Dear Retired Members SIG members:
I thought I would give you a heads-up that the listing on the ARLIS website for Divisions, Special Interest Groups, and Sections is not complete. I discovered this when I did a search to discover how many and who were in the Museum Libraries Division. And just now I searched for “Retired Members SIG.”
To do this type of search: go to the Membership Directory and click on the specific group you are looking for, e.g., Retired Members SIG or Museum Library Division or Cataloging Section—they are in “drop down” menus at the bottom of the record template—DON’T enter your name; then click Submit. If you bring up those listed as members of the Retired Members SIG, you will find that only eight of us are listed, when we actually are currently a group of 32. (I initially discovered this when I searched for the list of all members of the Museum Libraries Division and found that I was not listed—I am now.)
There doesn’t seem to be any way to correct this online; you have to send an email to the ARLIS/NA Membership Coordinator at:
[log in to unmask]. OR you can telephone:
+1 800-817-0621 ext. 116. First check to see if you are listed in the group(s) with which you want to be associated; then if you are not, contact the ARLIS/NA membership department and ask them to add those groups to your membership record. It may not happen instantly (I think it took about a week or 10 days to see my name added); they are of course very busy with other things, especially things related to the Seattle conference, but it should happen relatively quickly.
Ideally, this type of search should be equivalent to the way we used to have the group lists in the back of our printed “Handbook and List of Members.” I’ve just checked the last two printed directories I still have—from 2003-04 and 2005-06—and neither of them have lists of these types of groups, so I don’t know exactly when that type of indexing was discontinued, but it was very useful while we had it. Now we have that capability with the online directory, but you have to let headquarters know with which groups you want to be associated. I know that when you join as a new member—and maybe also when you renew—you are given the opportunity to indicate the groups to which you want to belong. We actually used to charge a small fee to belong to groups, but for a long time now these have all been free. Let me know if you have any problems with this.
Joan
