Annual Report (2003)
ARLIS/NA
West Regional Representative  


Submitted by: Kay Teel
E-mail: kteel@stanford.edu
Phone: (650) 724-7346

Executive Board activities

Attended the pre-conference and post-conference board meetings in Baltimore, Maryland, and the mid-year board meeting in Philadelphia. Participated in Board discussions, deliberations, and motions.

Served as Board liaison to the Cataloging Advisory Committee and (with the ARLIS/NA President) the Awards Committee.

Served as Board liaison to the West Region chapters: ARLIS/Southern California, ARLIS/Northern California, ARLIS/Mountain West, and ARLIS/Northwest (also represented by the Canadian Representative).

Committee activities

Awards Committee

Attended the committee's business meeting in Baltimore. The committee is composed of the chairs of the sub-committees (Distinguished Service Award, Travel Awards, Gerd Muehsam Award, George Wittenborn Memorial Book Award, and Research Awards) who report to the committee chair and the Board liaison(s). This was an experimental year for this new umbrella committee. The subcommittees acted fairly independently, but it was worthwhile to hold the joint business meeting in Baltimore to see where concerns overlapped.

Issues for the Board:

The Executive Board will need to decide how to proceed with this umbrella committee. The goal of combining the awards committees was to combine efforts and reduce redundant work among the committees: for example, keeping mailing lists.

Of the subcommittees, the Gerd Muehsam Award, the Research Awards, and the Travel Awards committees operate in functionally similar ways. Muehsam and Research are the closest matches, but Research Awards and Travel Awards share the concern with receiving guaranteed funding from commercial sponsors from year to year. The funding for the Research Awards seems to be more stable and predictable. As the Society examines corporate sponsorship in different packages, the relationship between the Research Awards and the Travel Awards committees and development will need to be examined.

Distinguished Service Award committee, because of its sensitive nature and special liaison assignment (the ARLIS/NA President), must operate independently. The George Wittenborn Memorial Book Award committee also functions independently because it is geographically defined and examines submissions in a substantially different manner from the other committees.

Cataloging Advisory Committee

Attended the committee's business meeting in Baltimore and monitored and participated in e-mail correspondence among the committee members. The committee was active in 2003, their chief activity being work on a proposal to establish headings for named buildings in the name authority file and developing a draft for a subject cataloging instruction sheet for architecture which may be submitted to the Library of Congress. No issues for the Board.

Chapter activities

Attended the ARLIS/West regional conference in Portland, Oregon, in July. Met with chapter members and officers from all West regional chapters. The regional conference was successful in terms of attendence and content, and a good chance for members from the far-flung West region to meet colleagues they might not see otherwise.

ARLIS/Mountain West

Submitted columns for the chapter newsletter, The Mountain Ledger, and monitored the chapter's electronic mailing list for issues relevant to the Board. The chapter is small but enthusiastic. The chapter formed a Membership Committee, and continues to examine the challenges of a small chapter with such a large geographical distribution. Montana joined the list of states covered by the chapter, approved by the chapter membership through a vote and by the ARLIS/NA Executive Board. The chapter has a full slate of officers, with Secretary/Treasurer a combined office.

ARLIS/Northern California

Attended the chapter's spring business meeting at the Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, in April. The chapter also met at ARLIS/West, and in Berkeley in December. Monitored the electronic mailing list (which is open to both California chapters) for issues relevant to the Board. The chapter continues to work on recruiting new members and recently introduced a student membership rate of $5. The primary challenge for this chapter is finding members willing to serve as officers.

ARLIS/Northwest

Monitored the chapter's electronic discussion list and met with officers at ARLIS/West. The chapter's invitation to hold the 2006 ARLIS/NA conference in Banff, Alberta, was accepted by the Executive Board. The chapter will hold a business meeting in Tacoma in February 2004. Although there are pockets of enthusiastic members in this chapter, finding members willing to serve as officers and dwindling chapter participation from the Seattle area are issues the chapter is facing.

ARLIS/Southern California

The chapter held business meetings in Irvine and hosted a wine-tasting in Los Angeles in December. Met with officers at ARLIS/West. Submitted column for the chapter newsletter, Canvas. This large and vital chapter is doing well and has a full slate of officers.

Issues for the Board

No chapter issues for the Board at this time.

8 January 2004