NASIG Newsletter

DATABASE & DIRECTORY
Lisa Blackwell and Bob Persing, Co-chairs

Committee Members: Alice Bright (Carnegie Mellon University) 06/08, Heather Cannon (Loyola Health Sciences Library) 07/09, Ann Ercelawn (Vanderbilt University) 07/09, Cecilia Genereux (University of Minnesota) 07/09, Julie Kane (Sweet Briar College) 07/09, Tzu Jing Kao (University of Connecticut) 07/09, Greg Matthews (Washington State University) 06/08, Suzanne Thomas (University of Pittsburgh) 07/09, Taylor, Marit (joining after the annual conference).
Board liaison: Jeff Slagell

ACTIVITIES

• Calls to renew memberships were posted on NASIG-L periodically beginning in early October and ending in January. A decision from bylaws allowed members who renewed up to the close of voting to participate in the elections. Because the voting took place using the ArcStone system, D&D individually activated members who renewed after the data migration in January which enabled those members to vote.
• Late last year, NASIG negotiated a contract with ArcStone Technologies to create a dynamic, fully integrated website incorporating all NASIG online documents including the membership database. The new website capabilities will include event management, member voting, electronic communication, and all monetary transactions. The backbone of the data in the system consists of all NASIG member records housed in the extant database on the Yale server. D&D worked to standardize as much of the data as possible prior to final migration of data to ArcStone. All active 2007 members and all members renewed or newly paid for 2008 after 7/1/2007 were set to active status. All others were deactivated. The initial data migration took place in October. 1838 records total were copied to the ArcStone database.

MEMBERSHIP STATISTICS
Active (including new or renewed for 2008 ) as of 4/30/2008: 733 (for comparison purposes, we had 781 active members last year at this time.)

Active (including new or renewed for 2008 ) as of 1/4/2008: 458
New and renewed members for 2007 as of 10/2007: 872 (all members not renewed or new for 2007 after 7/1/2007 were subsequently deactivated prior to final data migration in preparation for opening of voting.)

At the time of this report, full descriptive reports are not yet available via the ArcStone database. Of note: new member additions and renewals continue to come in at a steady pace prior to the May conference registration deadline. As anticipated, many individuals choose to renew or join during conference registration. As soon as possible, D&D will generate a detailed membership profile report.

WORKING GOALS

• Develop committee procedures and documentation specific to the ArcStone product.
• Train each member of the committee to fully understand how to work with the new interface.
• Continue cleanup and standardization of member and organization records.