Welcome to the New Year! I'm hoping to use this little flip in the cosmic odometer as an excuse for feeling refreshed. (Of course, it helps that the nine-month-old in my household is now sleeping until 5:30am, if you can believe that!) So, with renewed spirit and added wakefulness, I'm going to start this letter by listing many of the ongoing projects ASI is working on. Some of these projects are near completion, and some are still being explored or developed; together they add up to some of what ASI wants to offer members on a regular basis. As you read, I hope you can see the value of ASI that I see. This is what you're getting for your money.

Chapter relations. The chapter manual has been rewritten and is just about ready for posting to the ASI Web site. This was a HUGE job, with a lot of people involved. See, we know it can be quite hard to keep a chapter active and fresh; we also know chapter leaders shouldn't have to reinvent the wheel after every election. Consequently, we worked diligently to make chapter leadership as easy and intuitive as possible. This new manual, which includes everything an officer needs to know, has been written, reviewed, and rewritten for distribution. So if you've ever considered getting involved with a chapter, trust me when I say it has never been easier.

Conference (national). I have some important updates; you can get the details at the ASI website. (1) Jill O'Neill, Director of Planning & Communication for NFAIS, will be a featured ASI conference speaker on Saturday morning, May 26, discussing "Adapting to Change; Sustaining Knowledge." (2) The conference will conclude on Saturday night with a "Ghost Tour of Philadelphia." Hear the chilling tales of America's most historic -- and haunted! -- city on this candlelight walking tour through Independence Park and Society Hill. This tour, sponsored by Information Today, Inc., is free to all conference registrants (though separate registration is required), with extra guest tickets available for a fee. (3) The presentation slots are filled, but there is still room for additional poster contributions at the conference. If you are interested in presenting a poster session, please contact Nancy Zibman at nancy@zibman.com . And finally, (4) online registration should be available early next month, with printed preliminary conference registration packets to be mailed by mid-February.

Key Words. With Judy Reveal officially at the helm of Key Words, we're going to move forward in an exploration of various initiatives, from peer review to redesign. Nothing has been started yet, but we're in good hands when we're ready. I encourage your suggestions regarding KW; write keywords@asindexing.org with your ideas or if you'd like to help Judy. (For those of you who missed our September press release about Judy, it's available online.)

Insurance options. After several email and phone discussions, we are developing a proposal from an insurance broker. If all goes well, we'll be bringing ASI members a new possibility for obtaining various insurance products, including health insurance, life insurance, professional liability insurance, and even automobile and homeowner's insurance. (We already have an existing relationship for disability insurance; see our Web site.) If all goes according to plan, ASI members will have the opportunity this year to leverage their membership toward obtaining all of these products. Even if, like me, you're fortunate enough to get health insurance through a spouse's employer, all self-employed individuals will want to investigate these new plans. There are numerous advantages of being insured through the ASI group; I'll say more once a partnership is finalized.

International. I have asked Pilar Wyman to take over the role of international liaison, a position I held myself until Pilar was available. Now that she's stepped down as Key Words editor, she'll be working with the other indexing societies around the world to share information, build global awareness, and help ASI fulfill its responsibilities as an indexing world power. Among other things, Pilar will support the construction of an international best practices collaboration; with today's increases in the off-shoring of production services, promotion and maintenance of international standards has never been more important.

Jobs Hotline and Indexer Locator. The ASI board has voted to spend an additional $1,500 on publicizing these projects. With this extra money, we can reach the eyes and ears of more people, as well as the right people. This action will improve the reach of both the hotline and the Locator, improving their effectiveness in bringing work to our members.

Long-term member recognition. We want to acknowledge those members who have found ASI to be an association worth associating with. The Membership Committee is working up a proposal for the board's review; we expect to have something in time for the Philadelphia conference.

Membership maintenance. We're doing a lot of things to improve our membership numbers, most of which are listed here under other categories. Meanwhile, I have a couple of little projects for those who are interested. If you've got some volunteer hours burning a hole in your pocket, email me. I've got a ton of feedback from members -- information ASI finds very valuable -- that would benefit from a fresh perspective and a formal summary. (This is a great involvement opportunity for new members.)

