Letter from the President

June 6, 2008

By tradition, it's that time of the year to highlight activities from the past year. For the most part, I will provide feedback on my initial topics as discussed in the fall issue. In that issue I said:

1. That I wanted to increase membership by 15 percent. Last fall, when I assumed responsibilities as President, we counted 50 people on the membership roster. Today, InULA salutes its 75 members, but much works still needs to be done to reach non-members. At the InULA Business meeting in May, the Executive Board proposed to suspend paid membership to allow all librarians to become honorary members. I think this is an exciting concept, and will need to be further discussed in the coming years.
2. That I wanted to encourage more librarians to apply for Research Incentive Fund grants. This year, the Grants & Scholarship committee received many worthy applications. I would like to congratulate Angela Courtney, to support research gathering on the indigenous literatures of Australia and New Zealand Literary Research and the Literature of Australia and New Zealand ($2,000), Judith Garrison, to support her poster presentation on Helping the Library Count: Collecting Reference Statistics for Meaningful Use ($810), Steven Miller, for his research project The Dynamics of Legal Research in Academic Law Libraries: A New Era of Substance, Strategy, and Generational Divide ($1,065), Andrea Morrison, who is working to complete a manuscript directory International Government Internet Manual for Bernan Press ($600), and to Stephanie Schulte, to attend Assessing the Impact of Information Literacy Instruction in a Beginning Nursing Professional Seminar Course using Citation Analysis at the Medical Library Association in Chicago ($459).
3. That I also wanted to encourage more participation from prospective students interested to enroll in the School of Library and Information Science (SLIS). The Grants & Scholarship committee received a record number of 17 applications for the Julieanne V. Nilson Scholarship award. I would like to congratulate Angela Slaughter Dresselhaus, and Lindsay Beth Given each of whom will receive $1000 scholarships upon confirmation of enrollment in SLIS. You will find their award winning statements in this issue of InULA Notes.
4. That InULA consider hiring a student to gather data to create an historical InULA Financial Progress Report to help members better understand the financial future of InULA. The InULA Board took the liberty to contact past presidents and treasurers from the early 1990s and to request they resubmit financial reports in an electronic format. We now have 11 electronic financial reports available on InULA web from 1994 through 2007. We are missing one financial report from 2000-2001, but are optimistic that it will be digitized over the next several months. Dina Kellams was instrumental in digitizing reports not originally available in an electronic format, and Vincci Kwong was instrumental in posting all materials in a timely manner. I hope future InULA Boards will consider adding more content to InULA Archives on the web.
5. And last, that we should consider moving InULA's archival documents from the secure floor in the Herman B Wells Library (IUB) to the University Archives' newly renovated space within Wells Library. Dina Kellams led a discussion at the InULA Business meeting about the pros and cons of moving archival documents to University Archives, but further open forums with membership is needed before any final decisions are made.

In closing, I hope everyone received their Elections ballot in the mail, along with a minor change to the Constitution and Bylaws. I encourage you to return those ballots as soon as possible to Steven Miller at IUPUI. Also, be sure to check InULA web over the next few months for Annual reports, and I look forward to seeing you at Oliver Winery on Friday, June 20th. Be sure to RSVP to Julie Hardesty at jlhardes[at]indiana.edu.

Hats off to all of you for a job well done!

Monique Threatt, InULA President