President's Message(June 2008)

The Top Ten Things I Learned as CLA President

1. Connecticut has a wonderful library community of dedicated and talented library professionals, enthusiastic Friends and supportive Trustees.
2. Academic, public, special and school librarians have many common concerns as they cope with a constantly evolving information environment.
3. The CLA Legislative Agenda is critical for all of Connecticut’s libraries.
4. Planning an annual conference is very hard work.
5. No matter how hard you try, you won’t satisfy every CLA member.
6. CLA needs to work harder to get more academic librarians to join the association and attend the annual conference.
7. Library vendors are not as generous with sponsorships as they used to be.
8. I now know the directions to the CLA office in Middletown as well as I know the directions to my job.
9. One year is long enough to be CLA President.
10. It’s hard to think of a fresh idea for a newsletter column each month.

I learned a great deal about leadership skills over the course of my year as CLA president, and I thank the membership for giving me the opportunity to serve the association. I also want to extend my thanks to the entire CLA Board, and especially to the Executive Committee, for their support during the past year.

The CLA staff, Pam Najarian and Kirsten Kilbourn, and Chris Bradley, executive director of CLC, worked closely with me on all aspects of planning the conference and with the operations of our organization during the past year, and I thank them for their support.

Special thanks goes to my conference co-chairs, Randi Ashton-Pritting and Paula Cook; our many conference planning meetings required that they learn the directions to the CLA office as well as I did.

Thanks also to David Kapp, editor of this newsletter, who did a great job of editing my column each month.

Finally, I want to extend my best wishes to incoming CLA President Kathy Leeds for a successful term in office, and to remind you, once again, to encourage your colleagues to become members of and active in the Connecticut Library Association.

Carl Antonucci is Director of the Capital Community College Library. Contact him at cantonucci@ccc.comment.edu.