Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship	Summer 1999

Conference Reports

STS Membership and Recruitment Committee

Nirmala Bangalore
University of Illinois, Chicago
nbangalo@uic.edu

The Committee decided that holding the "Welcome to ALA" reception for new and continuing STS members on Saturday morning at the Convention Center worked out better than the previous Friday evening slot. The same day and time will be requested for the 2000 ALA Chicago conference. Announcing the reception via sci/tech related mailing lists reached many potential attendees.

A new brochure will be designed and printed. The Committee discussed ways of recruiting more members to the section. Currently fourth largest in ACRL, STS had 1,926 members as of February 1999, with 144 new members and 118 drops. Thirty-five people responded to a brief survey of reasons for dropping STS: 6: New ALA "2-sections with paid division dues" rule. 11: My duties have changed. 2: My interests have changed. 15: Other (various reasons, e.g., retired, financial problems, forgot to renew). 1: Blank.

The survey yielded no data to assist the Committee in retaining STS members. The Committee concluded that organizational membership is down across sections, but we cannot do much for retention of this group. While 14 out of 17 ACRL sections show negative membership figures, STS has a small increase (less than 1%). The Committee will work on achieving a higher figure.

Letters will be sent to potential members (those attending STS functions and signing in as "not a member"). Sending letters to renewing members was seen as unnecessary at this time.

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