From the President

Carol Pitts Diedrichs, ALCTS President

Dues and Subscription Increases

It has been ten years since the last increase in ALCTS dues. Despite intensive efforts to contain costs, we have ended the past two years with a deficit that has eroded our reserve. We have reached a point where existing services and products would begin to suffer without additional support. In addition as of July 30th, Andrea Tobias, the ALCTS administrative assistant, has left her position, and the position will not be filled. The ALCTS Board has, therefore, determined that an increase in dues is required to ensure the health and continued development of ALCTS.

After more than three years of strategic and tactical planning experience, our plans and services for members are well formed and in high demand. For example, our venture into Web-based continuing education has been highly successful, with waiting lists for each offering. In order to develop new courses, additional development funds are needed. Once new content is developed, staff support for technology and the instructors will also be needed. These are the sorts of high-quality member services we wish to maintain and expand.

At the Orlando meeting, the ALCTS Board approved the following increases effective September 1, 2004:

Personal members of ALCTS will continue to receive their LRTS subscription as part of their membership fee.

Committee Appointments

The section chairs and I have completed the committee appointment process. We launched the appointment cycle with a very successful Volunteer Forum held at Midwinter in San Diego. We were delighted with the large crowd of volunteers who attended, and with their enthusiasm for participating in ALCTS. The success of the Forum was the direct result of the planning and marketing done by Dina Giambi and the Leadership Development Committee.

The Web-based committee volunteer forms were essential to our appointment process. Each section chair made appointments from the forms to fill vacant positions. In most cases, the section chair made close to half of their available appointments from the forms. The remaining appointments were reappointments, positions requiring particular experience or expertise, or individuals known to the section chair. Overall, we received 120 volunteer forms. At the division level, I offered positions to 38 (31.7%) of those individuals. In summary, the volunteer process works! As President-elect Rosann Bazirjian and the section chairs-elect begin the appointment process anew, I encourage you to send in those forms! They can be found at http://www.ala.org/ala/alcts/alctsmanual/alctsforms/volunteerform.htm.