Dear all,
On 28 August there will be a meeting in London of representatives from
several, if not all, the groups which represent librarians with specific
language responsibilities. The meeting is intended to share
experiences and perspectives on our activities - some groups, such as
GSLG and COSEELIS, can look back on years of activity, others, like the
Italian librarians' group, have only just started. I particularly
want to share views about the future of such groups in light of the fall
in activity that GSLG has noticed in the past few years.
We seem to have come to a natural end to the kind of annual meetings we
used to hold - there are simply no more active members from institutions
we haven't yet visited. Indeed the number of active members is
dwindling - some members have never been to meetings, others have given
up. (This is a particular pity this year when we appear to have an
excellent conference programme for Glasgow, including invited speakers
from Germany.) We have had no plans to hold training events for a
number of years.
So my question is: how would members like the GSLG to continue?
What form, if any, should meetings take?
Would anyone be prepared to help with the task of organizing meetings
or other events? What kind of events would you attend if they were
offered?
How could we make our present annual meetings more attractive?
(Themed conferences? Invited speakers? Others?)
Collaboration with the other language specialist groups? Is
collaboration along the lines of the US-based Western European Studies
Section (which includes several language-related sections) feasible?
[see http://www.lib.virginia.edu/wess/]
What role should the Newsletter play? Or the website?
[http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/library/gslg/HOME.HTM]
Please send any thoughts to me, or share them with the whole list.
I'd be particularly glad to hear from those who are no longer active
members or who have never attended meetings. I'll summarise for the
meeting.
best,
Richard Parker
Chair, GSLG
University of Warwick Library
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