2003 SCLA New Members Round Table Annual Report

One of the first things I did as this year's NMRT chairman was to set up an NMRT listserv at Yahoo! Groups on the Internet. The purpose of the listserv was to create a forum for new librarians to share ideas and to ask general questions about the library profession. Via the listserv, I informed the roundtable about such SCLA issues as membership dues, the SCLA fall conference, the American Library Association conference, and the SCLA newsletter. Another early task I did as chairman was to e-mail various libraries in the Upstate and within the University of South Carolina asking if anyone was interested in joining SCLA. The purpose of this task was to increase the NMRT membership. I got several encouraging responses this way, and I hope that more people will join and bring their expertise to NMRT and SCLA.

I would like to highlight two major accomplishments for NMRT this year. The first accomplishment was the updating of the NMRT brochure after several years. I would like to thank Capitol Consultants for helping me with this task. I distributed the brochure at the recent SCLA fall conference, and the brochure was well-received. The second accomplishment was reestablishing the NMRT New Professsional Award. I would like to thank EBSCO for their sponsorship of this award. This year's award recipient was Maria Jones of the Beaufort County Public Library. I presented her with this award at this year's SCLA fall conference, and she was quite pleased to receive it.

NMRT was very active during this year's SCLA fall conference. We put on a breakfast for new librarians, which was sponsored by Quality Books. We also co-sponsored with SOLINET a conference session about good news for libraries in tough times, which featured SOLINET president Kate Nevins. We also put on a storytelling session featuring Elaine Nichols, who is the history curator of the South Carolina State Museum. All of our conference sessions were well-attended and were considered a success.

All in all, NMRT did quite well this year. I have enjoyed serving as NMRT chairman for 2003, and I have a lot of confidence and hope for the future of NMRT.

Respectfully submitted,

Amanda B. Turner
December 2003