Winter Meeting
& Holiday Get-Together 
MALA met for its annual Winter Meeting & Holiday Get-Together on Monday evening, December 6th. Louise White and Lucio Chiaraviglio hosted at their house. The stormy day settled down by nightfall, and by 7pm most of the members and guests had arrived. The refreshments table seemed extra loaded this year. The gathering included new members and familiar faces.
The following are minutes from the meeting:
MALA Winter Meeting and
Holiday Get-Together
December 6, 2004
The MALA Winter Meeting and Holiday Get-Together was held on Monday,
December 6, 2004 at the home of Louise White and Lucio Chiaraviglio. The
gathering began at 6:30pm with refreshments. The business meeting
followed, and a summary follows.
Dr. Rick Wright, President, called for nominations for officers for
2005. A single slate was nominated and approved. MALA's elected officers
for 2005 are:
Tim Wojcik, President
Kate Stirk, Vice President - Programming
Gayle Christian, Vice President - Membership
Steven Vincent, Treasurer
Nancy Bryant, Secretary
Louise White retains her special responsibility as MALA Historian.
Then followed discussion of the $100 MALA MLS Student Scholarship Essay.
Louise White made the motion that the scholarship be opened to all
Georgia residents attending MLS library school anywhere, or all
non-residents attending an MLS school in Georgia. A modification was
suggested but not approved, to limit the scholarship opportunity to all
people attending MLS library school in Georgia only, both resident and
non-resident. It was agreed that the qualifications and scholarship
amount will be revisited next year. The original motion passed.
Certificates of appreciation were distributed to Rick Wright and Tim
Wojcik.
Rick Wright accepted a pen & pencil gift set as appreciation for his two
years of service as president of MALA. The officers gave Louise White a
gift bag for all her work on behalf of MALA, and her hosting the MALA Holiday
Party the last several years.
Dr. Ismail Abdullahi distributed a summary of the November 29, 2004 Town Hall
Meeting on library education in Georgia. He summarized the events of the
past year which culminated in the Board of Clark Atlanta University's
refusal to reverse their decision to close the CAU School of Library and
Information Studies. He stated that the CAU Board had refused the
proposals of Valdosta State to cooperate on various levels. The Board
had also consistently refused the help, support, and dialog of the
American Library Association officials, and the library community at
large.
He thanked MALA for supporting four Library School Town Hall meetings in
2003-2004, and for
its members' enduring support of the program and continuing commitment
to library education in Georgia.
Dr. Abdullahi stated that metropolitan Atlanta must have a site for
library education, since the majority of the students and employers are
here. Regarding Valdosta State University's ALA
accreditation, they have just
received candidacy status, and have 2 years to complete building their
infrastructure and getting their finances in order. There is an initiative to transfer CAU library
education materials to VSU, just as Emory University transferred materials to
CAU when their library school closed.
The remaining CAU MLS students are under extra stress, relating to finances and
the compressed timeline to complete their studies by May 2005.
Preserving the CAU MLS heritage of graduating a significant number of
African-Americans and supporting multi-cultural courses are also
concerns. Dr. Abdullahi called upon the MALA membership and the library
community to continue their support of librarianship in Georgia, and
noted that ALA is also committed to doing so.
Tim Wojcik thanked the membership for their vote of confidence. Questionnaires for programming suggestions were distributed.
The meeting was adjourned at 9:15pm.
Submitted by Nancy Bryant, MALA Secretary
12/13/2004