ALABI

The minutes from the 2009 ALABI meeting are now available. They can be found on the meetings page, or you can click here to access them directly.

A hardy thank you to Eldonna Deweese for taking good minutes and distributing them in such a timely fashion!

The 2009 annual ALABI conference was held at the Southern Baptist Convention building in Nashville, June 3-4. Sixteen attended the pre-conference workshop – “Exhibits on a Wing and Prayer: Effective Displays on Limited Budgets” – presented by Taffey Hall and Allan Lefever. There were 26 conference attendees.

In addition to the wonderful pre-conference, there were several superb conference presentations on user-centered libraries and archives, and a special video on Early Southern Baptist Films and Film Makers, which was in and of itself a wonderful documentary. There was also an informative discussion of current Baptist Digital initiatives at four of our institutions. We are grateful that several of the presenters have given us permission to post their presentations online. These will be announced as added.

Other successfully completed business this year includes the approval of the new constitution and by-laws, the tentative selection of Georgetown, Kentucky as the site of next year’s meeting, and the approval of next year’s conference theme – Archiving Electronic Records – including legal aspects, involving the Administration and IT Department as well as other leaders and gatekeepers, writing policies and procedures, identifying and using new information technology, and more.

A big thanks to Bill Sumners and his staff for hosting the conference, for Jason Fowler for creating the program, and for all the presenters and attendees for making the 2009 ALABI Conference a wonderful success.

One thing always looms larger than anything else in the minds of Certified Archivists: recertification points. Yes, recertification points. Those little slips of paper that help one avoid ever having to sit through the CA exam again :).

This year, ALABI can assist you in your quest for those recertification points. A pre-conference workshop is being offered at ALABI this year for an additional registration cost of $15.00. The workshop is entitled, “Exhibits on a Wing and a Prayer: Effective Displays on Limited Budgets,” and is being presented by Taffey Hall of SBHLA and Alan Lefever of the Texas Baptist Historical Collection. Taffey has recently informed me that the Academy of Certified Archivists awarded this workshop two recertification points. This is yet another reason to plan to attend this year’s ALABI meeting in Nashville on June 3-4.

If you have not already made plans to attend this year, you still have time. All of the details about this year’s meeting can be found on the meetings page.