FROM THE EDITOR
Jain Fletcher
In the column across from mine, our President, Robert Freeborn, entreats OLAC membership to consider becoming more involved in OLAC. I certainly second his opinion and hope that his comments will inspire many people to run for OLAC’s open offices, now and in the future. Indeed, his points were so compelling that I kept them in mind while I was editing this issue. It occurred to me that there are so many ways to contribute to OLAC and they can (or might) be seen in reading through any issue.
I say "or might" above, because one contribution has been sorely missed from this Newsletter for about a year: it is the report from the Outreach-Advocacy Coordinator (OAC). Among the OAC’s duties is to compile reports from people who have advocated for OLAC in their jobs, professional work or presentations, and then to send the compiled report to the Newsletter. So, not only is the OAC contributing to OLAC, so is everyone who advocates for OLAC and provides the OAC feedback detailing their advocacy.
The Newsletter would not exist without the contributions of people who are involved in OLAC. This includes regular column editors, Jan Mayo, Vicki Toy-Smith, Barbara Vaughan and Jay Weitz. But when you think about it, each of those columns has contributors and anyone who contributes to them is also involved with OLAC. For the Conference Reports column, our hard-working liaisons submit the reports to the column editor: in this issue, one report comes from our MARBI Liaison, John Attig, one from our new CC:DA Liaison, Greta de Groat and another from our AMIA Liaison, Sueyoung Park-Primiano. The Book Reviews column would not exist if it were not for people who provide reviews--this issue has three such contributors. OLAC members also provide fodder for the News & Announcements and Cataloger’s Judgment columns by sending in announcements or by asking challenging questions.
There are also separate liaison reports, such as the OCLC Report by Jay Weitz. Another report in this issue came from Ann Caldwell, the NACO-AV Coordinator. It is also worth remembering that each person who participates in the OLAC Funnel Project can also be considered to be commendably involved with OLAC.
Any dedicated OLAC cataloger can also use his or her specialist knowledge and experience to contribute. Examples of how this might work could include such opportunities as responding to the call for comments on LC rule interpretations, commenting on the AACR3 drafts, providing subject headings …the list goes on. So, let me echo our President by asking you to please consider becoming involved and contributing in any and every way you can.
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Last updated: March 29, 2005
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