By Roland Hansen
This is considerably overdue, but I wanted to send it anyway. Lots of things happened in Las Vegas during Annual Conference, and I’m sure I’ll miss some things in this short report, so feel free to comment on the blog. It’s hard to say which is the biggest news from Conference. The BEST news is that the challenge set out by Larry Romans and Mike Morgan was met! Members raised more than $15,000 to match Larry and Mike’s challenge. This is great news for increasing the Long Term Investment Account, aka the Book Award Endowment, and securing long-term funding for our awards. Thanks to all donors and a huge thanks to Larry and Mike for their generous gift, and getting the momentum to make this happen.
Now for the Good News/Bad News item. The Bad News is the Stonewall Book Award Brunch has been eliminated. The Good News is that now, it will be a FREE presentation program open to all. We still plan on author speakers, give-aways and book signing and plenty of time to meet and greet. All for free. The Board sincerely hopes this will turn out to still be the highlight of Conference. I have every hope that will be the case.
Membership remains at 917. Please encourage colleagues to join, and keep renewing. We would love to get to 1,000 members this year!
Financially the RT is in good shape. Dale McNeill has posted a full report and it is available at ALA Connect.
The 2015 Pre- Conference is shaping up as Building LGBT Libraries. Watch for more news about it here and on the RT website.
Because of the transition of the Stonewall Book Award Committee into separate juries, we need to appoint a large number of members to this Committee, 22 to be exact. If you have experience reviewing, selecting, or other job responsibilities relating to GLBT Books, please consider volunteering. Use the Volunteer form found on the RT website.
There was progress made in providing gender neutral restrooms during Conference. Many members photographed the sign outside of the designated restroom at the top of the main escalator in the Conference Center. While there was only one rest room designated, we are hoping for more in the future. We never found out who was behind providing this, but we want to thank Paul Graller who is The Big Cheese for Conference Facilities management on-site.
The RT Resources Committee has officially started working on updating various documents and web resources supported by the RT. Also, the Fundraising Committee has been reinstated to probably begin reporting activities at MidWinter.
That’s about it. Thanks Again to David Vess for his dedication and hard work for the RT during the past several years. A BIG welcome to Ann Symons, Chair, and congratulations to Peter Coyl, Chair-Elect.
Looking forward to Midwinter Chicago, see you there.
