By Helen Josephine, President, San Andreas Chapter
As I head off for the SLA conference and the Leadership meetings, I am reviewing our chapter accomplishments for the first half of the year. Immediately following the Leadership Summit in January 2007, the San Andreas and San Francisco Chapters held their annual joint board planning meeting to review co-sponsored projects including the turnover of the Jobline and joint dinner programs. Lorna Beich from the San Andreas Chapter is now head of the Jobline Committee, and she has created new processes (6 week postings) and a clean new format for the job announcements. The annual joint program meeting with the San Francisco chapter was held at the San Francisco Airport Museum on February 22 and featured Mia Garlick, General Counsel of Creative Commons. Other joint programs may also be held this year. (Below: Joe Langdon and Helen Losch enjoying the Leadership Summit in Reno.)
February was the debut of the new San Andreas Chapter blog. After researching available blog software and the use of blogs by other SLA chapters, Mary-Lynn Bragg and Claudia Cohen launched the new San Andreas Chapter blog as the main communication channel for our members. A Blog Party was held March 28 to introduce the technology to our members and discuss the difference between the Chapter Listserv and the blog for announcements and chapter information. Michael Sippey, VP of Professional Products at Six Apart, makers of TypePad, Movable Type, LiveJournal and Vox was the featured speaker at the Blog Party. The Board approved both a photo policy and a copyright policy in conjunction with the development of the blog as our primary information channel. Thanks to all the chapter members who have contributed content to the blog, including reports on our programs, book reviews and news items of interest. The Blog Committee, Claudia Cohen, Wynne Dobyns, and Sandy Tao have done a great job of keeping the content fresh and well edited. (Below: Mary-Lynn Bragg speaking at the Blog Party.)
Our members seem to like the automated update features of the blog. We have 48 RSS subscribers and 24 email subscribers. The blog has had 1,207 unique visitors since January, with 51% visiting one-time, 29% visiting 2-8 times and 21% visiting 9-200 times. Our new versus returning rate for the blog is 50.21% new to 49.79 % returning. We will continue to monitor the blog statistics and report out again at the end of the year.
Vendor partnership and sponsorship choices for the Chapter have been updated to include the option of advertising on the blog in addition to verbal and print recognition at program events. This new model was based on a sponsorship program in place at the Rocky Mountain Chapter. Our first vendor-sponsor is Reviews.com (thank you Mary-Lynn!). Communication was sent to all of our former vendor partners, encouraging them to consider advertising on our blog as well as continuing to support our dinner program events. Please contact me if you would like a copy of the sponsorship levels and program description.
Tour activity so far this year included a tour of the new San Mateo Public Library and Biotechnology Center on March 19. In addition, June 16 is the date for a tour of the Hopkins Marine Station Library and Wine Tour in Monterey. The Solo Librarians group met on January 23 for a tour of the new San Mateo Public Library, on March 22 for a presentation by Nancy Blachman of Google Guide, and on May 15 to hear Rowan Fairgrove discuss her work with Second Life. Great to see so many members take advantage of the Solo Librarian and Tour events. Thanks to Leslie Fisher in charge of Tours; and Eric Kristofferson and Patricia Parsons, of the Solo Librarians!
Upcoming activities and programs include the June 16 Monterey Tour and a Dinner Program October 24 or 25 featuring SLA President-Elect Stephen Abram. The Program Directors are also planning a round of Neighborhood Dinners for late summer and the Solo Librarians group is planning a post-conference wrap-up for July. It is not too soon for you to start thinking about volunteering for a position on the Chapter Board or on a committee. We will be recruiting for a Program Director for 2008-2009 and we need a Chair for our Vendor Relations Committee and Hospitality Committee.
Thanks to all of you for your support and commitment to our chapter!
Helen Josephine can be reached at [email protected]
[Editor's Note: The only change made to this posting was the addition of the photos and respective descriptions.]
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