ALA staff members to discuss ALA connections

Contact: JoAnne Kempf
Office of ALA Governance
(312) 280-3212
jkempf@ala.org

NEWS
For immediate release
February 17, 2009

The next installment in the series of ALA President Jim Rettig’s ALA Connections Salons will be an online discussion with John Chrastka, director of ALA Membership Development, and Kristin Murphy, government relations specialist at the ALA Washington Office. Chrastka and Murphy will discuss how ALA is connecting with its members, with affiliated and unaffiliated organizations nationally and abroad, with government agencies and with the general public. The discussion will take place from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. EST Friday, Feb. 20.

Online Programming for All Libraries (OPAL) Coordinator Tom Peters will begin the hour with an interview with Chrastka and Murphy. Following the interview, participants will be free to ask questions and engage with Chrastka and Murphy and with one another to discuss other ways ALA can make connections.

The salon will take place in OPAL, a user-friendly site offering online rooms where participants can interact via voice-over-IP, text chatting, synchronized browsing and other functions. The link for the salon is http://tinyurl.com/6ncakq, and a tip sheet for users is available at http://www.opal-online.org/firsttimetips.htm.Â

Like its 17th and 18th Century European counterparts, the ALA Connections Salon offers a place for ALA members to gather and discuss professional topics of interest. Future salons will take place each month throughout Rettig’s presidency on from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. EST Fridays as follows:

March 5Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Next Generation Catalog Connections
April 17Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Advocacy Connections
May 15Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Education and Recruitment Connections
June 19Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Future Connections

For more information about ALA President Jim Rettig’s initiatives, please visit http://jimrettig.org/content/initiatives/initiatives.htm .