Hello SSP Members!
It’s hard to believe it’s been two months since the annual meeting. This year’s meeting was a huge success, with the second highest attendance of all time, plenty of opportunities to interact with friends and colleagues, and a program that had something for everyone.
I was personally impressed by the turn out at the “Get Involved with SSP” Luncheon. Many of you volunteered to join committees. Thank you!
We also got to hear from this year’s committee co-chairs:
- Annual Meeting Program: Mary Beth Barilla and Laura Ricci
- Audit: Jennifer Pesanelli
- Communications: Mike DiNatale and Jake Zarnegar
- Development: Wendy Newsham and Veronica Showers
- Education: Mary Anne Baynes and Heather Staines
- Finance: Byron Laws
- Marketing: Lori Carlin and Jeremy Nielsen
- Membership: Anna Jester and Tom Thrash
- Nominating & Awards: Howard Ratner
- Organizational Collaboration: Judy Luther and Brian Owens
- Professional Development: Victoria Rae and Lois Smith
- Scholarly Kitchen Cabinet: Sue Kesner
- Travel Grants Working Group: Will Wakeling
- Chapters Task Force: Mike Mozina
- Data Access Task Force: Eileen Kiley Novak
But rest assured that we’ve remained busy since the annual meeting. After several years of steady growth, the SSP Board determined that it was time for us to bring in an Executive Director (ED) focused on our strategic vision for the future. We embarked upon a search and, from a pool of more than 90 respondents, the search committee unanimously agreed to offer the position to Melanie Dolecheck. She will officially start as our ED on August 10th.
Ann Mehan Crosse, of the Kellen Company, will continue to serve as the Deputy Executive Director of the SSP. Ann has been a critical part of our SSP team for the past eight years and we look forward to seeing what Melanie and Ann will accomplish together!
This week we will be launching our new weekly email newsletter for SSP members only, which we’ve called Re:member. Because there is so much going on in scholarly communications, our goal with Re:member is to provide SSP members with a brief weekly recap and highlight any interesting industry developments or upcoming events. Look for Re:member in your inbox every Thursday from now on! And . . . remember . . . this is only for SSP Members.
Finally, please join us for some excellent programming this August and September! We’ll be hosting our first Chicago Librarian Focus Group on August 31st. We also have our Fall Seminar Series scheduled in Washington, DC, September 16-17th. And if you can’t come out to meet us in person, the webinar series is also continuing on September 8th with Evolving Engagement Strategies – are we getting sticky or stuck?
We’d love to see you!
Ann Michael
SSP President, 2015-16
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