NISO. We've started putting our news items in the NISO online newsletters. Being exposed to other NISO members is a great way to raise our status in the marketplace, as well as draw attention from people who might not have noticed us otherwise. Links to the NISO newsletters will be posted at our Web site in the news area. (By the way, I'd love to have a volunteer to help with this tiny but important job.)

Nominations. When the new year starts, ASI begins the process of finding new candidates for national positions. It's a tough job, because so many of our members are busy and don't feel they have time to run for office. From experience, however, I can tell you serving as a director on the national board is a fantastic way of staying busy, while making a difference for the other indexers in our society. I'm particularly interested in seeing some new faces and fresh energy this year -- people who have just completed an indexing course or started their indexing career in earnest, for example, and are looking to be a part of our community -- and encourage all of you to submit your name to nominations@asindexing.org. ASI is an awesome organization, and being on the board is an honor I'd like to see more of our members experience.

Please welcome our new Nominations Committee Chair, Heidi Blough. Heidi indexed her first book in 2001 and has kept her calendar full every since. Before becoming an indexer, Heidi evaluated doctoral dissertations and master's theses for the College of Education at a large state university in Ohio. Today she indexes books on diverse topics including medicine, hospital administration, marine/transportation, marketing, history and government, and cookbooks. Heidi and her husband, a retired university professor, live in St. Augustine, Florida, with their boxer.

Outreach. The building of relationships, as I've said, takes some time. However, we have some fascinating leads these days on building inter-societal partnerships. We're connecting with EFA, NFAIS, NISO (see above), PMA, SSP, STC, and TAA. If you've got an initialism or acronym you're dying to share with us, please write me ASAP. :-)

Press release submission form. If we're going to get out the indexing word, we need everyone talking! That's why we developed the Press Release Submission Form, available now at our Web site. Failing to publicize is no longer an option! If you have something you want to share, from a chapter meeting to a famous index, you can take matters immediately into your own hands. With help from our management company, your news can be crafted into a professional PR release and distributed to members, communities, local media, and even the world! It's an awesome feature that gets every ASI member involved in the future of indexers, and I'm really proud of it. Try it. Go to the site to create a test announcement (feedback is always appreciated).

Public relations. We're working with a freelance journalist and PR consultant to "spread the indexing word." With her help, we're going to publicize the profession, advocate for its value, and raise a general awareness that indexing exists and matters.

Training in Indexing course. We've got students! Enrollments began in November last year, and they continue to this day. If you're like me, you're looking forward to hearing about what happens next, when those students submit their exams for evaluation, continue to the next stages of the course, and graduate. Meanwhile, this is our beta test, giving us an opportunity to test our administrative and grading processes before opening enrollment to nonmembers.

Web Indexing and Publications Committee. Production on Heather Hedden's new book is complete, and ASI's publisher ITI is working to turn those pages into something we can buy at the Philadelphia conference. I had the pleasure of an advanced look, and I'm extremely excited to see this book in our repertoire. There are numerous other books in the works, too. If you've got a book idea you've been dying to see in print, let me know.

Web site. At long last, a redesign and restructuring of our Web site is underway. We've lined up a graphics designer, and we're saving a lot of money by working with freeware design templates. Upgrading our site is a huge job. Money for this redesign was set aside a long time ago, which means we don't have to draw on current funds to make this happen. The webmasters are hard at work.

There's a term for when an organization finds it is unable to achieve its primary objectives and, in response, justifies its existence in terms of how well it's already doing what it's doing. That term is outcome displacement. For example, if a restaurant with a reputation for great coffee failed to make money, the managers might invest their efforts keeping the coffee great instead of trying to earn business. Instead of "doing the right things," the organization focuses on "doing things right," regardless of whether this benefits the important outcome. In fact, it's quite possible to have the best services in the world and still have an inadequate system.

