Hello. We recently held our annual convention in Montreal. It was a great success. I want to thank our co-chairs Marsha Lustigman, Chaya Goldman and Eva Raby, along with their local committee and volunteers. On the National Level I want to thank Suzi Dubin, Toby Harris, Ronda Rose, Nancy Sack, Susan Rosner, Elana Gensler, Laurel Wolfson, Sheryl Stahl, Karen Ulric, Rachel Leket-Mor, Joyce Levine and other members who made this fine convention possible.
This has been a very busy year for our Board and Council. One of our major goals was to guarantee the ongoing fiscal health of our organization. This has meant finding ways to decrease expenditures and increase income. The switch of our newsletter/reviews has saved us a great deal of money. We have also trimmed our budget. We will take some additional steps in January. We have increased our dues in a way that will bring in more money, but that will hopefully not be a serious financial burden to any of our members. Advertising is an important source of income. This has been a transition year, due to the switch to electronic publishing. Karen Ulric has been our Ads Manager. She has now taken on other AJL responsibilities. I will send out a job description for the advertising position. Even with all of our changes in income and expenses, we can not reach a balanced budget that still allows us to reach all of our goals and to hold an annual convention, without additional funds. We also need to raise funds to increase the money available for subsidies to those wishing to attend conventions. Development = Fund Raising. Kathe Pinchuck, in addition to her responsibilities as SSC Secretary, has taken on the job of Chair of Development. We worked with a firm that specializes in Jewish non -profits to research potential donors. Kathe and I will be approaching donors in the start of what must be an ongoing effort to raise money. We are in the midst of a major educational initiative. Michelle Chesner recently wrote to you about this. She has taken on the responsibility of Chair of Education in addition to her responsibilities as RAS Secretary. One of our major goals is outreach -- to fellow librarians, to synagogue and school leaders, to teachers, etc. We are currently working on increasing our presence at a select group of major conferences. Connected with this, we have some very nice new public relations materials prepared by Heidi Estrin and Etta Gold. Another major goal is to encourage and support increased activity in our local chapters, and hopefully to form some new chapters. Amalia Warshenbrot has recently become the chair of this committee, and will be eager to work with our chapters. At our recent convention we passed a constitutional amendment that changes our fiscal and membership year. They now start on October 1 and end on September 30. This year we have a transition period of three months. All of you who paid 2010-2011 dues are still members through September 30, 2011. We will send membership renewal forms well in advance of that date. You will see the new dues structure on the renewal notice. Our major problem and disappointment this year has been getting our new website running. There have been a number of technical problems, and I hope that the company who is working on the site will finish as quickly as possible. I'll let you know of any future developments. Nancy Sack has been our hard working and patient liaison with the web design company. The new online newsletter and reviews are working out nicely. Karen Ulric has joined the team as copy editor. Zachary Baker will be stepping down as editor of Judaica Librarianship following the soon to be published next issue. We will be looking for a new editor, and I will send out a job description in the near future. Two members have already volunteered to work with the new editor. Karen Ulric will do copy editing and Jasmin Nof will be on the editorial committee. Zachary has done a tremendous amount of work as editor, and I want to thank him for his dedication to AJL and to the journal. I want to thank our Board and Council for their hard work and devotion to AJL. I can not emphasize how much time and thought they have devoted this past year to our discussions on how to improve our organization. Next year our convention will be in Los Angeles. We are now in the final stages of working out a contract for 2013 with a hotel in Houston. I will let you know when we have reached an agreement. We will soon begin investigating hotels in Las Vegas for the 2014 convention. Jim Rosenbloom, President AJL -- James P. Rosenbloom Judaica Librarian, Brandeis University President, Association of Jewish Libraries James P Rosenbloom Library and Technology Services Mailstop 045 Brandeis University 415 South St. Waltham, MA 02454 9110 781-736-4688 [email protected] --- Messages and opinions expressed on Hasafran are those of the individual author and are not necessarily endorsed by the Association of Jewish Libraries (AJL) =========================================================== Submissions for Ha-Safran, send to: [email protected] SUBscribing, SIGNOFF commands send to: Listproc @ lists.acs.ohio-state.edu Questions, problems, complaints, compliments;-) send to: galron.1 @ osu.edu Ha-Safran Archives: Current: http://www.mail-archive.com/hasafran%40lists.acs.ohio-state.edu/maillist.html History: http://www.mail-archive.com/hasafran%40lists.acs.ohio-state.edu/history.html AJL HomePage http://www.JewishLibraries.org
