Atlantic Chapter Annual Report 2022
submitted by Winston Barham
Current Roster
- Winston Barham, Chair
List of Previous Goals and Progress Made
- To revive the Membership Committee and engage a new webmaster.
- To update our website and foster a more active social media presence.
- To encourage conference presentation submissions through Humanities Commons.
- To apply for grants for programs that increase outreach efforts for underrepresented communities and provide programs for which librarians (both professionally credentialed and non-professionally credentialed or whose titles indicate such status) can participate and develop without travel to the national meeting.
- To facilitate travel to the national meeting by offering travel assistance grants.
List of Future Goals
Most of the chapter’s activities this year centered around planning for our fall meeting- whether we could accomplish some in-person element given our planning resources. It was a season of significant professional transition for some of our board members, so that directed some of our energies elsewhere. However, we were infused with energy by Becca Fülöp, who not only joined our chapter as MLStEP liaison but also volunteered to host the in-person portion of our annual chapter meeting. Fortunately this meeting was a success and a great accomplishment given the limited forces involved in planning. The Program Committee assembled an impressive program including several presentations centered on DEI, including a tour of an important archival collection at Temple University documenting Black cultural life in Philadelphia. Our membership (according to participation in our listserv) has remained steady.
One action our Board took to address inequity was with our chapter travel grant — specifically concerning the practice of reimbursement which we determined to be difficult for some who would take advantage of the grant needing to front their own funds in order to attend. While we had no applicants for the fall meeting, we have adjusted our procedures to accommodate prepayment with the Secretary/Treasurer’s involvement wherever possible. We also will deliberate a request from the membership to remove the restrictions limiting the travel grant to students and early-career professionals.