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ChapterNews
1
Vol. 76, #5 Winter 2005
Letter from the President
The Chapter Budget
 The Chapter Board is in the process of preparing the budget for 2005. Many of our members may be unaware of some basic facts regarding Chapter finances, soI wanted to take this opportunity to explain some of the basics, give some quick insights, and clear up some possible misconceptions about the Chapter’s budget.I hope this will make the Chapter budget process more transparent to our members. The budget consists of items that are either essential or optional activities.Essential activities include: conducting our Annual Chapter Business Meeting,producing
ChapterNews 
, maintaining our Discussion List and website, etc. Since we can’t operate as a Chapter without engaging in these activities, they must beconsidered absolutely “required” and our allotment money from headquartersmust be used to fund these activities first.Optional activities would involve everything else: topical programs of currentinterest to members, professional development activities, library school liaisonefforts, student scholarships, Career Day, and the Holiday Party. As we readthese budget items, it is obvious that many of our optional activities are actually some of our most worthwhile and popular activities. The Chapter receives all of its annual operating revenue from three primary sources:
▲
Our per-member annual allotment from Association Headquarters
▲
 Advertising revenue from
ChapterNews 
▲
Sponsorship from vendorsIn 2004, our annual allotment was only $15,348 (down from well over $16,000in 2002) and we anticipate that our allotment will be considerably less in 2005because of fluctuations in membership. Our allotment from the Association is$12 per member, which represents only 9.6 % of the full membership rate of $125, however, we do receive the same amount on Student memberships as well. To my mind, the overall allotment ratio from Headquarters merits furtherserious exploration by the membership. Advertising revenue was around $6,000 in 2004 but we are increasing the rates in 2005.In 2004, our combined vendor sponsorship for our “topical programs” and forCareer Day amounted to only $5,150, which was much less than we had antici-pated. However, vendors were willing to pay $7,200 to fully-sponsor a singleB&F Vendor Fair, which enabled them to demo their products. The upshot in2004 was that program contributions totaled $12,350 while program coststotaled $18,200 and the Chapter had to make up the shortfall. The challenge of the current Chapter Board (and all future ones) is to find themeans to pay for worthwhile programs and activities, while managing the budgetin a rational way through economic downturns. We must also face the fact that whenever funding sources cannot be found, then even traditional programs and
ChapterNews
 Volume 76,#5 Winter 2005
IN THIS ISSUE
Letter from the President:The Chapter Budget..................1Message from theDirector of Publications:Person to Person.......................3New Year’s Resolutions.................4Party On!........................................5Movie Review -The Librarian:Quest for the Spear...................7Chapter Announcements..............8SLAInterview with aCourt Law Librarian.................10Tsumani Relief Effort....................11Web Site Resources:The Manufacturing Sector.......13
ADVERTISERS
Dialog.............................................9Donna Conti Career Resources.....8EBSCO...........................................3EOS International...........................5Factiva.........................................12Global Securities Information, Inc...6Heller Information Services............4InfoCurrent...................................11Pro Libra......................................14Wontawk......................................11
(Letter continues on page 2)
 
ChapterNews
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Vol. 76, #5 Winter 2005
ChapterNewsNew York ChapterSpecial Libraries AssociationSummer Vol.76, No.5
PUBLICATIONSCHEDULE
ChapterNews,
the bulletin of the New York Chapter of theSpecial Libraries Association,
is published four times a year.
Deadlines for submitting materials:
Fall issueSeptember 24 Winter issueDecember 15Spring issueMarch 15Summer issueMay 14
Submit all material to:
 Jennifer Kellerman
ChapterNews 
EditorE-mail: jkellerman@paulweiss.com
Submissions:
 Articles on topics of general interest to infor-mation professionals and the New York Chapter are welcome. Authors can send submissions via e-mail as text file or MS Word for Windows attachments, or with article in the body of the e-mail. Please use single-line spacing, Courier font, withminimal use of boldface and italics. Include a byline with yourfull name and place of work.
ADVERTISING
inquiries should be addressed to:Nancy Bowles235 East 22nd Street, Apt 9LNew York, NY 10010 Telephone: (212) 679-7088 orE-mail: nancy.bowles@verizon.net
DESIGN & LAYOUT:
Gatta Design & Company, Inc.For inquiries call (212) 229-0071 or www.gattago.com
Special Libraries Association 
assumes no responsibility for thestatements and opinions advanced by contributors to the Associa-tion’s publications. Editorial views do not necessarily represent theofficial position of Special Libraries Association. Acceptance of an advertisement does not imply endorsement of the product by Special Libraries Association.
