Holiday Party Photos

Enjoy photos from the 2008 joint SLA Southern California / LACASIS Holiday party featuring writer and environmental historian Jenny Price.

President's Letter, December 2008

Thanks

At the end of December I complete my year as President of the Southern California Chapter and I want to thank so many of the individuals who have supported the chapter and its initiatives during 2008.

First, I must thank Teresa Bailey who is the 2009 president of the Chapter. Teresa worked tirelessly to bring together a very rich year of programming. From the joint holiday dinner with LACASIS, to a program on SLA membership benefits at the Culinary Institute, to a screening of "The Hollywood Librarian" at LAPL, Teresa had a wonderfully diverse array of programs for the Southern California Chapter members this year. It is wonderful that the Chapter will have Teresa at its helm because she clearly sees challenges ahead and understands that the best way to meet these challenges is by engaging our membership.

In addition to Teresa, my thanks go out to the rest of the Executive Board:

• Bill Lee, who, in addition to his astute management of the Chapter’s finances as the Treasurer, also oversees the Chapter’s discussion list, and has used his CSI talents to uncover problems unknown to even SLA HQ
• Ann Coppin, our Member-At-Large, who has stayed on top on membership issues contacting new Chapter members, and contributing to our recent membership survey
• Susan Hendrickson, our Secretary, who is meticulous in her coverage of Board meetings and discussions, especially when we discuss and vote on issues via e-mail, which is always challenging to capture for the record
• David Midyette, who oversaw Publications and launched the chapter’s blog, and was the liaison with the San Jose State University School of Library & information Science
• Alan Shcroeder, the Chapter’s Past president, who oversaw the Chapter Practices, and will soon be managing the 2009 nominations and elections
  

The 2008 Executive Board met six times in 2008, but also had many more discussions and votes via e-mail, including a flurry of activity in the last few weeks of December.

My thanks also go to the Advisory Board for their work in 2008:

• Archives – Joyce Hardy, for continuing to maintain the Chapter’s archives and mine them for material that the Executive Board requires
• Awards – Ann Shea, for handling the Chapter’s awards and supporting the Chapter’s nominees for SLA awards
• Calendar – Larry Zamora, for keeping our web calendar of events up-to-date
• Ethics Ambassador & Nominations / Elections – Sue Brewsaugh, for being our representative to SLA’s Ethics initiative, and for overseeing this year’s elections
• Job Board – Amy Wegener, for keeping our job listings current
• Mentoring Committee – Maria Brahme, for moving forward with our Mentoring program and linking mentees with professionals
• Newsletter / Blog – Eric Bryan, for managing the Chapter’s newest communication device, its blog
• Scholarship – Peter Johnson, for not only overseeing the Karen Sternheim Memorial Scholarship competition, but for also clarifying the competition’s rules, and for being the main point of contact for the Chapter’s Centennial Stipends
• Scholarship Fundraiser – Brad Rogers, for hosting a successful fundraiser at the San Antonio Winery
• Web Administration – Stacy Barker, for keeping our web site up-to-date
  

Special thanks goes out to everyone who hosted a Chapter program, area lunch, or happy hour. Additionally, I want to thank Kathleen Smith for her work with the Chapter survey, which we hope will guide programming and provide some insight into filling Chapter leadership positions, and Josh Walters, who helped with our uneasy transition into the blogosphere and provided much-needed web support.

Thanks to you all, and hope to see you at a Chapter program in 2009!

From the Archives ... April 1934

With SLA celebrating its centennial in 2009, the Southern California Chapter will periodically feature historical material from its 70+ years worth of archives.

The Southern California Chapter of the Special Libraries Association at Fox Studios, April 21, 1934. In the front row Miss Anna Frey, President is standing on the left of actor Charles Farrell.

Chapter Stipends to Attend the Centennial Conference

The Southern California Chapter is offering two stipends to help chapter members attend SLA’s June 2009 centennial conference in Washington, D.C.

The first stipend, not to exceed $1,300, will be awarded to a student enrolled in an ALA accredited Master’s degree program in Library and Information Science.

The second stipend, not to exceed $1,500, will be awarded to a professional librarian working in a special library.

Application deadline is January 31, 2009.

See the stipend announcement for more information.

The SLA Centennial Video Contest

The SLA Information Professional of the Future

John Cotton Dana ... 1909… Bretton Woods…

The founders of SLA had a vision for how to fill the networking and educational needs of special librarians. With the forming of SLA in 1909, these fabled past leaders created an amazing professional association. For 100 years SLA has grown and transformed itself, and the association that started as one idea, by one person, now serves a global market of over 11,000 information professionals, librarians, and their partners.

In 2009 SLA celebrates its 100th birthday and as we look toward a second century of service, we are asking the questions:

• What will the next 100 years of connecting people and information look like?

• Can you peer into the future and see SLA's leaders of tomorrow?

• Do you have an inspired vision of how SLA's members will change in 25, 50, or even 100 years?

