NASIG Newsletter

[Ed. note: Highlights from the fall committee report to the Executive Board.]

MEMBERSHIP DEVELOPMENT
Marla Chesler and Tina Feick, Co-Chairs

Bob Boissy and Zac Rolnic researched institutional membership options at several other organizations. They wrote a report with recommendations for the Executive Board.

The Executive Board asked our committee to look at the Facebook page that was created for NASIG. Several of our committee members joined the group, but since we decided to informally watch the group rather than try to impose any kind of NASIG rule. The mentor group does feel that the Facebook page may be useful for the mentors/mentees at the next conference. Continue reading 22:4 (2007:12) Committee Update: MDC…

MEMBERSHIP DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE
Marla Chesler and Tina Feick, Co-chairs

REPORT OF ACTIVITIES FROM NOVEMBER 2006 – APRIL 2007

NARRATIVE OF ACTIVITIES SINCE LAST REPORT FROM OCTOBER 2006

CONTINUING ACTIVITIES

• A draft of the revised NASIG brochure has been sent to the NASIG Executive Board for review.  Morag Boyd, Alice Rhoades, Linda Griffin, Meg Walker, and Pam Cipkowski worked on the revision.   We will produce one set of quick set of brochures using a color printer to get the revised brochures out quickly – by May 16.  The professionally printed brochures will be available shortly afterward. (Strategic Direction #2 & 4)
• Tina Feick has been in contact with Tyler Goldberg, one of the Louisville Conference Planning Committee chairs to see if there were local serial-related groups that we could send membership brochures to encourage them to join and attend the conference. (Strategic Direction #2 & 6)
• Members of the MDC have volunteered to serve as mentors for the upcoming NASIG conference is Louisville, KY. (Strategic Direction #1 &2)
• We are still working on a survey to the NASIG commercial sector in order to determine what would keep NASIG relevant to the group and to increase participation in the commercial sector. (Strategic Direction #2 &6)
• After the conference, the MDC will contact attendees that did not join NASIG to see why they didn’t join and to encourage them to join for 2008. (Strategic Direction #2 &6)
• Mentor Group Activities
  o The first announcement to sign-up for the Mentoring Program was sent out on April 3rd and it has been publicized in a number of other locations.  The deadline has also been added to the conference important dates.
  o At least two more reminders will be going out before May 14. 
  o Updated mentoring forms have also been made available from the main NASIG webpage and the conference page. 
  o A list of new members will be sent to us shortly and we will be sending a target announcement to them as well.

COMPLETED ACTIVITIES

• The MDC (Membership Development Committee) reviewed our membership and asked Alice Rhoades, Linda Griffin, Meg Walker, and Morag Boyd to accept reappointment of their committee membership for another two years.  They all agreed.
• Tina and Marla met at ALA Midwinter in Seattle.
• In February 2007, MDC started sending out personalized renewal notices for members who had not yet renewed.  We included their NASIG membership ID to facilitate the renewal process.  (Strategic Direction #2 &6)
• The committee wrote up a report on the renewal process to submit to the Executive Board.  It was suggested that the report be sent to the Database & Directory Committee since they are the group responsible for the renewals. (Strategic Direction #2 &6)

ACTIVITIES THAT SUPPORT THE NASIG STRATEGIC PLAN
The committee is involved in activities, which support Strategic Directions 1-4 & 6.  Please see notes in Continuing Activities and Completed Activities.
 
ANY CHANGES OR EXCEPTIONS TO BUDGET
None
 
STATISTICAL INFORMATION
Renewal Reminders:
• Renewal reminders sent February 2007: 455
• Bad email addresses:  17
• Number indicating they had or planned on renewing soon = 31
• Number indicating they did not intend to renew = 21
• Non-renewed members as of 3/30/2007 = 380
• Number of members renewed after the reminders were sent = 75
 
ACTION(S) REQUIRED BY BOARD (IF APPLICABLE)
None
 
QUESTIONS FOR BOARD (IF APPLICABLE)
None
 
RECOMMENDATIONS TO BOARD (IF APPLICABLE)
After reviewing our charge, we would like to recommend that the following sentence be removed since we are a standing committee and are required to submit reports to the Executive Board on a regular basis:

The Committee will prepare a Membership Development Plan with specific action items for review by the Executive Board at their Fall 2006 meeting.

[Ed. note:  Highlights from a report submitted for the fall Executive Board meeting.] 

