From the President: Conference Schedule News

• By: Lynn Shirey
• On: 04/04/2012 16:18:49
• In: Presidential Messages

Some of you know that I had planned to visit Trinidad last week, and hoped to report back with fresh conference news. Unfortunately, my flight (Boston-New York) was cancelled and I never made it! I hope to reschedule very soon.
Meanwhile, preparations for our conference are well advanced, and I'd like to share the following scheduling information with you. Almost all committee meetings will take place on Saturday, June 16, with the exception of the second meetings of the Executive Board and Finance. Panels will run from Sunday through midday on Tuesday, and E-SALALM, Town Hall, Business and Executive Board 2 will take place in the afternoon. We don't expect to end until about 5:30 on Tuesday, so please plan on attending the entire day if you are on the Board.
As you know, SALALM will take place over 4 days this year, instead of the traditional 5. This change was made to address concerns about the cost of attending SALALM in recent years, and as an experiment in a (somewhat) new format. In order to accommodate this shorter timeframe I have asked the following groups and committees to meet either virtually or off-schedule (at meals, for example): LANE, MOLLAS, LASER and CALAFIA; Nominating, Medina and Cuban Bibliography. Official Publications is not meeting this year due to lack of membership in recent years; and Gifts and Exchange is being considered for permanent cancellation due to lack of activity.
In addition, I have eliminated the following Substantive Committee meetings this year: Acquisitions, Access and Bibliography, and Library Operations and Services. These meetings have (in recent years at least) served only to collect reports from their respective subcommittees. Those reports can be submitted privately to the Chairs, who then report to the Executive Board. So please note: chairs of Library/Bookdealer/Publisher Relations, Serials, and Marginalized Peoples should submit reports to the Chair of Acquisitions before the end of the meeting; Chairs of Cuban Bibliography and Electronic Resources should report to the Chair of Access and Bibliography; and Chairs of Audio-Visual, Bibliographic Instruction, Cataloging, and Reference should report to the Chair of Library Operations and Services.
The Libreros' Reception will be held on Sunday evening; and the Host Reception at UWI on Monday evening.
Changes have been made on our website (thanks Melissa and Daisy!) so that the conference website is now linked to from the photograph of the UWI Trinidad on the main page. I hope that this will improve visibility. Please check the page for schedule updates, which will be posted regularly.
Lynn Shirey
Harvard University