Celebrate SLA's Centennial with your video representation of SLA's information professional of the future

Contest Theme

The SLA Information Professional of Tomorrow

Timeline

• Contest entry period November 1 - December 15, 2008
• Finalists announced at Leadership Summit, Savannah, Georgia, January 14 - 17, 2009
• Judging of finalists by SLA members January 14 - February 7, 2009
• Winners announced February 15, 2009
• Winners presented and all entries displayed at Annual Conference June 14 - 17, 2009

Prizes

There are two categories of entries: Student and Professional

The winning entry in each category will be awarded:

• $1,500 cash
• Up to $1,500 to attend the Centennial conference in Washington, DC, June 14-17, 2009
• Up to $1,000 for Chapter programming
• Up to $1,000 for Division programming

Complete Rules and Submission Information:

http://wiki.sla.org/display/CCWIKI/Centennial+Video+Contest

Promotional Video on YouTube:

http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=yXR-e2tiDQs

Gloria Zamora's Southern California Travelogue

SLA President-Elect Gloria Zamora spoke at the Southern California Chapter's Karen Sternheim Memorial Scholarship Fundraiser on October 4th and continued her visit to the L.A. area on Monday, October 6th, with a tour of libraries and information centers along the San Diego Freeway corridor. The following series of photos are from Gloria's visit:

At Aerospace Corporation with, L-R, David Cappoli, Joyce Hardy, and Pat Green - Photo by Eric Hamburg of Aerospace Corp.

Speaking to students at UCLA.



With the UCLA SLA Student Chapter officers, L-R, Hlly Fisher, Sheila MacDowell, and Charlie Walmann.



With Cameron Trowbridge at the Getty Conservation Institute Information Center.



At the Getty Research Institute with Susan Allen and Cameron Trowbridge.



Wrapping up the day at the Second City Bistro in El Segundo.

Chapter Election Results

Please join me in congratulating the newly-elected SLA Southern California Chapter Executive Board members:

• President-Elect (overseeing Programming) - Belinda Beardt
• Director at Large - Ann Coppin (re-elected)
• Treasurer - Bill Lee (re-elected)
• Publications - Charlotte Wixx-Daniel

Their official terms of office will begin on January 1, 2009 and they will join Teresa Bailey as President, Susan Hendrickson as Secretary, and myself as Past-President overseeing Chapter Practices on next year's Executive Board.

I would like to thank Sue Brewsaugh and her Nominations / Election Committee, Alison Becker, Joan Dubis, and Elizabeth Sheehan, for their work in identifying candidates and conducting the election earlier than usual so that there can be a smooth transition between the officers.

And please consider chairing or being a member of an Advisory Committee in 2009. To ensure a successful chapter and overall association, we rely on your participation and involvement.

David Cappoli

Chapter Membership Survey

For all SLA Southern California Chapter members:

Please note that the survey is now closed and results will be released to the membership once they have been analyzed.

Please complete a brief (honestly!) chapter survey that we hope will help guide the chapter's future programming and leadership recruitment. Your input is vital in helping the Chapter's Executive and Advisory Boards meet the needs of members such as yourself.

The deadline for completing the survey is December 16, 2008. Once the results of the survey have been collated, they will be announced on the chapter discussion list and posted on the chapter's web site.

Please note that this survey is meant for Southern California Chapter members, and should only be completed once.

Click here for the survey.

Century City Lunch

All SLA-SCC members are invited to an exquisite lunch experience at the Pink Taco. Bring a friend who's not a member!

Place: Pink Taco at the Century City Mall
Where: Outdoor Patio
Date: Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Time: Noon
Hosts: Jay Springer, Fox Entertainment and Alan Schroeder, Stroock Stroock & Lavan LLP
Parking: Parking at the Century City Mall is free the first 2 hours

Please RSVP to Jay Springer at Jay.Springer@fox.com

Pink Taco
10250 Santa Monica Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90067
Phone: (424) 354-3412

CSI - SLA-SCC

Note: For all SLA Southern California members who subscribe to the chapter's discussion list, the following illustrates the tangled web of intrigue that regularly grips the maintenance of the list.

by your humble Discussion List Admin, Bill Lee

It was the week after the Memorial Day holidays, and I was checking up on things that were left open-ended over the holidays. One of those was a message David Cappoli had sent me from Maria Brahme, the Mentor person. He had gotten a bounce message, and I re-sent it on Friday before the holidays and didn't think too much about it. Now it was Tuesday, the holiday's over and I got the bounce.

So I logged in as Admin on the Discussion list server. It showed both David and I as legal subscribers, and the messages were successful, but not sent. So I looked at the ones that had been sent and saw Liz Sheehan's message about the Bowers Brunch had been sent to a different e-mail server. So I tested that and it worked.

So I e-mailed David, and e-mailed Jeff Leach, the SLA marketing person in charge of the discussion lists, and told him what I had found. A little later I got an email from Jeff saying their vendor had messed things up and he was going to e-mail others with news of the error (I had found).

I checked the website and it had the erroneous e-mail address, so I emailed Stacy the webmaster, to have it changed. Later David showed me messages from HQ sent to the upper-muckies saying there was a mess-up and everybody should change their e-mail addresses.

Little did I know what genie I had uncorked, just cause David's message had bounced. I hadn't thought how integral the advisory positions are to the smooth running of the chapter. I felt good after a day of e-mailing and it was good to be successful due to everybody's cooperation.