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Vol. 22, No. 3/Spring 2000

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Ginny EverettNotes from the Chair
By Ginny Everett

On to Philadelphia!

It's hard to believe that we will soon reconvene for our annual conference. Whether you attend in person or virtually through program postings on the News Division Web site, Chair-Elect Debra Bade has put together a compelling program offering. The programs represent the variety of issues that we deal with on a regular basis: finding and hiring good people, managing end-user access to research tools, news content on the Web, and ethics in an online world, just to name a few. Stephanie Willen Brown and Rob Robinson have prepared a day devoted to computer-assisted reporting as well.

For those able to attend, Carol Campbell had planned a great party for the new millennium. And, as always, there will plenty of opportunities for both old-timers and newcomers to schmooze, network, vent, etc. in the suite. Chris Hardesty's famous News Division auction will give you the chance to take home the perfect souvenir. On the business side, we will have reports from the year-long activities of our committees – including Automation/Technology, Strategic Planning and more.

I hope that many of you will be able to attend this year. As a News Division member who has attended SLA conferences since 1988, I still find that the opportunity to be with people who do the same kinds of things is one of the best values around. With an ever-expanding list of conferences on a variety of topics, it is sometimes hard to find the time or money to attend one, much less more than one conference. Those competing conferences reflect the increasingly competitive and complex world that news researchers and archivists inhabit.

Certainly there are news research-centric questions: How *do* you lure those new librarians to your research center if a Web company will pay them more than you can? (Who woulda thunk it - thanks to Yahoo, cataloging and indexing are sexy!) How do you make the case for higher salaries to your managers? How do you help your newsroom best use the plethora of information resources?

The explosion in new media has created a new environment where it seems like everyone's a publisher. As a result, we have to think broadly. News researchers and archivists continue to infiltrate new media, just as the lines in media companies are blurring between old and new media. As Steve Outing said in his Stop the Presses column for January 5, 2000 (www.mediainfo.com): "...stop thinking of your company as a newspaper, TV station, magazine, wire service ... whatever you have been up to now. Because what you will become in coming years -- assuming you want a business that is growing and takes advantage of the profit opportunities that the Internet of the future represents - is an information company."

As information managers and the most Web-savvy people at your news organization (you are, aren't you?), how do you contribute to your company's bottom line? By making the case for leveraging information assets to generate new revenue streams? By training reporters, editors, photographers and artists to use the Web to enhance what they produce? By helping your management recognize and sort out the threats and opportunities that our companies face?

The opportunities in and for our information companies are endless.

It's an exciting time to be in our profession. And as the mantle of Chair and Chair-Elect passes to our new Chair, Debra Bade and new Chair-Elect, Jody Habayeb, I look forward to seeing the News Division's members seizing the opportunity to lead the way as we move further into this shape-shifting information age.

Finally, as I step down from this bully pulpit, I must tell you what a privilege it has been to serve as your chair. The News Division's great strength is it's membership, and I hope to see many of you as we celebrate our first meeting of the new century.

Ginny Everett is the head of the library at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Her email is geverett@ajc.com


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