MEMBERSHIP DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE
Marla Chesler and Tina Feick, Co-Chairs 

The committee is currently revising the NASIG membership brochure.  They have been actively discussing strategies to increase membership and to help NASIG reach a better balance among academic librarians, other librarians, students, and members from the commercial sector.  Some of these strategies include: 

• Make it possible for conference registrants to join NASIG while registering
• Make MDC a permanent committee
• Conduct various projects on a regular basis, such as contacting members who did not renew for the new year
• Support the Library School Outreach Task Force
• Support the Mentoring Program

In support of NASIG’s strategic direction of broadening the membership, the committee is working to identify needs of the commercial sector and to suggest conference programming to benefit those in the commercial sector. 

Over the past five years, NASIG membership has stabilized at around 1250.  Based on an analysis of NASIG membership numbers from past years, committee member Bob Boissy noted several trends: 

• The content/service provider segment has dropped from 257 in 1998 to 156 in 2006, a decrease of 40%
• Each year membership in the conference area increases by 30-50 and drops by about the same number the following year
• Public library participation has increased from 21 in 1996 to a high of 40 in 2004, an increase of 100% (2006 membership is 3
• The increase in dues for 2006 had little effect on membership, except for those who change jobs and/or do not consider NASIG as a primary professional membership

Committee recommendations include: 

• Increase the number of content/service providers, especially publishers
• Increase the number of non-academic library members
• Increase the number of library school students
• Continue to focus on retaining our core base
• Increase the total number of members in order to meet the above objectives

MEMBERSHIP DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE
Maggie Rioux, Profiles Editor

There’s a new kid in NASIG-town. Well, make that a new committee, or actually an almost-new committee. The committee which was, in years past, the Membership Committee has been re-defined and re-invented as the Membership Development Committee, with the emphasis on the Development part. Both the committee and the membership parts are intended to be the objects of the development part.

Back in the olden days, everybody knew what serials were – paper things that showed up periodically (pun intended) in a library. Everybody knew who the players were: publishers, subscription agents, librarians, back issue dealers. And everybody knew there was one organization where they could all get together – NASIG. Well, now that all has become so last millennium.

Now serials come in all flavors and media. They seem to show up in various places (mail boxes, computer screens, CD drawers) at random. The players still include the original three, but now there are also computer geeks, institutional repository people, archivers (dark and light), database managers, you name it. However the idea continues that there should still be one organization where we can all get together – NASIG. It’s the charge of the new Membership Development Committee to make sure we all know about it and feel welcome in the organization.

The committee is taking its charge seriously. Since being appointed last spring, they’ve been hard at work, meeting face-to-face in Denver and at ALA in June, participating in several conference calls and burning up the email lines in their efforts to help make NASIG more relevant to current and potential members. One good source of ideas was the brainstorming session at the Denver conference (if this gets done again in Louisville next May, be sure to attend if you can). The things they are working on cover a broad range.

One thing the group did this year was to follow up on all non-renewing members to see why they didn’t re-up. Some folks just couldn’t be located. Most didn’t renew because serials were no longer a part of their jobs and only a few cited the dues increase. One suggestion has been to include NASIG membership in the higher conference registration rate for non-members. Also, it is important to get all members to attend the first-timers reception at the conference (not just first-timers) so that new folks can be greeted and made to feel welcome.

A major part of the committee’s charge is to work at enlarging NASIG membership so that it is representative of all parts of the serials chain in proportion to the size of the sector. Yes, we definitely want better representation from publishers and other commercial sector folks of all ilks, but it may not be a bad thing that we have a lot of library-based members – there are an awful lot of library-based serialists out there in North America. The group is looking at what NASIG can offer some of these constituent groups in the way of programming and conference experiences that will make their membership valuable and worthwhile. Also, as the serials world expands to include new groups of folks (see above) we need to look at how to appeal to them as well.

Just to show you that everything is on the table if it will develop membership, the committee has even kicked around the idea of changing NASIG to NACIG, with the S for serials changing to a C for content. This might reflect our broader constituency base and also make it easier for those in a non-traditional part of serials to get support for membership and conference attendance. At least it’s a thought.

