Spring Workshop

The Docs Spring workshop was held on Friday May 7 at the McKimmon Center in Raleigh. The workshop, entitled “A Closer Look: Accessing, Protecting and Enhancing Your Collection” featured an overview and update of the State Library’s three-year project called the Access to State Government Information Initiative, as well as Part One of a projected two-part discussion on “Current Collection Development Issues in Federal Government Documents.” Part Two of the discussion is planned for the NCLA/SELA joint conference in Charlotte in November 2004.

Beth L. Rowe, Vice Chair/Chair-Elect of the section, was the program chair for the workshop. Panelists/speakers for the May 7 workshop included:

• Kristin Martin & Jan Reagan, from the Access to State Government Information Initiative in Raleigh
• Mike Van Fossen -- International/State Documents Librarian at UNC-Chapel Hill
• Billy King and Natalia Tuchin -- Periodicals & Documents at Forsyth County Public Library
• Mary Horton -- Head, Government Information & Microtext, Wake Forest University

New Docket Editor

With Vol. 31 No. 1, Mike Van Fossen of UNC-Chapel Hill emerged as the new editor of The Docket. The Section is much indebted to past editor Marilyn Schuster and to Mike for stepping up to this particular plate.

Docs Section By-Laws Changes

The Documents Section is actively pursuing a name change, to better reflect the nature of documents work in the increasingly electronic environment. The name change, to Government Resources Section, was approved by the NCLA Board at the April meeting. We are also amending our by-laws to include a webmaster as part of our section’s executive board. (This follows a recent move of the NCLA Executive Board to add the NCLA webmaster to the NCLA Board.) We will submit these by-law changes to the membership of the Docs section in writing well in advance of the required 30 days prior to our section’s annual business meeting in Charlotte in November. In addition, we will remove the position of representative to NC Libraries from our Board, as the restructuring of NC Libraries makes this position unnecessary.

Plans for SELA/NCLA

Part Two of “Current Collection Development Issues in Federal Government Documents” will be held in Charlotte, tentatively including panelists from Appalachian State University, Public Library of Charlotte-Mecklenburg, and Davidson College. Efforts to combine with counterparts from SELA did not gel, so we will proceed with this program, which will be followed by our section’s annual business meeting.

Respectfully submitted,

Bryna Coonin (Chair) and Beth L. Rowe (Vice-Chair/Chair Elect)
NCLA Documents Section