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It has been a wonderful year for me as President of the Nevada Library Association and I thank all of you very much for the honor of allowing me to represent you this year. I indeed hit the ground running as your President without the previous year to prepare as President-elect, but it all went pretty smoothly thanks to the tremendous dedication of the members to contribute literally thousands of hours of time to achieving our goals this year.

As I wrote in my first letter to you at the beginning of the year my goals as President of your organization were to:

· Increase membership.

· Provide an excellent annual conference.

· Consider a modest increase in registration fees for our annual conference.

· Actively pursue funding for NLA scholarships from grants, donations and corporate sponsorships.

I am happy to report that many of the goals were met, but first of all let me tell you that none of my work towards these goals would have been possible without the members of the organization who supported me and enabled them to happen.

My first goal of increasing membership is ever present to any organization’s success and vitality. Thanks to our phenomenal membership Chair, Nancy Forsberg, we did indeed expand membership. In 2000 we added 120 new members to the Association!

The second goal that I had as President was to have an excellent annual conference. The conference this year in Reno, Nevada Libraries Launching into the New Millennium, was a tremendous success. Millie Syring assembled a wonderful conference team and provided an excellent conference experience for all attendees. The NLA conference is a product of literally hundreds of hours of work on the part of the conference committee, section and interest group chairs and members of the organization. The work that everyone did this year culminated in a wonderful experience for me, and I hope for all who attended.

Another goal for this year was to provide a sound financial base for the organization. The first step in the pursuit of this goal was raising conference fees. As difficult as raising any fees is, it became necessary to do so. The Nevada Library Association conference had not had a fee increase in many years and to continue with the excellent programming for which we are known, it became necessary to increase our revenues. The additional revenues helped us this year and will provide a better base for conference expenditures in the future. I thank the Executive Board for making this difficult decision and the members of the association and the institutions for which they work for supporting the Association financially.

In keeping with the need for increased revenues the Executive Board also voted to raise membership dues. The amount raised is $5.00 per category, with a new category for members whose salaries are more than $40,000. While this decision is again one that was not easy to make, it will help ensure a stronger financial base for the programs and projects that benefit the members of NLA and their libraries. The new fee structure takes effect January 1, 2001. The Executive Board voted at the October meeting to allow all 2001 memberships to be paid at last year’s rate if paid by December 31, 2000. If you need to pay your dues for 2001, take advantage of this decision. Hopefully, we can get our membership renewal numbers up and make the Association stronger for the future.

My last goal was to actively pursue funding for NLA scholarships from grants, donations and corporate sponsorships. As a past recipient of the NLA scholarship, this program is near and

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Dear Nevada Library Association Members,