Welcome to ASI's first presidential newsletter!

We're having a great year so far, and trust me when I tell you the board has been very busy. You'll see why in a moment. Enjoy the sunshine!

Commitment to Strategic Planning
First, I'd like to again welcome the new Board members that you elected and who became active at the end of the Annual Conference. Carolyn Weaver is your new President-elect; Enid Zafran takes over as Secretary; and Terri Hudoba and Peter Rooney join us as board members at large. For a full list of ASI Board members and committee chairs, visit the ASI website.

Probably the biggest news coming out of the preconference meetings with the board members is our commitment to strategic planning. We've had planning sessions before, with mixed results, but this year we worked particularly hard to articulate what the society needs to succeed. In a nutshell, we isolated six basic ideas: (1) Demonstrate and improve the value of ASI for the membership and other stakeholders. (2) Establish ASI as the recognized source of expertise on indexing in the United States. (3) Enhance communication with members. (4) Develop synergistic efforts with other organizations. (5) Develop education programs. (6) Ensure financial stability for ASI.

These are big ideas, and they're exactly what we need. Over the course of this year, you're going to see a lot of new programs and approaches starting to take shape. In fact, this newsletter is one of them (see #3 above). We've explored several approaches to accomplishing these goals in the short, middle, and long terms. A full and awesome report on the strategic work and outcomes will be released to membership on the website as soon as it receives formal board approval. I'll alert you when it's there by email, just as you're getting this message. You won't have to wait long.

What we—and that includes you—are building here are the keys toward ASI's success in the long term. You are very fortunate to be members this year, to be a part of this process. We have, for the first time, an articulate, thorough, and documented foundation for moving forward effectively and intelligently.

2007 and 2008 Annual Meeting Conferences
After an exhaustive search, the board is pleased to announce the location of our next annual meeting! Philadelphia, one the birthplaces of the American Revolution, will be the site for the 2007 annual conference and meeting, Liberating the Index. The conference will celebrate ASI's 40th anniversary as a society and explore the issues and technological advances that shape our profession. The conference dates are May 23-27, giving attendees a great opportunity for an inexpensive, fun, educational, and "business-expense" opportunity for a Memorial Day vacation in 2007 (Memorial Day is May 28).

Carolyn Weaver, President-elect, is in charge of the planning the conference. Under her auspices this year we're going to do things a little differently. We are going to establish a conference committee, so that more people are involved in the planning and execution of the conference. (In fact, I'll be on that committee myself, in an effort to reuse what I learned from planning the Toronto meeting.) If you want to be involved, let the committee know. You can also send your ideas on presentations and speakers, vendors, advertisers and sponsors, scheduling, and social plans. Contact the conference committee chair at conference@asindexing.org.

And you can stop holding your breath! We've chosen the mile-high city of Denver, Colorado, as the location for our 2008 meeting.

ANZSI Conference
Speaking of conferences, the Victorian Branch of the Australian and New Zealand Society of Indexers (ANZSI) is hosting their conference in Melbourne in March 2007. A call for papers has been released and republished in the News area of our website.

If anyone is planning on attending a non-ASI conference, on indexing or otherwise, and wants represent ASI in some way, please let me know by writing president@asindexing.org. Part of our stated strategy is outreach, and the best way to get indexing better known in the various communities and industries is simply to show up. For this reason, if you're going someplace where indexing, indexers, or ASI can be represented, please tell me. We will support you as best as we can. Visit Our Website

Recent Appointments
I am pleased to announce that Ina Gravitz, who has served as the chair of our Membership Committee, has agreed to accept the position of SIG Coordinator. Her background will serve her well, as she works to develop stronger communication and collaboration among ASI's many affiliated special interest groups, and to encourage their development as an integral part of ASI's function. For those of you who don't know Ina, she discovered indexing after careers as stay-at-home mother, activist for women's rights, public librarian, and library administrator. A back-of- the-book indexer, Ina served as treasurer for the New York Chapter from 1998 to 2001, secretary/treasurer of the Twin Cities Chapter in 2002, and then joined and later chaired the membership committee. In an email to me she wrote, "I am very pleased that the board has established the SIG Coordinator position. It's an indication of their desire to serve the membership." Ina, we're in complete agreement with you. Ina can be contacted at sigs@asindexing.org.

Stephanie Reymann is taking over the chair of the Membership Committee. She served on this committee for the past two years, on the Nominating Committee, and on the board of the Twin Cities Minnesota Chapter for 2000–2004, so she has demonstrated skills in talking to our members at all levels. She is a freelance indexer who specialized in a wide variety of subject matter, holds a B.A. in political science from the University of Notre Dame, and was a senior buyer for two major department store retailers ... before finding her true calling with us! I am excited having Stephanie more involved in membership concerns, and working with Galen Schroeder on issues surrounding organizational membership, managed by Galen Schroeder. It is my expectation that she will help ASI to meet the needs of our membership, as well as help our members and potential membership better understand the opportunities and value that ASI provides. Stephanie can be contacted at membership@asindexing.org.

As many of you know, our excellent Key Words editor, Pilar Wyman, is stepping down from her editorship at the end of this year. She and I are interviewing potential replacements this month. In addition to thanking all of you who expressed interest in the position, I'd especially like to thank Pilar—before she departs—for her amazing work with our newsletter. You, too, can thank her for her efforts by writing her directly at keywords@asindexing.org.

