By Laura Ikens

PR Committee Spreads the News

This year, the SLA Public Relations Committee instituted a new method of communicating with chapter members. (Many members had expressed a desire for more streamlined communications, so this task was handed over to the PR Committee.)

The Committee decided that in order to ensure continuity of the calendar, a Yahoo! e-mail address would be registered to the SLA PR Committee, eliminating its connection with any one member of SLA Illinois. A weekly calendar of events was developed and is now e-mailed to the members on a (mostly) weekly basis. This calendar contains information about chapter events, as well as related organization events (e.g., KM Chicago, Chicago Association of Law Libraries). Contacts at related organizations (e.g., surrounding SLA chapters, various library systems, etc.) receive the calendar and send it to their members.

There were some blips along the way, as HTML coding issues sprang up and as folks who receive their messages in formats other than that had to sort through coding to see calendar items. While not everything could be worked out to everyone's satisfaction, the calendar seems to be working out for most members.

Suggestions from members have been welcomed and implemented. If you have any suggestions regarding the calendar, or have an event to post, please send a message to sla_ilprcommittee@yahoo.com. For meetings, please provide the following information: meeting topic, date and time, location, brief description, price, RSVP deadline, RSVP contact, information contact.

The SLA PR Committee has also developed a PR plan to spread the news about chapter activities to outside parties, such as library schools and newspapers. Elements of the plan include development and implementation of a press release system. After review by the Board, some of the proposed strategies will be implemented to get the word out on our chapter and its great activities.

If you are interested in serving on the PR Committee or have any ideas or suggestions, please e-mail sla_ilprcommittee@yahoo.com.