CHAPTERNEWS STAFF
Director of PublicationsMike Gruenberg
ChapterNews 
EditorJennifer Kellerman Advertising Manager Nancy Bowles WebmasterMichael Rivasevents have to be questioned, restructured, scaled back,or cut out entirely in any given year. There are sometough choices that the board may have to face this year.Some good news, however, is that our new sponsorshipstrategy is already working. The Board is now using a tentative calendar of eventsfor 2005 to seek sponsorship for programs. We are alsorequiring formal commitments from sponsors who expressinterest in specific programs. If particular programsdon’t generate sufficient commitments among sponsors,then for lack of funding they probably won’t happen.In addition, it was very clear from the Vendor Fair eventin 2004 that companies are more forthcoming withsponsorship dollars when they can demo their products.In tough economic times, vendors’ budgets are also cutback, and they require more justification when givingaway sponsorship dollars. For this reason, we are offer-ing “product demos” to vendors as part of our new spon-sorship strategy. We will also provide greater recognitionto sponsors through our website, discussion list, andother means. Several sponsors have already respondedfavorably to these ideas.Furthermore, since most SLA chapters are already charging ticket prices for their programs, the New York Chapter Board will explore this possibility in 2005.Some members are aware that the Chapter maintains aReserve Fund, which is kept on deposit at headquartersin a Pooled Fund. Going forward, the Reserve Fund canno longer be relied upon to make up shortfalls in fundingannual Chapter activities since we are required to maintaina minimum reserve balance that must be comparable toour annual budget. The Chapter is no longer “awash inreserve money” as some of our members mistakenly believe. At one time that may have been the case, but no longer. We will keep you posted on our successful sponsorshipefforts for 2005. Please feel free to contact me with any ideas you may have to increase sponsorship levels. Wish-ing you all the best in 2005!
Thomas Pellizzi
(Letter continued from page 1)
 
Message FromThe Director of Publications
Person to Person
By Mike Gruenberg
I
remember the famous newscaster,
Edward R. Murrow
,had a television show entitled “
 Person to Person
.” Every  week, Murrow would sit in his television studio withhis trademark cigarette burning between his fingers while he interviewed celebrities of the day, their imageson a giant screen before him. Murrow spoke to thesepeople as though he was visiting them at home. He hada great charm and wit about him. He posed intelligentquestions about the pressing issues of the day.Recently, I attended the annual Holiday Party sponsoredby the New York chapter of the Special Libraries Associ-ation. In years gone by, the party has been held in a vari-ety of venues. For the most part, I have attended theseget-togethers as a vendor and my primary concern hasalways been to see my clients. No thought was ever givento the cost of the party since I simply paid my admissionfee and proceeded to eat and drink while merrily mixing with the many people I knew. This year, in my role as a Board member, I viewed theparty in an entirely different light. I now understood theamount of work that had to be done just to find an ade-quate location. I also became acutely aware of the costsassociated with such an event and, much to my chagrinfound out that, even with a $40 fee, the chapter losesmoney on each and every participant. Moreover, thechapter does not differentiate between “members” and“non-members” when deciding an entrance fee, whichmeans that both groups pay exactly the same amount toget in. Quite a charitable gesture…but the chapter seemsto have forgotten that charity begins at home. At the Board meetings to discuss how our financial bud-get gap can be lessened, the old “let’s get a vendor tosponsor this event” solution always seemed to be raised.Since
Tom Pellizzi
and I are the only vendors on theBoard, all eyes usually turned to us for our comments.Since I work for a large company that sells its productsto libraries, I often give my views on how to figure out ways to approach the vendor community to help under- write the costs of an event such as the Holiday Party. At this years’ party, the Senior Vice President of GlobalSales and the Vice President of Global Sales from my company made a special trip from our home office in Massachusetts to come to New York for the Holiday Party in support of the chapter. I saw a number of other vendors with members of their sales staff also in attendance. By encouraging increased attendance at chapter events suchas the Holiday Party, we really help to help bridge ourbudget gap, but to me there is more to this story. At the Holiday Party, I felt a bit like Edward R. Murrowas I looked into the imagined television screen and watched members and vendors mingle. I wondered howmany members would go back to work the next day andremark to their colleagues about who they saw at theparty. I wondered if anyone would say that they were dis-appointed that a particular vendor did not have the timeor the inclination to attend and if that cavalier attitude onthe part of that vendor would influence future purchasesof their product. I wondered if vendor participation hadany direct effect on library purchasing preferences.It’s easy to say that a particular vendor should helpunderwrite the cost of the party or any SLA event, but itis clearly another more difficult thing to actively supportthe products of that vendor. If, as an organization, weseek out vendor support, then it is incumbent upon themembership to seriously support the products of that vendor. For example, which vendors attended the party 
ChapterNews
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Vol. 76, #5 Winter 2005
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