The Membership Committee was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at 8am on Saturday morning. What more do you want?
Able Chair Pat Ensor got through the two hour agenda with flexibility and grace. She brought news from ALA including discussions and evaluation of the re-branding of our Open House as LITA 101 and its inclusion in the general information for new conference attendees at the beginning of the conference program and in other promotional materials. The idea seems to have brought many new faces to the Open House on Saturday. Another ALA initiative includes ideas for recruiting students and Committee members will be scrutinizing the report on this idea, which includes developing LITA contacts on campuses with Library and Information Science Programs.
The Committee discussed our possible connections with the newly formed Assessment and Research Committee, reviewed the Open House and discussed future plans, reviewed the Happy Hour and got a volunteer to host the midwinter event in Philly, and the LITA booth, all on-going efforts.
Along with ALA, LITA Membership Development is looking at schools as our target for recruitment of new members, and we’re exploring retention ideas. We’re interested in Second Life as well. We were approached by the Denver Forum organizer Mary LaMarca , and will get together some ideas and activities for that event.
One retention idea we’ll be developing is the LITA 201 concept, a session that will provide how-to and how-I-did-it-good practical information for those who have gone through the newbie stage and really want to grow into LITA leadership positions.