From the Secretariat

• By: Hortensia Calvo
• On: 07/19/2012 23:37:58
• In: Secretariat

It was great to see everyone in Trinidad and, once again, many thanks to our hosts for a wonderful conference.  Below is a summary of the Secretariat report presented at the meeting, as well as some recent updates.
1.  Membership numbers:  A few more new members have been added since last month bringing the total to 309 members.  Below is the breakdown.
208 total personal members:  18 New Personal Members; 2 Emeritus; 16 Students; 14 Honorary.  101 institutional members, including 23 sponsoring members.  Membership numbers have remained roughly the same since the close of fiscal year 2011.
2.  Publication sales:  We sold 23 publications for a total of $1,015.
3.  In the past few months, all the working Secretariat electronic files have been migrated to Active Directory, a file sharing and management software implemented at Tulane that allows for greater security by saving files to an offsite server.  Carol and I have access to all files.  We can also work on them remotely.  The organization's documents are safe in case of any emergency, but let's hope those hurricanes stay far away.  Please note that the SALALM archives are not at Tulane but at Texas.  The only documents we have are those generated in New Orleans since 2006.
4.  Promotional:

• The Latin American Library's Open House was held on September 16, 2011.  We had a SALALM table and sold 1 publication.
• I traveled to the Buenos Aires Book Fair April 12-21 invited by the Book Fair to discuss their wish to host SALALM in 2015.  I met with Alberto Hughetti, María Teresa Carbano, President and Vice-President, respecitvely of the Comisión de Profesionales de la Fundación El Libro.  I also met with Gabriela Adamo, Executive Director of the Book Fair. I presented their preliminary expression of interest to host SALALM in Buenos Aires in 2015 at Executive Board in Trinidad.  Their idea is that the SALALM conference take place BEFORE the beginning of the Book Fair so there is no competition for our book dealers.  SALALM would meet as we normally do in the days BEFORE the Book Fair opens, with the idea that some or most would stay for the Fair immediately following the conference.  Executive Board and other colleagues were pleased with the idea and it was decided that I continue to pursue the invitation with Buenos Aires.
• On May 13, I spoke and promoted SALALM at the Annual Meeting of the American Association of Orchestra Librarians.  For further details, see my email to LALA-L from June 8th.

7.  Memorial contributions:  We are working with the family of Alan Moss to send a donation in his memory to the Barbados Cancer Society.  We are also in touch with the Karno family to send a donation in memory of Howard.  How sad that we have lost two cherished book dealers and colleagues within the space of a few months.
8.  Carol and I revised and updated all of our contacts for institutional membership to finally move away from most paper-based communications and avoid lapsed memberships.
9.  Adapting to new workflows:  There has been a learning curve on Carol's part as we have added online payment of membership, conference & webinar registration via Paypal.   But on the whole she feels the positives outweigh the negatives.
10.  Last but by no means least:  We now have two conference venues locked up through 2014.
MIAMI in 2013  The University of Miami and Florida International University host SALALM LVIII in Miami May 17-May 22, 2013 at the Hotel Westin Colonnade Coral Gables (webpage for SALALM registration: https://www.starwoodmeeting.com/StarGroupsWeb/booking/reservation?id=1206201794&key=2B297)  Local Arrangements:  Meiyolet Méndez and Gayle Williams.
SALT LAKE CITY in 2014.  Brigham Young University is the host for SALALM LIX, dates to be announced.  The Hotel is the Radisson Salt Lake City Hotel Downtown  http://www.radisson.com/salt-lake-city-hotel-ut-84101/utsaltlkLocal Arrangements:  John Wright

Hortensia Calvo
Executive Secretary