From the President's Desk

I am always amazed at how busy the life of a librarian can be, particularly in the Fall. This year is no exception and as we all race to implement new services, maintain old and look after our clientele, let’s not forget about looking after your “professional health.” It is important to take a little bit of time to review what is new in our profession, to think about the latest research and reflect on where your organization is going. APLA is certainly committed to helping all Atlantic Canadian librarians with this professional development. Lots of great things are happening with APLA and our relationship with the Partnership and I would like to bring you up to date on some of the news in these areas since my last report.

In the late summer, Donald Moses (APLA Vice President Elect) and myself headed off to Toronto for the OLA sponsored Partnership meetings http://www.thepartnership.ca . For those who may not know, the Partnership is our national network of provincial and territorial library associations. APLA is a proud member of the Partnership and has helped to initiate many professional development opportunities to Canadian librarians and library staff. The most well known, of course, is the Education Institute which successfully provides workshops through teleconference and webinars. Another initiative is Partnership: the Canadian Journal of Library and Information Practice and Research http://journal.lib.uoguelph.ca/index.php/perj/, which is not only a tremendous resource for keeping current but it is also a Canadian peer reviewed journal dedicated to the library profession. At this last Partnership meeting, it was agreed that the Partnership would start a new initiative to create a certification program which will allow librarians and library staff to be recognized for their ongoing professional development. Look for more news on this soon. 

Just a couple of weeks ago, I had the good fortune to represent APLA at the National Summit on Library Human Resources held in Ottawa. Over a two day period, one hundred librarians from across the country and from various sectors discussed the Canadian library sector from education to retirement. Many suggestions came forward and it will be interesting to see how they will be implemented and how we as a profession can work to fill a projected shortfall in the number of librarians available to work in Canadian libraries. If you want to have the full information on this, check out the blog website for the Summit http://nslhr.wordpress.com/ or the official website for the original 8Rs research http://www.ls.ualberta.ca/8rs/home.html. 

And finally, your APLA Executive will be meeting in Halifax on October 27th . This event will be an opportunity for your provincial VPs and other members of the Executive to think about new member services and how to make existing services more relevant to your professional life. I am very much looking forward to this gathering and thinking about the future of APLA. I will fill you in on the details of this meeting with the next issue of the Bulletin. 
Take care everyone! Su 

Su Cleyle, scleyle@mun.ca
APLA President