David Tyckoson,
RUSA President
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RUSA is the foremost organization of reference and information professionals who make the connections between people and the information sources, services, and collection materials they need.
The Reference and User Services Association is responsible for stimulating and supporting excellence in the delivery of general library services and materials to adults, and the provision of reference and information services, collection development, and resource sharing for all ages, in every type of library. To learn more about RUSA, click on Our Association in the menu above.
RUSA Update Summer 2008 Edition Is Here
The pre-conference issue of RUSA Update has been posted! Click here to read.
RUSA Election Results Are In
Congratulations to those elected and thanks to all who agreed to run. Here are the election results:
RUSA president-elect: Susan Beck
RUSA directors-at-large: Corinne Hill and Suzanne Ward
BRASS vice chair: Celia Ross
BRASS member-at-large: Susan Neilson
CODES vice chair: Danise Hoover
CODES secretary: Mark Stengel
CODES member-at-large: Wayne Bivens-Tatum
History vice chair: Kathleen Strauss
History member-at-large: Jennalyn Tellman
MARS vice chair: Carolyn Larson
MARS secretary: Marilyn Ochoa
MARS member-at-large: Kim Vassiliadis
RSS vice chair: Barb Mann
RSS secretary: Marjorie Schreiber
RSS member-at-large: Sarah Hammill
STARS vice chair: Denise Forro
STARS secretary: Anne Bouvier
STARS member-at-large: David Larsen
RUSA Approves New Definition of Reference
At the January 14, 2008, meeting of the RUSA Board of Directors, a new definition of reference was approved. Thank you to all those who gave input, as well as all those who worked hard to come up with a definition that could be supported by so many. The new definition is here.
RUSA will provide $2,000 toward reference research
Applications due May 1, 2008
Inspired by the forthcoming 15th anniversary of RUSA’s Reference Research Forum, RUSA will provide $2,000 toward one reference research project. Applications are open to anyone conducting research in reference. The idea behind this initial funding is to inspire and support research in the broad areas of reference and user services. Applications will be reviewed by the RUSA/RSS Research and Statistics Committee. The awardee will be announced at the 2008 ALA Annual Conference in Anaheim. The research funded by the award will be presented at the Reference Research Forum in 2009 and submitted for possible publication in a future issue of RUSQ. For more information, contact committee chair Dr. Anne Moore at annem@library.umass.edu.
The application form is here.
RUSA Web Site Conversion News
The RUSA Web site has been transferred into the new content management system. The complexity of our site has been difficult to convert without any problems, however. Please disregard all your old bookmarks. Despite best efforts, we cannot block out the old version of the Web site just yet. A sign that you are probably not on the right version is seeing ".htm" in the URL. Breadcrumbs in the section pages are particularly fond of taking you to the Active Matter version of those pages.
This situation will be with us for awhile but at least those of us who are responsible for maintaining the site are using the new tools and learning how to use them for real are doing the work. Please hold off on informing me or your section Web Coordinators about problems until we are settled into the new system. Bear with us, please!
Podcasts from President's ProgramOnce upon a time, there existed reference librarians. Working in libraries and depending on books and the Internet, they helped people do research and answered questions - free of charge! - in-person, over the phone, and via e-mail and instant messaging. But, of course, since then, things have changed. The year is 2017, and the world is not as we knew it. Speaking at this year's RUSA President's Program are four individuals who, through story, will paint pictures of how they imagine the world will be ten years from now. How will anthropological, economical, political, and technological forces shape what it means to provide reference services in libraries? Listen to what they had to say.
The RUSA ToolkitA new wiki has been created to provide one-stop shopping for new committee chairs and members to find out what they need to know about their new responsibilities. But the RUSA Toolkit (see toolkit icon on the left) is only a framework on which we ask former chairs and committee members to contribute to enhance the information already presented. If you learned the hard way tips and tricks that fellow members could use, please share them! Are there pitfalls that go with the territory of a particular committee that you can help the newcomer avoid? Please help in any way you can! Registering is easy once you get to the page. Look for the Help pages for further information on how to edit or add pages.
Additions to Professional ToolsInformation about social networking tools and Second Life have been added to the Professional Tools section of the RUSA Web site. Look for links in the left-hand menu once you arrive on the PT page. Also, the way to handle electronic mailing lists has been changed (for the better) and instructions have been revised, so please check that page, too, under Professional Tools. This was noted by Donavan's blog, but to ensure everyone sees them, it's being announced here as well. Finally, Donavan took part in a video produced by ALA Membership as part of "ALA in Focus." Use this link to view 10-minute video. |
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RUSA Spotlight
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