Presidential Message

• By: Roberto Delgadillo
• On: 07/30/2013 10:24:06
• In: Presidential Messages

Hello from Davis, California! As I write this first presidential message, I want to express my thanks to Past President Martha E. Mantilla and the Miami Local Arrangements team Meiyolet Méndez, chair, and Gayle Williams for planning what was a memorable conference. It took a great deal of time, effort and dedication to plan such a meeting. I was extremely fortunate to see and talk to so many dedicated SALALM members. It was one of my favorite SALALM conferences. A perusal of the pictures taken during the meeting on our webpage will certainly confirm what I have noted. Speaking of conferences, many of you may be wondering about the 2014 SALALM Annual Conference. I am delighted to announce that our host for 2014 is Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. The conference will be held at the Radisson Downtown in Salt Lake City, May 10-14, 2014. The SALALM 59 conference theme is Family, Local and Micro-Regional Histories and Their Impact on Understanding Ourselves. Focusing on family, local and micro-regional historical resources and their place in the scholarship will allow SALALM to explore how these resources add to the discussion of genealogical data, racial and ethnic identity and how that perceived identity conflicts with the perceptions of governments. The formal call for papers will be announced in September 2013. For questions regarding the conference, please contact me at:
Roberto C. Delgadillo, MLIS, PhD
Humanities, Social Sciences and Government Information Services Librarian
University Library
100 North West Quad
University of California, Davis
Davis, CA 95616
Phone: 530-752-8266
Fax: 530-752-3148
Email: rdelgadillo@lib.ucdavis.edu
Now for a few updates…I am pleased to announce that Melissa Gasparotto will be chairing the Communications Committee and that Betsaida M. Reyes will be the new Website Content Editor. She replaces Daisy V. Domínguez. I know I speak for all of the membership in commending Daisy, for her outstanding stewardship of the webpage for the past several years as SALALM transitioned from a print presence and to an electronic one. I will also note that the Members - at - Large are working on a survey related to the past conference; to determine membership preferences with regard to duration, lodging, and receptions. As the responses get compiled I will share those results. In the same vein, I am pleased to announce that Tim Thompson will be the new SALALM repository coordinator. Tim is also a past SALALM Scholarship winner. The SALALM repository (http://salalm.org/repository/) is a new initiative from the Editorial Board and they are excited to see how it develops. At the last SALALM conference, we learned of an important anniversary for two of our members: Gayle Williams and Nancy Hallock have accrued an extraordinary record of service as volunteer indexers for HAPI, having served for more than 25 years. Kudos to Gayle and Nancy for providing us with examples of the spirit of cooperation that has characterized our membership. Please take the time to look at their profile.
In other news…SALALM members came out in force for the Annual Meeting of the American Library Association in Chicago. I know many members gave thoughtful presentations. I know I missed a few others and can only say that time and other pressing commitments prevented me from seeing and supporting other SALALM members in action!
As you can see, this will be an exciting year for SALALM. I will do my best to keep you updated as the year progresses. Please feel free to send me any comments or suggestions you might have about next year's conference or anything else SALALM related.
On a final note, I urge you to renew your SALALM membership beginning September 1. Our organization depends on these renewals to carry out our work.