Finally, I'd like to extend our warm thanks to Kay Schlembach, who has accepted her formal appointment by the board to replace Lucie Haskins on the ASI national board for the two-year remainder of Lucie's term. Kay has been instrumental in the creation of the ASI Certificate Course, so having her on the board for a little while longer is extremely helpful to all us.

ASI Certificate Course
Not wanting to steal thunder from our educational course committee, I won't say much. Still, I just have to leak a few choice details. Rollout of the course is set to begin in September, with enrollments in October. Brochure copy is in production. Administrative flow has been defined. ... In other words, it's coming! It's coming! We are almost there! Details coming soon. Visit Our Website

Communications, Publicity, and Public Relations
I'm pleased that the role of internal and external communications were discussed throughout our strategic planning efforts, because these topics are extremely interesting to me. I have been developing several administrative-level systems to improve the quality and quantity of message distribution when it comes to ASI news and opportunities. For example, in addition to the president's address (see below), I've created addresses for Chapter Relations, SIGs, Membership, and Key Words, with many more being tested or discussed. I've asked Martha Osgood to take over the administration of ASI-L, and we'll be working together to better the style and effectiveness of conversation on that list. Some of you might remember my messages on ASI-L asking to talk to chapter-less members, or my request for suggestions on "telling the world" about indexing and ASI. I've also been working on a PR distribution system, with the fantastically experienced assistance of Annette Rogers at our home office. Our messages about Microsoft's QnA beta test is one example.

If you've been waiting for the right opportunity to get involved with ASI administration and outreach, that time is now. Look again at our strategic planning initiative above, and let it soak in just how much the board wants these things to happen. If you have any interest in raising the awareness and professionalism of indexing in your community, chapter, industry, or world, we're working from the foundation up to make it all happen. To get involved, send an email with your interests to your local chapter leadership, to me directly, or both. My address is below.

By the way, if you're getting this message, then you're getting all of our internal PR. But if this message ends up in your spam folder, then you won't get any of our news. Please set your mail applications to accept messages from info@asindexing.org. Also, as you can see, these are not promotional messages. Sometimes they look promotional, like the QnA message, but I want to avoid that impression as much as possible. If you opted out of promotional mailings, then you're still out. These are internal, administrative emails only. Of course, if there is ever something that you think we can be doing better—or something we shouldn't have done—write us. Send your comments directly to me at president@asindexing.org, or contact our office at info@asindexing.org.

Award Winners
Let me briefly congratulate our 2006 award winners and allow their outstanding accomplishments speak for themselves. Janet Perlman is the 2006 recipient of the Theodore C. Hines Award. Charlee Trantino and publisher New World Library are the 2006 recipients of the H. G. Wilson Award.

The Ear of the President
If this newsletter is the electronic voice of the president, then it's good to know the president has electronic hearing, too. I'd like to formally announce the creation of an easy-to-remember email address that routes mail directly to the ASI president. That address is president@asindexing.org.

I've served on the ASI national board for almost ten years, and in all that time I have never gotten the impression that the board was generally unreachable or unwilling to hear from the membership at large. Nevertheless, I believe that the creation of this address will further enable our members to make direct contact with the society's governing body.

Undoubtedly, each president has a different style of communication. For me, I invite anyone to contact me directly at any time with suggestions, offers for volunteerism, and constructive criticism. I will do my best to acknowledge receipt of the message immediately, and to reply personally. In fact, I hope that so many members will take me up on this offer that I will be forced to change my approach. So thank you in advance for your cooperation and participation.

On a related note, you should know that I am implementing corporate-style email addresses for use throughout ASI. You've seen three so far: president, keywords, and conference (all @asindexing.org). A more comprehensive list of these addresses can be found at our website and will be published on the Key Words masthead.

Thank You
I'd like to thank a number of people today. In addition to those mentioned above (Ina Gravitz, Annette Rogers, Martha Osgood, Stephanie Reymann, Kay Schlembach, Galen Schroeder, Carolyn Weaver, Pilar Wyman), I'd also like to thank Diane Brenner for accepting a position as one of our webmasters; Frances Lennie and Janet Perlman for their hard work on the ASI indexing course; David Ream for his enthusiastic policy and strategic contributions; Carol Roberts for following through on national secretarial duties even though her term had officially ended; and Enid Zafran for her many suggestions and efforts regarding professional outreach. I'd also like to acknowledge and thank the Canadians for co-hosting the recent 2006 conference in Toronto.

If you know someone who is contributing to our society right now, write me at president@asindexing.org so I can acknowledge him or her in future newsletters.

Future Newsletters
It is my intention to communicate to our membership using these newsletters every two months. As you can see, I can't talk about every issue in excruciating detail, but I wouldn't want to. Instead, I want to make sure that our members realize that ASI is a very active and involved society, where at least 1 in 10 members is a volunteer working across dozens of projects. Those of you who know me probably suspect this newsletter was my idea -- not because I have lots to say, presumably, but because I love to talk -- but in truth, the newsletter is part of our strategic plan.

Welcome to the new ASI.

Best wishes,

Seth Maislin
ASI President, 2006–2007

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