From the Editor

Rachel Resnick

My term as Chair of the Communications Committee comes to an end this summer. While I will continue other duties through mid-May, this issue of the Chronicle—my sixteenth as Editor—is my last. There are no plans at this time to continue the publication. The first issue I edited was the winter issue of 2006 (Volume 24, No. 1): <http://mlaphil.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2007/01/winter2006.pdf>, taking over from Linda Katz, who had served as Editor for seven years. It has been an honor to serve the Chapter and a pleasure to work with the members of my committee and the Board.

Serving the Chapter gives one more personal exposure to other Chapter members. One discovers more about their personalities, work styles, and lives, and in more intimate settings than during educational activities or large conferences. I certainly have met a few interesting personalities during my tenure, first as proofreader for the Chronicle, then as Committee Chair and Board member. No, I’m not going to name names here—you’ll just have to get involved on a committee and discover all those quirky folks yourself. It’s well worth the effort.

I hope this issue lives up to its reputation. It has been a busy year for programs, with more to come, as Gary Kaplan indicates in his Program Committee Report. Calvin Wang regales us with details about the recent PAFA Anatomy/Academy exhibit tour. Launching this month is the Value of Libraries survey, described by Susan Cavanaugh. Gary also asks us to REGISTER! for our upcoming Annual Meeting (April 6). Speaking of which, get your nominations and applications in to Cynthia McClellan for Chapter grants, awards, and elections, whose winners will be announced at the meeting. Additional events are listed in our ever-present Calendar, edited by Sheryl Panka-Bryman, who also edited Member and Library News, in which she included some news of her own. You can Meet Your Fellow Chapter Member Gerard Regan in this issue in an interview edited by Kate Eckert. Chair Andrea Kenyon asks us to please bring to the Annual Meeting our gently used professional clothes for a worthy cause. More Chapter news comes by way of Priscilla Stephenson regarding a four-chapter conference in 2012. In National news, Anne Seymour provides information about the Chapter Council Roundtables that will be presented at MLA’s 2011 Annual Conference and Exhibition in Minneapolis.  Regarding social media, LinkedIn has issued an improvement to our group that I think you will like. And Carlos Rodriguez returns with his TechnoHumanist views on Mendeley. Read all about it in this issue.

Please consider this a written invitation to share news, views, and information with your fellow chapter members. If you’ve got a blog post just dying to be written, go ahead and write it and post it to the website. Then be sure to promote it via the email list and the LinkedIn group. Did you know that through the magic of the Networked Blogs software, what you post to the website gets automatically posted on the Chapter’s Facebook page? Write one post, get two outlets! And if you promote your post via our LinkedIn group, that post will be searchable on the Internet—even more free publicity for your writing—and your reputation. Your first step is to register for a WordPress account so that you can post to the website: <http://www.mlaphil.org/wp/wp-login.php?action=register>. Information about our other social media is here: <http://www.mlaphil.org/wp/contact/>. Twitter is pretty much reserved for Board members, since there’s a password involved, but if you want to promote something there, send your 140-character or fewer note to a Board member, who can post it for you.

I rest assured that I leave Chapter communications in good hands—yours. Don’t be shy. Get involved.

Best wishes,

Rachel Resnick
Communications Committee Chair, 2009-2011