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To: Library Research Round Table Members


From: JoBell Whitlatch, Chair


Re: Fall Report to Membership

Greetings to all Library Research Round Table Members! This report updates you on LRRT plans and programs and asks for your input and support on a few LRRT issues.

Steering Committee for 2005/06

I am delighted to be working with a wonderful group of officers on our Steering Committee: Joan Stein is serving as Vice-Chair/Chair Elect, Alma Dawson is the Secretary-Treasurer, and Steve Wiberley is the Past Chair. Other Steering Committee members are: Vicki Gregory, Lorri Mon, and Jeffrey Pomerantz. The Steering Committee is also fortunate to receive excellent support from staff members, Denise Davis, Director, and Letitia Earvin, Administrative Assistant of the Office for Research & Statistics.

Membership

As of July 2005, LRRT has 910 members. The largest Round Tables have about 1700 members so our Research Round Table has a lot of potential for growth. We would like to add some additional members this year and would welcome your suggestions on how we might best expand our numbers. LRRT committee membership chair is Myoung Wilson (mywilson@rci.rutgers.edu). Please assist us in identifying colleagues interested in library and information science research and personally encourage them to join LRRT. Information on joining LRRT is easy to find on the Web at:
http://www.ala.org/ala/lrrt/joinlrrt/joinlrrtinfo.htm.

Nominations for 2006/07 Steering Committee

For Vice-Chair/Chair Elect

John Bertot


Doug Raber

For Secretary/Treasurer

Linda Cooper


Tom Walker

For At Large

Marija Dalbello


Jennifer Lang

I would like to thank our Nominating Committee of past LRRT Chairs, Lynn Westbrook, Marie Radford, and Tom Nisonger, for continuing to give so generously of their time in putting together this excellent list of candidates.

LRRT Website

The Website is available at
http://www.ala.org/lrrt/ and is regularly updated by staff. I encourage all of you to regularly check the site for new information. Annual and midwinter conference meeting information is regularly posted as well as the Library Research Seminars. The next Seminar will be at Western Ontario University October 10-12, 2007 and it is not too early to begin putting it on your calendar now! The Seminar conference theme is The Library in Its Socio-Cultural Context: Issues for Research and Practice.

LRRT Steering Committee at Midwinter January 2006

The Steering Committee meets in San Antonio, January 21, Saturday 10:30am -12:30pm. Check the Midwinter room schedule to locate the meeting. In addition to program planning for the annual conference, we are exploring research mentoring, and enhancing our membership. Members are always welcome at the Steering Committee meetings and we hope to see some of you there!

Program Plans for the Annual Conference, New Orleans, June 2006

LRRT will sponsor four programs at the annual conference. Under the leadership of Joan Stein, we will present two research forums of competitively selected papers. The papers will be blind refereed by the LRRT Steering Committee, and so we anticipate high quality of presentations. Anyone interested in presenting a paper at either of the research forums should submit a notice of intent along with a 500 word abstract to Joan Stein (
joan@andrew.cmu.edu) by December 9, 2005. Additional information is available at:
http://www.ala.org/lrrt/ A third program will feature outstanding student scholarship and the fourth program will look at how research and evaluation can provide evidence regarding the value and impact of libraries, which is an important goal in the strategic plan.

Awards

The LRRT Awards are an important part of our efforts to encourage good research. Any LRRT member can nominate papers for the Shera Awards and the nominees are not required to be LRRT members. The deadline for the Shera Awards for support of dissertation research and for distinguished published research is February 10, 2006. Another LRRT award is the Ingenta Research Award to support research projects about acquisition, use, and preservation of digital information. The deadline for the Ingenta Research Award is March 31, 2006. This award was first given last year and is open to practicing librarians, faculty and students at schools of library and information science, and independent scholars. I encourage you to check the LRRT Website at
http://www.ala.org/lrrt/ to obtain full information about all of these awards.

Thanks to all of you for being members of the Library Research Round Table. Please continue to assist us in promoting research within and to the profession at large by:

• Encouraging your colleagues and LIS students to join LRRT
• Nominating research for the Shera Awards
• Submitting your research for consideration as competitive papers for the research forums
• Providing the chair with input on ideas for LRRT activities to promote research and enhance our membership

Jo Bell Whitlatch


Chair 2005-2006


jobell@sjsu.edu


408-808-2005