A Message
from the ARLIS/NA President:
The weather
was beautiful in Minneapolis the day I arrived on July 28. I returned the
end of July from participating in the Joint VRA & ARLIS/NA Conference
Planning Advisory Committee meetings. These meetings were to plan the 2nd
Joint VRA & ARLIS/NA Conference to be held in Minneapolis, Minnesota on
March 24-28, 2011. Representatives from the VRA & the ARLIS/NA
Executive Boards and Chris Roper, ARLIS/NA Association and Conference Manager,
met with the Local Twin Cities Conference Planning Group. There was a positive
spirit of collaboration evident throughout our gatherings. This is reflective
of the joint conference theme “Collaboration: Building Bridges in the 21st
Century.”
The 2011
joint conference will be held at the downtown Minneapolis Hilton, a centrally
located and elegant venue. The hotel contract has been successfully
renegotiated and a joint conference agreement between VRA & ARLIS/NA was
signed by both myself and Maureen Burns, VRA President. I’m pleased
to report that the contract for the Welcome Reception has also been
signed. The reception will take place at the Walker Art Center following
the joint convocation to be held at the Minneapolis Hilton.
A thank you
goes to all of the Twin Cities planners who are doing such a phenomenal job in
bringing us a joint conference. I would like to take this opportunity to
thank the four conference planning co-chairs. A big thank you to Rebecca
Moss and Brian Shelburne for their leadership as Local Arrangements Co-Chairs
and to Heidi Raatz and Jessica McIntyre as Conference Program Co-Chairs.
There were over 80 conference proposals sent to the Program
Co-Chairs. Thank you to everyone who sent proposals in--the Program
Co-Chairs are going to pack as much content into the conference as possible. So
plan on spending quality time at the conference with an expanded network of
like-minded colleagues in this fantastic city.
As your
President, I would ask that each of you mark March 24-28, 2011 on your
calendars. This conference will be a unique, exciting, and collaborative
joint conference. Best, Mari Russell
Marilyn
Russell, Ph.D.
Library
Director
President
ARLIS/NA
Haskell
Indian Nations University
155
Indian Avenue
Lawrence,
KS 66046
Phone:
785-832-6661
Link
to website: http://russell.marilyn.googlepages.com