President's Message

SLA Maryland Chapter President Tracy Landfried

Hi,

I have held many jobs on the Chapter’s Executive and Advisory Boards in the last ten years plus. I have enjoyed and learned from each job. I still enjoy coming to meetings, seeing colleagues, networking, and learning.

I am a Reference Librarian at the US Army Research Laboratory. I have worked in many types of Army libraries -- and consider them all special libraries -- whether they were Post (General) libraries, academic, or research libraries. My patrons have been soldiers, family members, retired military, and scientists – they, too, are a special clientele. So my SLA membership has served me well.

I encourage every member to participate in the Chapter. Come to programs and events or tell us what programs you would like to see in the future. We are reviving the Chapter Blog, originally created for the Baltimore Conference in 2006, to keep in touch with you, our members. Post or comment to the blog.

Volunteer and give back to your profession. All chapter positions are volunteer positions. We have big jobs (Program Chair/President-elect) and smaller jobs (help at the registration desk or meet and greet at a Chapter event) that need people willing to help. Contact me to volunteer or to find out what type of help is needed to make the Chapter work for you. If you cannot make a large commitment of time -- plan to make a small one. It will work for you in many ways. My contact information is in the Members Only section of the SLA website.

My thanks to the Blog Team, ably led by Ashley Conaway, for the work that is going into the new blog.  The blog will replace the Chapter newsletter, The Cutting Edge.

Thanks also to our Board of Directors.  I hope you will meet them, the elected Executive Board and the appointed Advisory Board (Committee Chairs), at a Chapter event this year.  You will also meet them here in coming weeks and months. Special thanks to Chris Olson, Program Chair and President-elect, who has already given us three amazing and diverse programs this year. Stargazing at the Maryland Science Center; an evening program on the Preservation efforts of the National Agricultural Library (I hope you have responded to SLA’s call to write or email your elected representative about the budget cuts NAL faces this year); and an evening in Frederick that began with “What Librarians should know about Genealogy” and progressed to dinner and wine-tasting.

What is coming up?
On October 16, SLA President Stephen Abram will visit the Maryland Chapter and speak at the Kossiakoff Center on the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory campus in Laurel, MD.  He will also meet and speak with students at the UM iSchool in College Park.

Mark your calendar for our annual Holiday event. On December 10, we will hold the annual Holiday event and a short annual business meeting at the Carroll Mansion in Baltimore.

Watch for more program and event details on the Chapter website and blog.

Attend the SLA annual conference in Seattle, June 15-18.  Check out the preliminary program on the conference section on the SLA website: http://www.sla.org/PDFs/SLA2008/2008conferencepreview.pdf.  Check out tips for attending the annual conference at: http://www.sla.org/content/Events/conference/ac2008/Conference/tips.cfm.

Next year the annual conference will be in Washington DC – where SLA will celebrate its 100th anniversary.

Network with your colleagues: talk to people doing the same type of work and facing and overcoming the same challenges.