February 24th Meeting Minutes

Thank you to everyone who attended the Mardi Gras Pancake Party/ALSO meeting today! I think I can speak for everyone when I say that we all enjoyed good food, good music, and good company! We even were graced with the presence of the renowned reference instructor and former director of SLIS, Charles Bunge! It was fascinating to hear him talk about how reference theory and practice has changed over the past few decades.

After filling our tummies full of pancake-goodness, we began the ALSO meeting with announcements pertaining to the upcoming WAAL (Wisconsin Association of Academic Librarians) conference in Green Lake, WI. The conference will begin onTuesday, April 21st and go through Friday the 24th. Several ALSO members have volunteered to present a poster session about the formation of our new group and will be attending the conference on Wednesday, April 22nd. Arrangements for carpools are in the works, so please respond to Amanda Kramer at adkramer@wisc.edu or Jessica Gile at jgile@wisc.edu or comment on this blog if you can either offer a ride, or need one.

Watch for further updates regarding WAAL conference sessions, registration, and scholarship opportunities!

The ALSO meeting continued with the announcement of an upcoming field trip to Milwaukee WI. We will be touring Marquette's library on Saturday, April 4th at 1pm, and hope to also set up a tour at either MATC or UW-Milwaukee. Stay tuned for further details and carpooling information.

The next meeting of ALSO will occur in March (date yet to be determined) and will showcase a guest speaker from the LILI practicum program. Instruction is an important part of academic librarianship and this practicum course is an excellent experience opportunity for ALSO members. Please plan to attend the meeting for more information before signing up for fall courses.

The week after the WAAL meeting, ALSO has reserved the SLIS hallway display case. We are looking for volunteers to set up a display for our group on Saturday or Sunday April 25th or 26th. Please respond to Amanda Kramer at adkramer@wisc.edu or Jessica Gile at jgile@wisc.edu or comment on this blog if you are willing to help.

Finally, it was unanimously decided that rather than holding in-person informational meetings, we will now post new group information on this blog and future meetings will be actual events/workshops/activities. This way, all members have access to the same information at the same time and have an equal opportunity to contribute to the group.

Thanks again to all for attending, and please watch for future updates.

All the best,
Jessica