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From the President posted 28 April 2009 Happy New (ARLIS/NA) Year! This month we celebrated our 37th annual conference in Indianapolis, Indiana. We all owe a big thanks to the Indianapolis conference crew. Everyone did a fabulous job, and even managed to provide us with decent weather. A number of us ventured out on what we hope will become a new ARLIS/NA conference tradition--a minor league baseball game. It's hard to find that much fun for so little money anywhere else, believe me. Thanks also to all the ARLIS/NA volunteers--committee chairs, chapter chairs, division and section heads, liaisons, session leaders and others--both those "retiring" and those incoming. Without you there would be no ARLIS/NA. Almost all of the standing ARLIS/NA committees and all of the sections, divisions, and special interest groups welcome new volunteer members. Remember, you don't need to attend the conference to participate. For those of you who weren't able to make it to Indianapolis, Boston awaits. You'll be hearing much more about it as the year progresses, but rest assured it will be another ringing success. And finally, a huge thank you and much gratitude to those members of the executive board whose terms ended this April: Deborah Ultan Boudewyns, Rebecca Price, Cate Cooney, Amy Trendler, and Elizabeth Schaub. All were inspirational to work with and wonderful to get to know. I greatly look forward to serving this year as your president. As always, the executive board is composed of highly talented and energetic members. We are already working closely with our new management firm, TEI, Inc., and all have nothing but high expectations that they will form a strong partnership with ARLIS/NA. One of the big things we hope to accomplish this year is to revise our strategic plan, which as you may recall goes through 2009. Look on ARLIS-L for a call for task force volunteers very soon. With the help of TEI we plan to offer streamlined processes for membership renewal and conference registration, and to help chapters manage their memberships, listservs and websites. You'll hear more about all of this in the next few months. It promises to be another busy and, I hope, fruitful year. Please feel free to contact me, or any of the board members, with your questions, concerns, plaudits and ideas. We really want to hear from you, early and often. Amy Lucker President, ARLIS/NA Top of Page