Brian Hickam

ALAO welcomes Kathryn Venditti (Reference and Instruction Librarian at Ashland University) as our Interest Group Coordinator. Kathryn, who has been serving as a co-chair of the Instruction Interest Group, fills the shoes of Deberah England, who we thank for her years of service to ALAO.

ALAO also welcomes a new Interest Group: the Special Collections and Archives Interest Group (SCAIG) will hold its first workshop in 2013 and will have a program at the October 2012 conference.
Please join me in welcoming the two co-chairs of SCAIG: Stefanie Hunker (Associate Professor/Digital Resources Librarian at the Browne Popular Culture Library of Bowling Green State University) and Kimberly Tully (Special Collections Librarian for the Walter Havighurst Special Collections at Miami University’s King Library). If you would like to get involved or receive more information, please contact them at sdennis@bgsu.edu and tullykk@muohio.edu.

I’d like to express my sincere thanks to Deberah England for working with the members of SCAIG as they petitioned ALAO for recognition. I’m also appreciative that Kathryn Venditti has accepted the nomination of IG Coordinator since our newest group will have many questions as they get established and spring is interest group workshop season.

There is also news related to our Support Staff Interest Group. SSIG has been on hiatus for the past several months. In order to maintain a strong connection to the needs & interests of support staff ALAO is investigating the appointment of a liaison to the Ohio Library Support Staff Institute (OLSSI), “a dedicated group of individuals from all varieties of Ohio libraries including school, special, public and academic libraries [who] volunteer their time and energy each year to organize an annual, residential, multi-day conference for library support staff” (source: http://www.olssi.org).

Our own Betsy Blankenship (Director of the OSU-Marion/Marion Technical College Library) is serving on the LOEX Conference Planning Committee for the May 3-5, 2012 conference in Columbus. As the sponsor coordinator Betsy has been working with the ALAO board. Our association will be sponsoring LOEX at the $500 level, which allows us to include a brochure and a one-page insert in attendees’ packets. Since LOEX will draw people from surrounding states and some from Ohio who aren’t familiar or active with ALAO, we will promote membership in our association, participation in our interest groups & committees, and attendance at our workshops and the fall conference at the Roberts Conference Centre in Wilmington.

Anne Abate of Library Discount Network continues to work on our behalf as we petition the Internal Revenue Service for recognition as a 501(c)(3) organization. I recently received about sixty pages of documents to review as there are several forms, schedules, and supplemental documents included in this multistage process.

If you have any suggestions or comments, please send them to me at: brianhickam@yahoo.com
Thank you! Brian