and when things need to get done. If you have been on a committee in the past and have some lurking documentation, I’m sure our Policies and Procedures Special Committee would be glad to see it. Please contact one of the committee members: Chris Shaffer, Sheryl Stevens, Eileen Stanley, or Rebecca Caton.
Our other big project from last year is our website redesign. The site went live the day before the meeting so you might not have seen it. It is a great improvement but remains a work in progress. Thanks to everyone who worked on its transfer to a new host and helped with the redesign. We are still interested in comments. Can you find what you are looking for? Are there things we left out? How do you feel about a blog? An RSS feed? Workspace to share documents and work on projects? We want the site to be not just a place to find out where the next conference is but to be a place to connect with each other. Please let us know your opinions. The Website Redesign Special Committee is still active and would love to hear from you.
I am excited about the coming year. I look forward to hearing from you throughout the year and possibly seeing you at the spring executive board meeting (March 7th in Minneapolis) or at the annual conference in Troy, Michigan. It sounds like they are planning a terrific program for us. Make sure and put October 18th - 21st, 2008 on your calendar!