Take a closer look at these ongoing projects and accomplishments and ask yourself if we're just "doing the same old thing." We're not. We're being innovative. Fundamental changes are happening with publicity, membership, publications, education, and even our image. And yet we haven't lost sight of who we are, either, because our "same old thing" is still pretty cool. We're plugged into the publishing and Web industries, most of us work at home on our own terms, and we have a role in the communications, education, research infrastructures of almost every industry in the world. Cool, huh?

• Award: Deborah Patton is championing the award for new indexers; thanks also to Enid Zafran and Judy Reveal for bringing the idea to my attention.
• Chapter Relations: Terri Hudoba managed the huge job of rewriting and distributing a new manual for chapter management. Along with the many chapter leaders and national directors who took time to provide advice and feedback, special thanks goes to Ina Gravitz, Julie Kawabata, Kate Mertes, Kay Schlembach, and Diana Witt. (By the way, I'd also like to remind all chapters that we can create asindexing.org email addresses for you. If you want one, write me.)
• Conference: Carolyn Weaver for making everything happen ahead of schedule (!).
• KW: Thanks again to Judy Reveal for taking our bulletin's reins with enthusiasm and aplomb.
• Insurance: Francine Butler, our always-behind-the-scenes executive director, was instrumental in helping us find the insurance broker I wrote about above.
• Jobs Hotline/Indexer Locator: Linda Mamassian, chair of the Jobs Hotline and Indexer Locator, made these products both increasingly profitable and stable enough to make greater investment in them a no-brainer. Thanks also to our board liaison, Diane Brenner.
• International: Pilar Wyman for accepting the liaison role.
• Membership: Stephanie Reymann, as committee chair, is helping us create the long-term membership policy. Martha Osgood for the thankless job of managing ASI-L subscriberships when everyone's memberships change on December 31.
• NISO: Judi Gibbs for showing me how ASI can get free publicity in their newsletter and inspiring us to take advantage of that huge opportunity.
• Nominations: Heidi Blough for her work on building a Nominations Committee (which includes Debbie Graf and Leoni McVey) and getting candidates for the upcoming ballot. Mary Mortenson, the outgoing chair, for doing such a great job in past years. (Gosh, she got me to the presidency!)
• Outreach: Maria Coughlin, Judi Gibbs, Martha Osgood, and Carolyn Weaver for helping find new relationship possibilities. All of those leads are turning out well so far.
• Press release submission form. Diane Brenner, Terri Hudoba, and Richard Shrout all helped me make this form a functional reality. Thanks also to Annette Rogers in our management office for helping us craft intelligent PR announcements.
• Public Relations. Kay Schlembach helped us get started on our new publicity initiatives by finding us an expert.
• Training: Huge thanks to Sandi Frank for pinch-administrating the course in its first month, and to Janet Perlman for every month since. Frances Lennie and Kay Schlembach are big players in the course design and production.
• Web Indexing: Heather Hedden for writing a book! (I'm so jealous.) Big thanks also to Enid Zafran, our busy Publications Committee chair, for pouring innumerable hours into the production process with little personal reward.
• Web site: Webmasters Dick Bower, Diane Brenner, Karen Lane, and Carolyn Weaver for working with me on the Web site design. It's a big job (and getting bigger), and their ability to get the daily webmastering done at the same time is just awesome. I also thank Kay Schlembach and Fred Leise for locating free and appropriate web design templates, saving ASI lots of money.
• More: I'd also like to thank Jessica McCurdy Crooks for taking over the management of the Web Indexing Special Interest Group; Heather Dubnick, Jean Jesensky, April Silver, and Terry Corry for leading the 2006-7 New England Chapter; Kay Banning, Deborah Patton, and Peg Mauer for keeping the Wilson Award strong; MSA Chapter leaders (especially Nancy Guenther) for investing time in a gorgeous new chapter Web site at msaindexing.org; and Alan Houser for offering to help us with a white paper or two for our Web site.

If you know someone who deserves public appreciation, or if you'd like to see the names of your new SIG or chapter leaders in print, tell me! It's email. There's room. :-) Thank you for being part of our great society.

 

Seth Maislin
ASI President, 2006–2007

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