Cindy Levine, Editor
Spring greetings, all Reference Services Section members!
If you’ll be in New Orleans for the ALA Annual Conference, please make sure that these RSS events are on your schedule:
- Friday, June 24, 8:00 am – 12:00 pm, preconference (registration required): Effective Library Service to Older Adults Seeking Employment and Volunteer Opportunities. Morial Convention Center, Room 275
- Friday, June 24, 9:00 am – 5:00 pm, preconference (registration required): Strange Bedfellows: IT and Reference Collaborations to Enhance User Experiences.Morial Convention Center, Room 354
- Saturday, June 25, 8:00 – 10:00 am, RSS Open House and All Committee Meeting. New Orleans Marriott , Balconies L-N
- Saturday, June 25, 1:30 – 3:30 pm: The RUSA President’s Program: Marketing Reference on a Dime. Morial Convention Center, Rooms 383-385
- Sunday, June 26, 1:30 – 3:30 pm: Reference Research Forum. Morial Convention Center, Room 277
- Sunday, June 26, 4:00 – 5:30 pm: Using Today’s Numbers to Plan Tomorrow’s Services: Effective User Services Assessment. Morial Convention Center, Room 334
- Monday, June 27 from 8:00 – 10:00 am: Behind the Text: Pulling Back the Curtain on Virtual Reference (RSS/MARS). Morial Convention Center, Room 285
The RUSA election results are in and have been posted on the RUSA Blog. In RSS, we will be looking forward to welcoming to the RSS Executive Committee Sarah Hammill, RSS Vice Chair/Chair Elect (2011-2012) and Emilie Smart, RSS Member-at-Large (2011-2014). The revision of the RSS Bylaws that appeared on the ballot was also approved. Until we get them posted on the RSS ebsite, you can find the 2011 amended bylaws on ALA Connect. If you’re interested in being a candidate for a future RSS election, or have someone to recommend, Judy Solberg (solbergj@seattleu.edu) is the incoming chair of the RSS Nominations committe, and II’m sure would welcome your ideas! Many thanks go to everyone who ran for RSS office in the 2011 election.
In the months since Midwinter, the RSS Executive Committee has approved a thorough revision of our RSS Handbook. Thanks go especially to Barb Mann, RSS Organization and Planning Committee, and Liane Taylor for their work revising the Handbook.
To address the need to better archive our section’s documentation and its history, Cindy Levine and Liane Taylor have created a “Plan for Information Gathering, Maintenance, Organization, Access & Preservation”that has been subsequently approved by RSS Executive Committee. Cindy has also volunteered for the newly created role of RSS Archivist.
Even though we haven’t finished yet with the Annual Conference 2011 in New Orleans, two programs have been approved by RSS Executive Committee for next year’s Annual Conference 2012 in Anaheim. These proposals were submitted by the RSS/MARS Virtual Reference Services Committee and the RSS Library Services to an Aging Population Committee and will go on to the RUSA Conference Program Coordinating Committee for formal approval by the division. The next in the popular and long running Reference Research Forum series is also planned for 2012.
Furthering our longstanding partnership with MARS, we are in the early stages of planning a new series of Midwinter Workshops, with the first projected to take place in Seattle during Midwinter 2013. We anticipate that our RSS Education and Professional Development for Reference committee will be working with its companion MARS committee on this initiative, as well as working on developing new online training opportunities to be made available throughout the year. As this will be my last message as chair of RSS, I want to thank all of those members who have helped to make this a very productive year for the section. It’s been a pleasure to work with each of you and I hope that our paths will cross again. In the next issue you can expect to see Liane Taylor writing in this place as the RSS Chair for 2011-2012.
Joe Thompson, 2010–2011 Chair
jthompson@washcolibrary.org