And who are these intrepid explorers – those who would dare even speculate on changing the sacred NASIG acronym? Well, there are two co-chairs: Tina Feick, who has been in NASIG since the very beginning, has attended all the conferences and knows everyone and everything, is one. The other co-chair is Marla Chesler, who also has a broad serials background, having worked for both libraries and vendors and who knows almost everyone and everything. The rest of the group, the full list of which you’ll find on NASIGWeb, is an excellent mix of library- and commercially-based folks.

By the time you read this, the Membership Development Committee will have made its major report to the Executive Board at its fall meeting. They’ll be hard at work beginning to implement some of the things they’ve learned and the recommendations they’ve taken to the Board. Please help them with their task by continuing to promote NASIG among your fellow serialists, welcoming new members either at the conference First Timers Reception or even by sending an email to someone you know on the list of new members posted to NASIG-L and last, but not least, by continuing to share ideas for developing NASIG and providing programming which will appeal to and benefit all of our varied serialist constituencies.

MEMBERSHIP DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE
Marla Chesler and Tina Feick, Co-Chairs 

Committee Members:  Bob Boissy (Springer), Morag Boyd (Illinois State University), Pam Cipkowski (Art Institute of Chicago), Linda Newman Cox (Northwestern State University), Linda Griffin (Louisiana State University), Claire Rasmussen (University of Wisconsin – Madison), Alice Rhoades (Rice University), October Ivins (Consultant) and Kim Maxwell (Board Liaison). 

NARRATIVE OF ACTIVITIES SINCE LAST REPORT
The NASIG Membership Development Committee was formed in February 2006. 

• Linda Griffin was appointed to be the MDC Representative on the Library Student Outreach Task Force.
• Our first conference call was on March 8, 2006. 
  • During that call, we reviewed our charge and agreed to submit our Membership Development Plan by September 15, 2006. 
  • We also made plans to work with the non-renewed NASIG member list in order to send out reminders.
  • The committee reviewed the available statistical data on NASIG membership that was available and determined that the data needed to up updated.  We then discussed the various member types in NASIG and decided that the needs of the commercial sector needed to be researched. 
  • The 2002 strategic survey was reviewed in order to make sure we were aware of any previously identified areas of need.
• Our second conference call was on March 27, 2006.
  • During that meeting, we reviewed a draft letter to be sent to non-renewed NASIG members and agreed to try to send out the reminders before the conference registration deadline on April 11, 2006. 
  • The NASIG database was also discussed.  The committee is interested in adding new fields to the database in order to get better statistics and to be able to keep track of members that have not renewed.
  • The updating of the statistical data reported to be making progress. 
  • Different options for increasing the benefits for commercial members were discussed.
  • The committee was also asked to find a NASIG representative to attend a library school event in
    Fullerton, CA.
• Our third conference call was on April 11, 2006. 
  • An update on the status of the renewal reminders was given.  Committee members were asked to send the responses they received to Marla.
    • We had 30 reminders returned due to bad email addresses.  We wondered   if the database could track bad emails and what a reasonable process might be to try to find correct email addresses.
  • Teresa Malinowski agreed to attend the California library school event.  She was sent NASIG brochures and the banner.
• Our fourth conference call was on April 24, 2006.
  • During that meeting a summary of the responses received from the renewal notices was distributed.
  •  We discussed what should be included in our report to the NASIG Executive Board. 

CONTINUING ACTIVITIES

• List of desired additions to the NASIG Database – including tracking/researching bad email addresses. 
• Identifying the needs of the commercial sector. (Strategic Direction #2)
• Suggest programming that benefits the commercial sector.  (Strategic Direction #3)
• Gathering statistical data on past membership
• Evaluating why members do not renew their NASIG membership
• Future projects to identify future NASIG memberships

COMPLETED ACTIVITIES

• NASIG renewal reminders sent out to 383 NASIG members that had not renewed.  As of April 26, 2006, 22 had either renewed or indicated that they still intend to renew.  45 stated that they would not renew and included a variety of reasons such as the dues increase or they had changed positions and were no longer involved in serials.  30 of the messages were returned because the email address was incorrect.   25% RETURN RATE to project.
• Teresa Malinowski accepted an invitation to represent NASIG at the “Conversation with Library Leaders” event in Fullerton, CA.  (Strategic Direction #2 and #4)
• Linda Griffin appointed to Library Student Outreach Program.

ACTIVITIES THAT SUPPORT THE NASIG STRATEGIC PLAN 
The committee is involved in activities, which support Strategic Directions 1 – 4.  Please see notes in Continuing Activities and Completed Activities.