RMSLA held its annual membership meeting on October 9, 2012, at Gates Hall at the Denver Botanic Gardens. About 40 members attended in person, and there were nine virtual attendees. Several students from the University of Denver MLIS program were among the welcome crowd.
After a social and networking hour and buffet dinner, RMSLA President Recca Larson opened the meeting and shared highlights on the chapter’s activities for the year.
RMSLA received top honors and a $500 cash prize in connection with the SLA Information Technology Division’s Outstanding Chapter Technology Programming Award for its Virtual Lunch webinar series, coordinated by Director Connie Clem.- RMSLA is participating in SLA’s Loyalty Project with James Kane, focusing on adding value to membership. RMSLA’s members in Utah are getting together for networking events and co-hosting library tours with the Utah Library Association. RMSLA uses technology to reach members beyond the Colorado/Denver region and is posting profiles of members from all around the chapter. Other units participating in the Loyalty Project include the D.C. Chapter (working on vendor relations), the Minnesota Chapter (working on member participation), the Florida/Caribbean Chapter (working on involving members at a distance), and the Southern California chapter (working on student engagement).
Director Jason Youngstrom shared details on chapter membership, which has shown a slight uptick though overall SLA membership is still lagging slightly, mainly traceable to economic factors. As of the meeting date, RMSLA had 140 members.
Academic Relations Chair Kendra Spahr presented the Rebecca Jackson Memorial Scholarship to University of Denver MLIS student Lindsay Roberts, who thanked the chapter for the support. Kendra also thanked everyone who attended a fundraiser or made a donation to this year’s scholarship fund. Major donors included the Jackson family and the Colorado Library Consortium (CLiC). Mary Ellen Bates of Bates Information Services, Ellen Naylor of the Business Intelligence Source, and Pat Wagner of Pattern Research each made a notable contribution.
President-Elect Rachel Bates Wilfahrt recognized the 2012 board and the work of RMSLA’s various committees and committee chairs. She invited all members to get involved by volunteering. Listowner Marcy Rodney encouraged members to use the discussion list to share job opportunities and other professional news. RMSLA’s discussion list currently has 352 subscribers.
The evening’s speaker, Marcy Phelps of Phelps Research, gave an insightful presentation on how to engage with the social media to be part of today’s knowledge flow in your sphere of expertise. Her presentation is part of the recorded meeting, available online. Marcy’s segment begins at about 28 minutes into the recording.
The meeting closed with door prize give-aways. All books were donated for the meeting by Information Today, Inc. Joe Kraus and Bronwyn Maxson (live attendees) and Daureen Nesdill (attending from Utah) each won a copy of Marcy Phelps’s book, Research on Main Street. Lindsay Roberts won Face2Face: Using Facebook, Twitter, and Other Social Media Tools to Create Great Customer Connections. Lisa Backman walked away with The Embedded Librarian, someone won UContent: The Information Professional’s Guide to User-Generated Content, Vivienne Houghton won The Librarian’s Guide to Negotiation, Jennifer Doran won the The Cybrarian’s Web: An A—Z Guide to 101 Free Web 2.0 Tools and Other Resources, and Connie Clem won Implementing Technology Solutions in Libraries.
Rachel Bates Wilfahrt did the behind-the-scenes work to plan the meeting. RMSLA would like to thank IHS for its generous support of the event. We also thank the Denver Botanic Gardens (home of the Helen Fowler Library & Archives) for providing the meeting space and librarian April Miller for helping with set-up. RMSLA also thanks the University of Denver and the inestimable Joe Kraus for assisting with the virtual attendance technology.
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