Convenor’s Report for the year 1 July 2008 to 30 June 2009

CatSIG has continued to focus on providing professional development and networking opportunities for cataloguers throughout the past year.

CatSIG has again closed the year in a sound financial position.

Membership:

It is very pleasing that the membership of CatSIG has continued to grow. According to the membership list from the LIANZA office in June 2009, we had 163 members (136 in April 2008). Of these, 161 are personal members and two are institutional members.

The Committee

The Committee has continued to meet via teleconference. 

The Committee for the past year has been: Sarah Allnutt (Secretary), Amanda Cossham (Catapult Editor), Sonya Maclaurin, Ksenija Obradovic, Joanne Rowan (Treasurer) and Janess Stewart (Convenor from October 2008).

We were sorry to lose Amanda from the CatSIG Committee and as Catapult editor in April 2009 due to the additional responsibility she has taken on at work.  Ksenija has indicated that she would like to leave the committee from this year’s AGM. She has been on the committee for many years and has contributed a great deal both as a committee member and convenor.  

The committee will miss the knowledge, experience and enthusiasm that both Amanda and Ksenija have brought to CatSIG.

Activities:

Once again the CatSIG Committee organised a number of The MARC of Quality workshops run by Deborah Fritz. These were: MARC 21 in Your Library and Just for Copy Cats in Auckland and Wellington in October 2008, Book Blitz 1 in Dunedin in October 2008, and Book Blitz 3 in Auckland in November 2008. 

The MARC of Quality workshops planned for March 2009 had to be cancelled because of Deborah’s unavailability, but another round was organised for September/October 2009.

CatSIG joined with the National Library of New Zealand and LIANZA in presenting RDA workshops in Christchurch, Dunedin, Wellington, Palmerston North and Auckland in March this year.  

The Catapult newsletter continues to be published regularly, four times a year, and is available electronically at http://www.lianza.org.nz/sig-catsig.htm. Amanda Cossham has done an excellent job producing the newsletter since 2004. We were unable to find a replacement editor for Amanda, so this task is now being rotated around libraries, with senior cataloguers from the National Library taking responsibility for the four issues from August 2009. We would welcome articles on issues and news relevant to cataloguers in New Zealand. 

Sponsorship

CatSIG has provided sponsorship in a number of areas to promote cataloguing in the library profession.

We provided conference registration and assistance with travel and accommodation for a CatSIG member to attend the 2008 LIANZA Conference in Auckland. Karen Tobin from the Central Hawke’s Bay District Libraries was the recipient and her report was included in issue 62 of Catapult.

This year CatSIG offered to pay the course fees for two people to undertake study, one in the INFO 546 - Bibliographic Organisation paper offered by Victoria University of Wellington and one for the 72272 Cataloguing and Classification paper offered by the Open Polytechnic of New Zealand. These were awarded to Alan Seaton from Christchurch City Libraries and Raewyn Paewai from Manukau City Libraries.

CatSIG is also delighted to be sponsoring Tim Spalding, the founder and president of the social cataloguing and social networking website LibraryThing, as a keynote speaker at this year’s LIANZA Conference.

Closing remarks  

In 2009/10 the Committee plans to continue to provide opportunities for cataloguers to develop professionally and welcomes suggestions from its members.

RDA is scheduled for release in December 2009. We expect to continue working with the National Library on the implementation of RDA in New Zealand.

On behalf of the Committee I would like to thank all CatSIG members for their support over the past year.

My thanks must also go to the members of the Committee for all their work. They have been very supportive and it has been a pleasure working with them.

Janess Stewart
CatSIG Convenor