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Post-ALA Annual Conference Report 2012 Submitted by: Tom Caswell Liaison to the American Library Association (ALA), Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL), Arts Section During the American Library Association’s (ALA) Annual Conference in Anaheim, California, June 23-24, 2012, ARLIS/NA volunteers Tom Caswell, Cathy Billings, and Gina Solares staffed the ALA Affiliates booth in the exhibition hall for a total of five hours (of the 21 the booth was open) handing out approximately 50 ARLIS/NA membership brochures and postcards promoting ARLIS/NA’s annual conference next year in neighboring city Pasadena. ARLIS/NA continues to provide a presence among the affiliates and our efforts were once again greatly appreciated by ALA staffers during and after the conference. ARLIS/NA was represented at the ALA Affiliates meeting on Sunday, June 24th by liaison Tom Caswell, who reported on ARLIS/NA developments such as: the recent conference in Toronto; next year’s conference in Pasadena; ARLIS/NA’s commitment to offering a joint webinar with ACRL/Arts Section this coming year; the kick-off of our Virtual Mentoring Program (which generated interest from other affiliates); as well as our new venture with University of Chicago publishing our Society’s ArtDoc, which was met with great enthusiasm from the other affiliates. Select affiliates reporting on their latest activities included: ***American Indian Library Association (AILA) is establishing a “Joint Conference of Librarians of Color” with ALA in Kansas City, Missouri in September. ***Asian/Pacific American Librarians Association (APALA) has started a foundation fund of its own and is also working on a “Graphic Novel” conference in the next year. ***Association of Jewish Libraries (AJL) is a new affiliate group for ALA. ***Association of Research Libraries (ARL) leadership spoke about their three “core sources of funding” – publishing, conferences, membership – and how they are currently looking for new, additional venues of funding. ***Beta Phi Mu (International Library & Information Studies Honor Society) is moving its headquarters from Florida State University in Tallahassee, Florida to Drexel College of Information Science and Technology in Philadelphia. ***Medical Library Association (MLA) is currently emphasizing themes of diversity and globalization of information, as well as developing a “Disaster Information Specialist” program, for its membership. ***Music Library Association (MLA) is seeing a trend in music librarians now referring to themselves as the more inclusive “performing arts librarians;” observing a decrease in institutional memberships; and noticing the impact of RDA on music cataloging. Also, the ever-popular MLA Basic Manual Series has a new volume available. ***National Storytelling Network (NSN) is a new affiliate group for ALA. ***Online Audiovisual Catalogers (OLAC) is working on establishing cataloging guidelines for streaming media and also dealing with the impact of RDA on cataloging. Tom also attended the Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL) Arts Section membership meeting on Sunday, June 24th, where he reported on ARLIS/NA updates and activities like he did at the Affiliates meeting. In particular, several Arts Section members stated how anxious they are to have a joint ARLIS/NA-ACRL/Arts webinar in the near future. Arts Section chair Claudia Covert said she has been actively working with ARLIS/NA’s Professional Development Committee and Education Subcommittee in ironing out the details of this joint webinar initiative and they all hope to have a webinar some time in Fall 2012. On Sunday afternoon, Tom represented ARLIS/NA at the newly renamed “Association Options Fair” (formerly Spectrum Leadership Institute’s Professional Options Fair) where he was an invited presenter at American Library Association’s professional options fair for recently graduated minority librarians and mid-career librarians. This was Tom’s third year representing ARLIS/NA at this event. It consistently ranks as a high point of the conference as this is always a fast-paced, high-energy experience that generates a lot of questioning and interest for new and established librarians who may have never known art librarianship as a career option. Approximately 30 ARLIS/NA membership brochures were distributed. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Mail submissions to [log in to unmask] For information about joining ARLIS/NA see: http://www.arlisna.org/join.html Send administrative matters (file requests, subscription requests, etc) to [log in to unmask] ARLIS-L Archives and subscription maintenance: http://lsv.arlisna.org Questions may be addressed to list owner (Judy Dyki) at: [log in to unmask] ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~