1. Information Ethics. SLA is undertaking a year-long initiative through its chapters and divisions to look at ethical issues that members encounter in providing information services to their users and to determine whether SLA should develop its own ethics guidelines rather than continuing to rely on the ethics guidelines developed by ALA, SCIP, AIIP and ASIS&T. Wynne Dobyns, the Chapter's Ethics Ambassador, organized a Town Hall meeting on July 28, 2008, at Santa Clara University. To provide background, Geoffrey Bowker, Executive Director, Regis and Dianne McKenna Professor, Center for Science, Technology and Society, Santa Clara University, was invited to speak about ethics in information service. Following his presentation, the 16 attendees formed small groups for general discussion and then all attendees shared stories, anecdotes and questions about ethics in using and providing information services. Wynne Dobyns will summarize the findings and suggestions from this event in a report to SLA headquarters.
2. Events. We sponsored three programs, six Solo Librarians programs, two tours and two neighborhood dinner events.
Chapter Programs
Feb. 20—This brown bag event was a live one-hour Webex presentation, followed by a discussion locally hosted by Lee Pharis at Exponent. Martha Haswell, senior research analyst for Best Practices LLC, reported on benchmarks from her study of 24 corporate libraries. About 15 members attended, half of them staying on for the discussion that followed the presentation.
Mar. 17—A virtual meeting using WebEx on the enhanced features of the SLA website was sponsored by Thomson Scientific, who donated the WebEx time and technology that allowed members to attend the seminar virtually. Presenters were Leslie Fisher and Libby Trudell. About 30 members signed up to "attend" this presentation.
Sept. 17—Janice LaChance, CEO of SLA, speaking on Defending Libraries in a Time of Budget Uncertainties at the Coyote Point Yacht Club, San Mateo. This was the annual Joint Chapters meeting, and it attracted about 65 attendees. It was organized by Rochelle Richardson and her committee from the San Francisco Chapter.
Dec. 2—This social evening was held at the MacArthur Park restaurant, an historic building designed by Julia Morgan, in Palo Alto. A light meal and social hour for 30 attendees preceded the annual meeting. Sponsors for the event were AIM, Dialog, IEEE, Information Express, and Morgan & Claypool.
Solo Librarians Group—Program and Pizza
Jan. 16—Computer History Museum
Mar. 5—IEEE Digital Library
May 7—NASA Ames Library and Tour
July 30—SLA Conference wrap-up
Sept. 11— Sharon Malakoff, Elsevier
Nov. 6—What’s new with Dialog
Tours
June 24—new Santa Clara University Library
Aug. 21—Jackson Library, Graduate School of Business, Stanford University
Neighborhood Dinners
Week of July 7th—The theme for these four informal dining groups was "Highlights from the SLA Conference in Seattle." More than two dozen members participated in the four meet-ups this week in Hayward, Sunnyvale, Los Altos and San Mateo. Thanks to Leslie Fisher, Wynne Dobyns and Cindy Hill for hosting.
Oct. 20—During the Internet Librarian conference, Chapter member Ann Jacobson hosted an SLA "dine-around" at the Stokes restaurant in Monterey. A dozen SLA members from the San Andreas Chapter and others attended, including three librarians from Monterey.
3. Awards. At our Annual Business meeting on December 2, 2008. we honored the following members:
• Lee Pharis received the Mark H. Baer Award for her steadfast dedication to the Chapter including active participation as President-Elect, President, Past-President, Archivist, organizer of the West Coast Reception at the SLA Annual Conference in Toronto, and hosting and providing a location for many program events, board meetings, and continuing education events.
• Wynne Dobyns received the Lucy Steelman Award for her work as the Chapter Ethics Ambassador and as an “unofficial” board member and mentor to new and continuing members.
4. Helen Josephine organized a dinner at Libby Trudell's house for the Past-Presidents of the San Andreas Chapter. Ten former Chapter presidents attended the dinner on October 9th, including Celine Walker, who was president in 1980-81 when the Chapter was founded.
5. Lee Pharis, as the Chapter Archivist, has prepped and scanned the back issues of the Chapter newsletter, The Faultline, from Volume 1, no.1. The pdf copies of the newsletters will be integrated into the Chapter archives on the San Andreas Chapter website along with our already-on-the-web bulletins from 2002 to 2006.
6. Helen Losch, as a representative of the Chapter, participated in a Resume and Mock Interview Fair on October 25th for library school students at San Jose State University. This event was co-sponsored by LISSTEN, the student group and the Alumni Association of the San Jose State Library School.
7. Lorna Beich continued as Jobline editor for 2008. She created, posted and billed 69 Jobline postings in 2007 and 71 in 2008. The San Andreas Chapter rotates Jobline duties and revenues every two years with the San Francisco Bay Chapter. The Jobline will return to the San Francisco Chapter in 2009.
Submitted by Helen Josephine, Past-President, 2008
helenj@stanford.edu
Comments