As past president of the Texas-Mexico chapter, I would add that in 2001, to
encourage student attendance at our annual meeting, we offered a reduced
student registration rate. While chapter dues are relatively inexpensive,
meeting attendance costs might be beyond the reach of students.
Polly Trump
-----Original Message-----
From: Janine J. Henri [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Wednesday, January 16, 2002 2:00 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [ARLIS-L] student chapters
I was also in the no. Cal. chapter at that time and broached the idea of a
Student Chapter during a Chapter Business Meeting. The other members
thought that this would be redundant since students can be full members in
the chapter. After thinking about it, I agreed, since participating in the
chapter was a great way to get to know professionals, learn about the
profession, and find mentors. At that time the No. Cal. chapter met four
times a year and always within easy driving distance from the two no. Cal.
library schools. And the student body at Cal was rather small: no telling
whether there would always be enough students to have a full slate of
chapter officers!
Here in Texas the chapter only meets once a year and we are so spread out
(even more now that we include Mexico) that members often have to fly to
meetings and spend a few nights in a hotel. It makes it a rather different
situation. Our library school students are spread out as well (and the
programs are much larger in student body than was the program at Cal).
However, local students have not been shy at all about making contacts with
art & architecture librarians on campus and around town. Some of us get
more offers from students wanting to volunteer than we can manage to
supervise during a semester and we have to turn some offers away. But we
always take time to meet, chat, provide professional advice, etc. both with
library school students and with undergrads. or others considering going to
library school. Quite a few library school faculty members bring their
students our way during class time or arrange for class projects using our
collections, so I can't imagine anyone not being given the opportunity to
make appropriate contacts. I'm happy to report that some of these former
students & volunteers are now active members of arlis/na who are thriving
in our profession! Our local chapter offers a professional development
award for travel to the arlis/na conference that has been given to student
members. U.T. librarians signed up right away to host arlis/na student
interns since we're definitely interested in encouraging students to
consider art & architecture librarianship. Our chapter used to send its
newsletters with conference registration information to library schools,
but now that our newsletter is on the web we stopped doing so. Perhaps we
should make sure that library school web sites provide a link to our
society? We do announce our conference on arlis-l and I would hope that
interested students are reading our listserv!
All of this to say that chapters and library schools can vary so much in
size that one model probably will not fit all! How about informal clubs at
library schools for arlis/na chapter members, rather than having to
formalize a structure that might not suit anyone very well? And if the
issue is that students want some professional society involvement on their
resumes: my advice is to become active in arlis/na committees & chapters
while a student!
Cheers,
Janine Henri
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